Blurry Creatures - EP: 258 The god of Insanity with Dr. Joel Muddamalle

Episode Date: August 13, 2024

In this thought-provoking episode, we sit down with Dr. Joel Muddamalle to explore the intriguing intersection of mythology, art, and theology. Dr. Muddamalle delves into the fascinating concept of the Olympics and their reverse take on the Last Supper, where the Greek god Dionysus took center stage. We discuss how this interpretation flips the narrative of the Christ story, with Dionysus embodying themes of indulgence, revelry, and chaos, in stark contrast to the sacrifice and redemption central to Christianity. You can get our book of Enoch here: https://amzn.to/3xriiUB Support the show! www.blurrycreatures.com/members Socials instagram.com/blurrycreatures facebook.com/blurrycreatures twitter.com/blurrycreatures Music Kyle Monroe: tinytaperoom.com & Parker Mogensen Outro Song: On the Run by TimeCop1983 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am absolutely unwilling in my personal view to back down off of this idea that there is something so much more significant going on in the opening ceremony of the Olympics with the presentation of the Greek god Dionysus. One, the Greek god Dionysus has nothing to do with peace and harmony. He's the Greek god of ecstasy and in fact, I think a better translation of that is the Greek god of insanity. I'm gonna get into the myth stories of this, but I do not believe that any person living around the time of the Greco-Roman period or walk around if they saw that image or that statement on a t-shirt, they're gonna be like, you got the wrong dude. That ain't him? That-that-that-what? Are you talking about the guy who comes in intoxicated with wine where half of these Bocle Feast and in the murder of individuals or in licentious living and sexual absurdity and in all kinds of stuff that was so disgusting that it could. even be done in the main streets a bunch of these types of things took place in the woods like that's who you're saying that and i just want to just ask this question are we really going to accept that as propositional truth the history of our earth is so different from what we can imagine joy to join the smithsonian that if they found out about a large skeleton somewhere was to go get it

i'm going to assume at least one person is right because if one person's right at bottom the paradigm it all goes back to the fallen chair and the problem with the modern day church they have a very truncated view of the supernatural this backdrop that's just pregnant with all kinds of meaning associated with this Mount Hermon event and this guy defects from the kingdom that's a big deal all right welcome back to Blurray Creatures we're going to go back into the ancient times with Dr. Joel de Montemale again he's one of our fan favorites here on Blurry Creatures You're not following Joel, Dr. Montemale, what are you doing? We're going to talk about some of the controversy.

I'm not going to get too into it in terms of the outrage, but we're going to talk about sort of the history behind some of the symbolism that we saw in the opening ceremonies of the Olympics and Dionysus and sort of the mocking of the Last Supper. I think you'll like this episode because it's not going to be your traditional just like, oh, look at what they're doing. But more like, why are they doing what they're doing? The credibility that it lends to the story that we all, most of us believe,

and sort of the history and the symbolism of the Greek gods. Love Dr. Joel Montemale. It's going to be a fun one. Yeah, I love this. We're going to get into, you know, the meat. and the mythology, which we do often. Of course, the biblical texts, the biblical truths, and filter it all through the Bible,

our understanding of the unseen realm, the blurry verse, et cetera. So it's a fun one. A little bit relevant to the timing. If you've been watching the Olympics or if you didn't see anything, you could probably go find some TikTok reels of people breaking it down. But yeah, we're going to hop into this one, kind of have like a thousand foot view of some of the stuff we saw in the opening ceremonies.

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To your ears on your own private RSS feed. Right, Luke? The old school way. That's right. It's like, you know, it's like playing contra. Type it in the cheat code. We all know it. We all did it.

That's right. So come check it out. It's what keeps these things rolling here at Blurray Creatures. And there's an amazing community that's developed and grown around this podcast. And you can be a part of those exclusive channels and member spaces as well. Of course, tickets and things like BlurieCon, Costa Rica and any future explosions that may or may not happen, Nate. Of course, those are our members. Those are to our members first.

Luke, who was the first opponent in Mike Tyson's punchout? Do you remember? No. Come on. Dig deep. Ricky Martin? Glass Joe. Glass Joe, okay.

Remember? That's really stretching. That's really stretching. I mean, I haven't played it in, I haven't played it in 35 years, maybe. Come on. Luke's going to have a copy on his desk in the new studio, fresh out of the box. I love it. Thank you guys so much for supporting this podcast.

You're probably going to, that'll make more sense as you listen to this episode, but I appreciate you guys out there who do support this podcast week after week and kind of enjoy what we do here. But I'll see you in the member spaces. Let's get Dr. Joel Matamale on this one and kind of carve into some recent events. All right. Welcome back. Welcome back to Blurry Creatures.

We got our paled Dr. Joel Mudamale on the show again today. We're going to talk about a little bit about the Olympics and kind of some of the drama that went on there. Author and TikTok star Dr. Joel Mudamale back on Blurry Creatures. Listen, there's no TikTok starring. You're referring to my wife, the almost Indian wife. She is a TikTok star, and I am not. So there's a TikTok husband. I'm a TikTok husband.

By marriage, you are a TikTok star. And speaking of parents, Zeus and Semmely, how do you say this name? Semmel? Yeah, Semel, Semel, Semel, Semel. Gave birth to Dionysus. These types of goddesses and gods, you want to take the same approach to Old Testament, names, you just pronounce it with confidence and everybody believes that you actually know what you're talking about. We had a whole podcast based on that all the time right there. Now, but I mean,

you might ask yourself listening, why are we talking about this? And I think it's pretty obvious that the internet and the social media was kind of set on, was not kind of, was absolutely set on fire and ablaze by the opening ceremonies of the 2024 Olympics in Paris. And there were a lot of thoughts about some scenes in this and what they represented. But regardless of where you fall and all the gas sliding and everything else in between. The realities were there was this blue figure that was pretty central to it. And I think why, right? Obviously, we, Joel, with you, we've gotten into a lot of the Deuter Army 32, Psalm 82, all of the worldview around the Divine Council. Also, of course, we started out in this space talking with you about territorial spirits.

And we got it, and we've done a lot on cosmic geography. And really, all of this is predicated on and circles around the sons of God, that we see in Genesis 6, that we see in Dunaorma 3, 8, that we see in Psalm 82, it just so happens that in this very visible and seen by millions of people, there was this representation of this certain God. And I know you posted a bit on social media about this in the last few weeks, and it's quite a visceral response. But we're going to talk about this from a practical standpoint. Like, what's happening here? Why is this figure front and center. And we know it's the Olympics is Greek. And so there's some easy answers to this, but I think the answers aren't always that easy. And I think if we're to really understand the significance of

this figure and why this figure's included, we need to kind of go, we need to go back and we need to have the theologian. We need to have Dr. Joel in the house. And you know, you're uniquely qualified, aside from being a TikTok husband. You studied under Dr. Michael Heiser for the, under your, in your Old Testament doctorate. And this is, this is where our podcast live. Yeah, this is very, this is accidental. Genesis 6, you actually look into it because it's got a lot of like, who's the father, who's the mother, she's immortal, he's not, you know. And the Greek gods, I think a lot of times to talk to people who ask me what I do and we get into this idea of like, is this actually history or is this mythology? And I think a lot of the Greek mythology is just the preservation system of actual history.

It's obviously their version of the Genesis 6 story that we talk about nonstop on our show. At least that's how I seem to think about it now versus when we started this podcast. Yeah. I mean, I think I think that's good. So I think the place I would love to start if you guys are okay with it is kind of like back to Luke's point. What exactly was it that caused such a visceral reactive response to the opening ceremony of the Olympics?

And I am, as you guys know about me, hopefully by this point, I try not to be reactionary. I try to be thoughtful as much as I can. I want to approach theology in our culture and our society from a perspective of humility. And I think if we're going to be humble, then we also have to be honest. But honesty goes two ways, right? We can't turn a blind eye, in my opinion, to a presentation of something that is given to us that runs contrary to the way everything else seems to be portraying itself. So here's kind of what happened in my world.

I'm a Greek mythology nerd. The thing that got me into theology was Greek mythology. Like I was fascinated by it from the get. And so, you know, I hear about this. I watch the opening ceremony for me. I'm like, gosh, that sure does look a lot like Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper. I want to be charitable. Maybe it was a background idea, whatever. And then, you know, the internet kind of blows up about this whole thing. And we could get into the details of Jans and the portrait of the feast of the gods, which is dated around 1635-ish, or the fact that Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper was actually painted in like the 1400, so we're talking about 200 years earlier. We get into the fact that, you know, the Feast of the Gods, the actual description on the painting where it's painted and housed, it has a reference to how this was actually inspired by the Last Supper. Sometimes it feels like when you get that phone bill, it's like the crash site document. You can't read it. There's a bunch of numbers, random fees, vague language, stuff's blacked out.

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land options available, taxes and fees extra, cement mobile for details. We could get into all of these different things, but the thing for me, you guys, that absolutely shocked me was the way that this image and this entire kind of ceremony was presented to the world. Like, this is a world stage, right? Like, this isn't just some tiny little hole somewhere. This is the Olympics that we're talking about. And I think I gave this analogy in one of the reals that I did on Instagram, and I want to give it here.

This is my fear about Christians in particular, but I think everybody in general, especially with our society and our culture, my fear is that we have become the frog in water on a pot that's being heated up. And the temperature is just dialing up, dialing up, and all of a sudden we're burning alive and we don't even realize that we are burning a lot. And for me, the Olympics and the presentation of what it presented, I was like, wait a minute. And this is why I'm so passionate about what you guys do on the blurry creatures. I think that one of the tactics for us to stay in that pot of water that is being like turned up and dialed up consistently is to ignore the blurry aspects of our world. To reject the supernatural elements of our world. Because if we address the supernatural elements of our world, then we're going to have to address the fact that this water is not all cool. Like something is happening.

The climate seems to be changing. And so I just want to read, and I'm going to quote specifically from a couple of people, and then I'm going to get into Dionysus, this Greek god who was dressed up in all blue that was a part of the opening ceremony. And so Jolly, who was the, I believe the art director, the producer of the event, according to NBC, he says, quote, there is a Dionysus who arrives on this table. He's there because he is the god of celebration in Greek mythology, end quote. And then the official X account of the Olympics posted this, quote, The interpretation of the Greek God Dionysus makes us aware of the absurdity of violence between human beings, end quote. So, like, I don't even want to get into Last Supper, is the Last Supper? Is it not? I just want to talk about the Greek God Dionysus. Yeah.

Is that true? Is the Greek God Dionysus, the God of celebration? which might be a partial truth, but he's so much more than that, and I'm going to get into it. And is this an accurate symbol or representation that Dionysus is of all of the images that can be presented on the world stage? The Dionysus is the pinnacle of the image that should communicate to all of us in humanity, in the world, of the absurdity of violence between human beings. That is kind of weird.

Right? Okay. It's kind of weird. Yeah. Okay, so let me now make a little bit of biblical connection, and then you guys jump in, you know, how a roll I can get real nerdy really quick. But I think it's incredibly important that we just remind ourselves that the Genesis 6 event, the sons of God coming into the daughters of man, they saw beautiful, they have children, these are referred to as the Nephalim, the giants of old, that these sons of God, when this rebellion takes place in Genesis. and you could refer back to our previous episode on the Three Rebellions, that this perpetuates a household rebellion. Essentially, a competing household is presented and this competing household against Yahweh and his family.

Now, I want us to just again, just try to, for a moment, think about warfare in general. How, what is the best way for us to do warfare? Well, one of the best ways to engage in warfare is to engage in warfare is to engage in all of the different facets of warfare, whether it be physical, spiritual, emotional, intellectual. And so one of the ways to create dissension and division is through misinformation. Yeah. I mean, we don't know.

We just, I could just say the word misinformation and we could all do a whole different episode on the wildness of misinformation and the impact that it has or has the potential to Well, if this comes out next week, that's literally last week's episode talking about, like, we were talking about the Emerald Tablets that, you know, Billy Carson's pushing on all these major shows that don't even exist. They're not even, it's not even real history. People are running with these ideas on social media every single day. And so you're speaking right to our, right where we are on the show. Not to mention we, you know, there's macro examples too, right? Just we can talk about propaganda.

Sure. And the first thing comes of mind is like, is Nazi Germany. and Joseph Coubles. It's like this is how they, this is how you control and how you wage war upon perhaps your own populace, which that is indeed an entire episode in and of itself. We can get into that,

but this is how you, you fight a battle for the minds and for the perceptions of, of a population. And, you know, 2020 was ringing the bell for a lot of people. And I don't think this is, this is something people aren't,

it wouldn't be a novel concept for them to hear. But I do think, I think shaping that in the ideas of or in the predicating that in the example of warfare is very important. It's something that there is a war, an information war, if you will, an info war. Oh yeah, Alex Jones, info war that is going on. I mean, it's real. Think about this.

So think about this. Emerald tablets, how do rational, smart, educated individuals in our world buy into this, Hitler? How does a guy like Hitler come on the scene? propagate a type of horrific beyond belief kind of ideology that gets an entire society to buy into it. Well, my belief is that the best misinformation sounds so close to truth, but deviates from it. It's like one truth and two lies, and it's wrapped together so well that the truth becomes very enticing within that. And so you kind of take the whole bag, right?

You're like, okay, well, yeah. Okay, well, yeah. And I think there's a spirit behind the ones that really go next level, the ones that really become like worldwide religions. I think there's always some sort of rip-off Mount Sinai event that feels like, I got this esoteric knowledge from, you know, from this being. And then there's no real proof of, can we trust this information? I think it's a spiritual deception originally, and then humans run with it. And I wonder if there's a spirit over those ideas. And the darkness, it feels like this is the MO, right? It's just like just close enough to the truth.

Listen, this is why I love being here with you guys and having these conversations. I'm working heavily on a topic of discernment right now. And I came across this incredible quote by Charles Spurgeon. I'm going to deviate from his exact quote, but it's sourced essentially from him where he talks about discernment. And in my view, discernment isn't simply the differentiation between right and wrong. discernment is actually even more about separating and surgically identifying the difference between right and almost right. And in that type of surgical work that we're trying to do, there's a part of this that's really important because the parts that are true, and we know truth, I believe truth, as a person who believes that Jesus is the son of God, defeated death through death, rose again on the third day, sits at the right hand, like all of these cosmic realities of the Cosmic Christ because I believe in him as truth. Like, I want to compare everything else by that, which means I have to be careful that I don't reject actual truth because I'm afraid of the misinformation or the deviation from truth.

And this is where I think discernment is so incredibly important. Now, I'm going to, we're going to get to Dionysus, but I want to set the stage here because I think it's really important that the dark forces, the malevolent spirits, the fallen sons of God, they are all. working from the same source story. They're all aware of it. This is Job. Where were you Job? When the morning stars, the sons of God, shouted for joy in the beginning of creation. So in one sense, I think we have to just kind of remember, listen, these are not dumb, idiotic beings out here. They have a historical account of what actually is truth. And if this is true, and I believe that it is true, that means that I have to believe that in Genesis 1, 2, and 3, when we get actually in Genesis 3 what's referred to as the proto-eongelion, the first glimmer of the gospel,

it's this famous passage where God tells to Eve, hey, your seed singular is going to crush the head of the serpent, but the serpent is going to bite at the heel of his foot. It's like, whoa, this is the first time the gospel is presented and announced and proclaimed. Do we really believe the dark forces, fallen sons of God, rebellious angels, would not be aware of this story, that they would not be aware, that there would come a time when a son of God would be born from a mortal woman who would live a perfect life and would be the actual agent of death and demise for these fallen beings. So again, I want to just step back and think, Genesis 6, Mount Hermon, you guys have in Nausea, you've gone through this. So I know your audience,

like the blurry, the blurry family, like, you all know this. Like, you know the impact of weaponry and pharmacaya and hallucinatives. But I just also want to make another connection. I believe this is my view as a theologian and scholar that the Genesis 6 event is the source story also of the religions of the world. Yeah. This is a Bose moment. It's 10 blocks from the train to your apartment door. 10 basic, boring city blocks until the beat drops in Bose clarity. Streetlights become spotlights as you strut down the sidewalk, your own personal runway. With Bowes, you get every note, every baseline, every detail, just as you should. Those 10 blocks, they could be the best part

of your day. Your life deserves music. Your music deserves Bose. Find your perfect product at Bose.com. Kayak gets my flight, hotel, and rental car right, so I can tune out travel advice that's just plain wrong. Bro, Skycoin, way better than points. Never fly during a Scorpio move. Just tell the manager you'll sue. Instant room upgrade. Stop taking bad travel advice. Start comparing hundreds of sites with kayak and get your trip right. Kayak, got that right. It's the source story of the propagation of truth that's almost true but not true. Well, what's the best kind of truth? Plagiarizing. I'm just saying they're plagiarizing the first glimmer of the gospel, which is why you've got vestiges of this idea of this horatiorizing. I'm just saying they're plagiarizing the first glimmer of the gospel.

heroic son of God who's going to come and be the one to liberate humanity from their oppression. Well, if you have, like, if you think about history as if, you know, the gods were, and I think the Greeks, the Greeks actually, when you look at the Greek gods, they look like human beings, right? And the demi-gods were, and I think that's a more accurate depiction of angels or fallen sons of God. They were human enough, but not human. And so we get the giants because there was this there was his ability to kind of cross their species with ours, so to speak. Yeah. Plus the Nephilim, right?

Not the Falons of the guy. Well, the original, the parents, I guess, you know, like, but in Greek mythology, they look like human beings. They don't, they don't have, like, angels. Oh, yeah. They're humanoid. I think that they have a more accurate portrayal of the gods, is what I'm saying. But then they move into their territory.

They're lesser beings, but they're also spiritual. So people run with, these are the gods. These are the origin. This is where it all comes from. And then their whole society builds up around. And then we have people today who still believe that. And then they believe the Ananaki, which is the Samarian version of the Watchers. All goes back to Genesis 6, where they all kind of go their separate ways and they start their own empires.

And people over time believe their empire was the top dog. Is that how, is that like an accurate foundation for what kind of goes on? that's how I would view it. I would view it as you have this one source story. And I also view that the biblical narrative is a polemic against these source stories. It's saying, hey, you've got part of the story right, but you're so far wrong. And you've so missed everything because you're missing Jesus. And so consistently there's a counterfeit helper that is presented inside of that narrative to be the one that we're supposed to put our hope in. I said this in a message I said over the weekend, you know, whatever is the subject of your hope has to have substance. But if you

you place your hope on a subject that lacks substance, you're left with hopelessness. That's good logic, Joe. I like that. I mean, it's just breaking, yeah. Simple. Right. It's like, it's like, you know, if you're listening right now, now's a good time for you to take a self-audit and say, hey, what's the subject of your hope? You know? And does the subject of your hope actually have substance? Because if you're left hopeless, then the reverse engineering of that equation is, the substance is lacking, which means the subject is faulty. And so I'm going to, I'm going to give the tell. I wasn't planning on doing it this way, but I want to give the towel, and then I'm going to try to substantiate my claim here as a thesis based off of the biblical text, based off of

mythological accounts, what we know of world religions. I'm going to make this claim. And Nate, I'm going to affirm one of the things that you said where you're like, you're wondering, like, is there a spirit behind these types of things? And my answer is, yes, there is. And in the New Testament, Paul refers to this as the spirit of the age. The spirit of the age. And so I am, I am absolutely unwilling, in my personal view, to back down off of this idea that there is something so much more significant going on in the opening ceremony of the Olympics with the presentation of the Greek God Dionysus as being, quote, the interpretation of the Greek God Dionysus makes us aware of the absurdity of violent human beings, end quote. And here's where I'm just going to call BS on this. One, the Greek god Dionysus has nothing to do with peace and harmony. He's the Greek god of ecstasy.

And in fact, I think a better translation of that is the Greek god of insanity. I'm going to get into the myth stories of this. But I do not believe that any person living around the time of the Greco-Roman period or walk around if they saw that image or that statement on a T-shirt, they're going to be like, you got the wrong dude. That ain't him? What? Are you talking about the guy who comes?

in intoxicated with wine where half of these balkal feasts and in the murder of individuals or in licentious living and sexual absurdity and in all kinds of stuff that was so disgusting that it couldn't even be done in the main streets, a bunch of these types of things took place in the woods.

Like that's who you're saying. And I just want to just ask this question. Are we really going to accept that as propositional truth? The Dionysus is the ideal image to project to us the absurdity of violence between human beings. And I just have to make this comparison, whether it was intentional or not,

there is no better image. There is no better picture than the absurdity of human violence than Jesus at the last supper, breaking bread as an image of his own body that was broken and drinking a cup of wine as the spilled blood that he shed and that there's no more absurdity than the absurdity of the cross. And so, like, this is where I'm like, man, we're the frogs in the water because it feels like everything is being turned up. And now we're being led to believe that we ought to be buying into Dionysus as the source of our, as the subject of our hope that's going to have substance, that's going to result in unity and inclusion and the absurdity of violence.

Like, like, I'm just going to say it. Like, miss me with that. I'm not buying into it. Now, I made a claim. Let me try to substantiate it. Who is this Dionysus? And here's where I'm going to go again with the spirit of the age. My friend Felicia Masonheimer is the one who first kind of made that connection for me.

So I want to quote her inside her. I think it's so brilliant how she made that connection as I was kind of working through all of this. But what you're going to find is typically an unglorious exchange. You know, you've heard of the glorious exchange or the extravagant exchange, C.S. Lewis. This is like the inglorious one. This is like the perversion of the exchange. It's an exchange of the one true hope with a false sense of hope. And the exchange that's being presented to us is, hey, take Jesus out of the equation and put Dionysus in.

Well, who is Dionysus? And this is the tricky part because in some ways, Dionysus is actually imaged to us as a type of Jesus. And I actually think the gospel accounts of what Paul's going to do in Ephesians is going to remind us, Dionysus ain't no Jesus. Right. So who's Dionysus? Dianysis is typically understood to be the son of the Greek god Zeus and the son of the human woman. Semel or Semmel, who was the daughter of King Cadmus of Thebes. Now, an interesting thing about Dionysus is technically he should be categorized as a hero, as a demigod. And yet somehow he makes his way into the pantheon of gods. Well, do you see the subtle kind of, the subtle kind of conflation that's taking

in place? You've got Jesus, the son of God, right, where you could be like, well, isn't he just like, born of a moral woman, shouldn't just be happy. Well, it's like, no, Jesus is God. Like, he is 100% God. And so now you have this presentation of, wait a minute, Dionysus. This sounds really interesting. But again, the perversion of this is incredibly deep. Dionysus was also known as a god of vegetation. And one of the beliefs about how he was worshipped is that he would have died and he was resurrected. Holy smokes. Are we being serious right now? Here's an interesting one. Dionysus is the god of ecstasy, right? And so what's fascinating is in Cydon, he was worshipped within a cult myth and this cultic myth, y'all, this is wild.

One of the stories of the cultic myth is of Dionysus changing water into wine. Wow, yeah. And has significant analogies, obviously, to the story of the marriage feast at right? Like, what is actually happening? And then, and then again, remember, remember what's presented to us. Dionysus is the image of the absurdity of violence. All right? I'm just asking for a fact check on this. Plutarch, the philosopher, he talks about two different types of people, black-clad men and white-clad women. What Dionysus is often doing is he's trying to blur the lines between what is right and what is wrong. He's trying to create a neutrality of morality, which leads to absolute absurd.

absurdity. So men being men, women being women, the family unit is being a family unit, husbands and wives. Think about all these things, right? We're going to get into this. Here's what Plutarch talks about. Plutarch talks about the priests of Dionysus chasing women with a sword, and originally they had the ability and freedom to kill them. Does this sound like the picture of peace and the absurdity of violence to you? In other places, you have the disruption of the social life. In one location, women went to seek out dion. and they were supposed to dine together and then give themselves over to ritual joking. In one version of these stories, any of the women who resisted Dionysus on his arrival, listen to this. This is where the god of insanity comes from. We're struck with madness from the god. Wow. They then run wild and they kill their children and they leave their town for the wilderness. I'm going to jump into this. I just want to give just a couple more examples. There was an Athenian festival. Because again, I made a claim and like I want to just lay this out here. And if I'm wrong on this claim, I want to be like, okay, I'm wrong, right?

But hopefully I've known some evidence here. The Athenian festival is celebrated somewhere between February and March consisted of three days. Well, keep in mind that three day thing. You got, where else do you find three days throughout, right? Throughout all of the script, not just the three days of the resurrection of the death burial, But three days is prefigured throughout the Bible. Okay. On day one, the main event was the opening of barrels of new wine.

When Dionysus is first arrived at this festive, the myth states that the wine actually brings death to the host, Icarios, and his daughter, Mestra. This is the image of peace and the absurdity of violence. The second day depicts Dionysus is coming from beyond the sea. And on this day, there was a drinking competition, which actually, actually, turned the normal kind of symposium rules all upside down. So basically, and the second day, it's a mockery of the Olympic Games. That's kind of hilarious. And then the third day, there was a meal that was offered to Hermes. This is wild, you guys. This is like, I was researching and it's like, are we being serious right now? The third day was a meal offered to Hermes

to commemorate the flood. Wow. What flood? And the carries. This is the word that's often referred to the souls of the debt. What are we even talking about here? You said this place was steps from the water. We just haven't found the steps yet. How much did we save? Enough. Enough to get lost.

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Hilton, for this day. What's crazy is these people have it closer to the truth than your modern agnostic. It's funny how that there's so much truth, even in the pagan religions and even in the other country's histories, that modern skeptics just don't want to look at any of this. Like the flood stories are in every culture. How is that possible? Maybe a flood actually happened. Right, right. And why is there a reference to the souls of the dead?

Exactly. Why even pay homage to them? Could it be possible that there were some souls of some beings that were trapped on earth because they were unclean spirits and as un- I mean. Well, that sounds very familiar, Joel, very familiar. I'm just Joel, the theologian guy, trying to point. I love it. You know, like, okay, and then here's the last two. And then get your connections before we should. the biblical connection, because I'm already trying to like make it. But the two worshippers associated with Dionysus are the satires, male, human, animal-like, mythological beings. Look at the confusion between genders here that you're going to find. Yeah. So the satires, right? And then the mayonnaise. Now, who are the main ads? The main ads come from the Greek word that deal with mania or maniac. Interesting. Which means madness. And it

refers to the ecstasy of the women who would perform these types of wild actions during these feasts of Dionysus or Bacchus. And I'll get into Bacchus. But in both of these images, what we have is a rejection of societal norms and truly a subversive and yet intentional undoing of the good design of God and his creation. Well, I just love that, like we've talked about the origin of language a lot on our show and you think all these words. But the language itself is like it just it's not random. None of these things are random. You know, we're an 80s show. This reminds me of a funny thing that I remember being as a kid. One of the one of the only memories of 80s cartoons was an episode of Luke's going to love this. Ducktails. Come on. Everyone remembers duct tails.

Oh yeah. And one of the episodes, I'll never forget the scene. They find a pot of gold or something they underneath this bush from a leprechaun or something, right that. And the leprechaun doesn't want anyone to steal his gold, especially Mr. Uncle Scrooge. So he ties a bow because they mark this tree where the pot of gold is. He's going to come back and get it with a little. So the leprechaun then spends all this time tying bows on every bush all over the place so they can't figure out what the truth is and where the gold is hidden. And I was thinking about this.

There's a little 80s reference for you. The historical stories do the same thing. They just, they kind of lead you so you don't really know by making everything kind of sound like the truth. Everything is kind of, it's kind of this universal truth. Yeah, we're all, we're all kind of, we're all, all of our histories are kind of right. And it's like, no, there's, there's one origin story. There's one place where it all comes from.

There's one, there's one place with golden streets. But Nate, Nate, you're nailing it. Why then suggest alternative stories? Yeah. If there's one origin story, why try to create a cacophony, a presentation of alternative stories? Like, what would the reason be in order to present all these alternative stories? The reason would be so that we would not buy into the one true story. Yeah, exactly.

Right? Like the red herring. Throw everyone off. It's the red herring. It's throw everybody else off. And this actually is why I think that the gods of the nations and the Durham III 2 worldview and all the work that. that I've done and that Mike spent his entire life working on is so incredibly important because

this brings cohesion and connection to not just the through line of scripture, but the through line of human history. So we can make sense of the moments that we're living in right now. Dionysus, just an interesting, let's make some connections with the world religions. Dionysus was equated with several gods of surrounding civilizations. the Thracian Sabazias, the Etruscan Paflunes, the Roman Liber or Bacchus. But another fascinating thing, he was also associated with the Egyptian Osiris. This comes from the historian Herodotus. And in some places, this is where things are so tricky.

And this is why I'm just saying, pay attention to the fact that of all the deities that could be represented in this moment at the Olympics, it's Dionysus, sometimes in in second temple literature and elsewhere dionysus was conflated with the jewish god yahweh now now how do we know this okay so again this conflation and why i'm picking at this theme here is important because i think dionysus is being presented to us as a counterfeit hope a counterfeit helper and i'm just trying to help us see that these beings are deceptive and they're deadly because they might give momentary hope or they might play the game real well, but they all have their own agenda, and their agenda is not for our good or for our human flourishing. It's for our self-destruction. And so what you have here, so there's a story that takes place in Second Maccabees. Around 168 BC, you've got Antiochus Epiphanes. Antioch is the Greek ruler of the Seleucid Empire about this time. He's trying to push the Greek philosophy and culture out through the world. And 2 Maccabees 6, you have Antiochus, who goes to Jerusalem, takes the temple and dedicates that temple to Zeus instead.

And then he replaces Sabbath by the monthly birthday of the king, compelling the Jews to celebrate Dionysus with the procession of Ivy. This is 2nd Maccabees 6.7. So it's Antichus Epiphanis who accused the Jews, actually, of being worshippers of Dionysus. So he sets up the abomination of desolation in the temple. He imposes the cult of Dionysus on the Jews by making them do the feasts of Dionysus by wearing the feasts of Dionysus and to walk around a procession in honor of Dionysus. There is nothing new underneath the sun. And the cult, the idea, the worship of Dionysus is kind of all over the place.

You have in Thessalonica, we have epigraphical and historical evidence that indicates that there was a Dionysian cult there. And there's a Latin inscription in Philippi that gives us proof that the cult of Dionysus was active in that city. In Athens, you had the worship of the deity that's prominent. And then the city of Ephesus, there's a passage in Ephesians that tells us that that warns us to be a people who are sober-minded. We're told that in Peter. But we're told to be careful. And the question is, well, where, what is the background in Ephesians 518? Like, where's this background of being careful not to get drunk with wine, which leads to reckless living, but to be filled with the spirit? And a lot of times in a lot of commentaries, it'll be like, oh, you know, we're just talking about the addictive tendencies of wine and why, like, wine will inebriate you and make you lose consciousness. And you're giving, you're giving yourself over to the flesh and all this stuff, right? I'm not saying that that's not true. I'm just saying that's just the tip of the iceberg. Addiction and wine is just the tip of the iceberg. The question is, what does that addiction and the wine open you up to you?

So in the city of Ephesus, you had, yes, worship of Artemis, but you also had the cult of Dionysus. So when Anthony enters the city of Ephesus, this is what the philosopher Plutarch says. women arrayed like Bacchanals and men and boys like satires and pans led the way before him and the city was full of ivy and harps and pipes and flutes and the people hailing him as Dionysus the giver of joy and the beneficent. And what I think that we're finding here is there seems to be this kind of like intentional portrayal of being like, here's Dionysius. he's so awesome, he's so good for you. But everything that we find from the contents of his storyline is stories of violence and stories of horror and stories of like disorderly living and chaos.

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Advertise on LinkedIn. Spend $250 on your first campaign and get a $250 credit. Go to LinkedIn.com slash campaign, terms of conditions apply. And then you have, like, think about all these stories that we just read, and now I want to just put, like, the gospel lens on it, the crystallological lens on it. And it's like, okay, Dionysus turns water into wine. when Dionysus turns water into wine,

the result is people losing their minds, killing each other, doing all kinds of unright. And then you have Jesus, the actual son of God, who goes to a wedding feast in Cana, and turns water into wine, and shows us,

oh, you can actually participate in something that is good and have it within the context of limits and not give yourself over to a licentious kind of living. And so I think it's very possible that the wedding feast of Cana is a direct, spiritual, cosmic kind of gotcha to the Greek god Dionysus. You know, speaking of Paris and the Olympics, in the Louvre, in Paris, it's in the same as the Mona Lisa.

It's on the back wall in the same, in the Louvre, the wedding at Cana. And it's like this massive painting. And everyone in there is so distracted at this tiny little, you know, Mona Lisa photo. And behind is one of this most, this giant painting of the wedding at Cana. And I remember thinking when I was in the loop going, and people are distracted by the popular thing, and they're missing this, like, amazing piece of artwork right behind them. I remember staring at it, just like thinking, this is like a snapshot of humans, how we are. But I have a question for you, Joel.

So if these fallen sons of God are sort of kind of addicted to chaos because they rebelled originally. So, but they also have this daddy wound. right? Because they imitate their father. They imitate the origin, just like filmmakers and musicians. Even if their dad is something they don't have a relationship with, what do they do? They do the same thing as their dad. Do you think that the way the humans are with our fathers is the same way that these chaotic gods that left heaven, left home, rebelled? they carry these character traits down to their empires. Absolutely. Look at Ephesians 314.

Paul says, for this reason, I kneel before the father. Why does Paul, why thought scripture is father the primary image and word that's used as a disditor of our relationship with the king of the cosmos, as the descriptor of our relationship with the king of the cosmos. Wise father, the one. And I think it's because it is portraying something is so vitally important in culture and in society in general. And there is an innate thing.

Like, this is hilarious. I don't even plan for this, y'all. But literally two minutes before, I came onto this, to do the recording, my oldest son, Liam, walked out of my bedroom and he's wearing my black Nike dunks. And I looked at him. I was like, dude, where are you doing? And he was like, dad. your shoes fit me now.

I fit into your, into your SB dunks. And I was like, no, you don't take them off, you know? And like, I'm like,

I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, wait a minute. Like, like my son wants to be like his dad. You know? Like,

like for him, that was a cool moment. Like, he's like, wow, like I'm starting, right? Like,

like there's something innately ingrained in us to be like the one. Now, when wounding takes place, the way that we might want to be like our father or not, be like our father is going to still be contingent upon this place of love. It's just now that love has been wounded. And when love has been wounded, then the outflow, the pouring out of that thing is going to look in verse. And so that's exactly what I think that you have going on because in teen, he says, for this reason, I kneel before the father. Look at first 15, from whom every family

where in heaven and on earth is named? Why would Paul use the language of family for the description of the beings who are in heaven and on earth. Clearly, he's not simply just talking about deceased human beings that are now in heaven when the context of the entire book of Ephesians has been the cosmic Christ and the unity of the household of God, which is both his human and supernatural family. So I'm just trying to give kind of a theological reasoning for why that suggestion is so important and so true. And also why I think when Paul talks about in Ephesians 518, he says, don't be drunk on wine. I think he's saying something that has this father wound situation

in play. It's a loaded term. It's a loaded term. It's way loaded. And I say that is just, in my family, you know, my great-grandfather died in a fire, and then my grandpa became a firefighter, my dad became a firefighter. And everyone wanted to chase this, it's like this original father-wound, because my great-grandfather died saving his friend in a fire when he was 21 years old. And so you have these four generations of men chasing that wound of like, I'm going to be a firefighter. I'm going to carry on this role. Whether I have a great relationship with my dad or not, it's still what everyone in my family wanted to do. I'm the black sheep.

But, you know, it's interesting to me just to think about how human beings do this. And think about the way that these of God, their tactic and their strategy around this. So, like, let's go to wine. Well, wine is a neutral thing as an object, right? It's what we do with that wine that is going to cause either something that is pleasing or something that is destructive. So you have wine as part of a Sabbath festival, a Sabbath rest day. You have wine as something to be enjoyed in a family, in a party, whatever else.

Isn't it ironic, but also incredibly intentional of the enemy to take something like wine and turn it into an addictive type of property where now something that is neutrally good could actually become addictively horrible for you? To the point where when Paul says this in Ephesians 518, do not be drunk on wine, there's some historical background to this. the purpose of the intoxication of wine was to inhibit and also to open up the body to ecstatic experiences. And the belief that people had in the Dionysian cults is when you became drunk with wine, you opened yourself up to the spirit of the God, of the spirit of Dionysus. And Dionysus would actually possess and take control of these people. And, you know, when that happened, these individuals actually had access to his strength, his wisdom, and to his abilities. But that word that's translated Sotaya, or ascotia, which is an excess or reckless, that the Greek word, it literally means without health or incurable.

So don't be drunk. Don't be drunk with wine. Because it's going to lead you to excess or it's going to lead you to lacking health. It's going to be an incurable thing that's going to happen to you. Well, what does this word refer to? It refers to one whose manner of life is dissipated because of self-destruction, which now makes a lot more sense with the way that this sentence is actually phrased out because you have the negative, which is don't get drunk with wine, which leads to esoteria to this reckless

type of living. Well, what does that leave you to? It leaves you to be opened up, to be filled up. to be filled in with the spirit of Dionysus. You're going to be tore up, but instead be filled with the spirit. The spirit, the article there, right? The spirit of God, the spirit of Christ. Well, where does the Spirit of Christ lead us to?

Sobriety, understanding, the betterment of humanity. The Spirit of God is actually the one that shows us the absurdity of violence. The Spirit of God is the one who actually shows us like the power of unity and the power of inclusion, like, it's a spirit of God who does that. The spirit of Dionysus isn't trying to do that for us. The spirit of Dionysus is trying to get us to spiral out of control. And so, so I think it's incredibly important for us to just make those connections as we think about, you know, all of these things. Joel, I want to know, but why do you think specifically this blue representation of this God Dionysus is central to the opening ceremonies to that scene? Why? You know, why? Because obviously we've had

we've had their explanation, right, which we're not going to buy. But if we're to look at this as for what it is, why do you think that became, why do you think that Dionysus is a central figure other than the fact that it's a Greek god in this Pantheon for this, for this, for the Olympic Games? Yeah, I think it's because of who Dionysusus represents. It feels like we're playing, we're playing checkers and the enemies playing chess with us. And it's like, man, we got to wake up, man. This is why Paul's like, Peter's like, be so reminded. Pay attention to the schemes of the enemy. He's prowling like a lion. Like, think about the patience of a lion to wait until the perfect opportune time for that pounce and kill, right? And so, like, just think about

everything that I've laid out here. And let me just try to summarize in this way. Why this figure? Why this blue Dionysus figure? Why is it? I'm the image right now. Why is it that the response was, oh, it was the feast of the gods? Well, the question is, where do the feast of the God's painting actually come from. Well, the Feast of the God's painting, it seems very much came from inspiration of the Last Supper itself. Well, why did the Feast of the God's? It was a mockery of the last supper. It's a replacement of Jesus at the center for Apollo at the center. Well, what do you have here in this picture? You have the presence of Apollo supposedly at the center, which is, again, a replacement of Jesus of where he would normally sit. But then you also

have this blue Dionysus figure who comes and is open. Like, it's just kind of, it's just kind of, kind of a weird, a weird setting, but who does Dionysus represent? He represents a spirit of the age, a philosophy in a way of living that just says there is a neutrality. There's moral ambiguity. And in the place of moral ambiguity, that is where we're going to find peace. Moral ambiguity is where we're going to find inclusion. Moral ambiguity is where we're going to find unity. But you know what you find in moral ambiguity? In moral ambiguity, you find death or sex trafficking, porn addictions, alcoholism, you find opioid abuse, you find humans destroying themselves in the place of moral ambiguity. And so I think that that that is absolutely it.

Like again, to me, it's a mockery. And it's the utmost irony. My buddy who's a pastor in Atlanta of a church called Home Church. His name's Gerald Fadayamo, he made one of the most compelling cases that while we might sometimes be feeling like we're playing checkers and the enemy's playing chess, we have to always be reminded that Yahweh created both chess and checkers. He is not shocked by any of this. So think about this. The irony that they thought, like, or somebody thought, whether it's a dark force behind all of this or the people or a combination of the both, that we could make a mockery of this. It's like, well, wait a minute. This is my, what my buddy Gerald said, that exact table that's a, that has like, you know, that's presenting this

mockery, this conflation of images happens to still be the exact same table where Jesus is inviting Jesus, not Dionysus, not Apollo, Jesus is inviting all those who are broken, all those who are longing, all those who are feeble and on fragile and are on the outskirts of society, they're trying to find their way. All of those people, Jesus is inviting to the table to experience fullness of life in him and in him alone. I like that. I want to talk more about that, but I had a thought a second ago, and this might be a dumb thought. But a lot of people think Zeus is Satan. So the son of Zeus, Dionysus, out the time. table presenting himself as Jesus. Is that like a dumb connection in my head or is that like? No. I mean, that's again, the mockery runs deep. The inversion runs deep. That Dionysus is the offspring of the pantheonic god of gods and also the offspring of a human woman. Like, where else does that come from? Right? And this is where I go back to origin story and deified. Yeah. He's also a deity. He's a deity. And a deity. It's literally, I was going to say this. I mean, you laid a great case for this. this counterfeit Christ replacement.

And they might have put Apollo in the center, but really this picture of Dionysus is really this counterfeit Jesus. And you've laid it out, son of the most high in the Greek in the Greek pantheon. So it really is an Antichrist figure, honestly. It's this counterfeit Jesus, right, that's going to bring. And unironically, the messaging is going to bring what peace, right? It's awareness to the human conflict. Yeah, Dionysus is inviting us to take part of one.

so we can be insane in our thinking so we can lose all of our mental faculties. Well, Jesus is coming and asking us to participate in the wine so that we could become, have the sober mind of Christ. So like, like, what? Isn't that the way of the darkness, though, Joel? It's this counterfeit of the story. And we've kind of hammered this home in this episode. But it's a counterfeit the story.

And ultimately, it's a cup of poison, right? It's this promise of, and the end of Christ's figure, the man of perdition in Revelation, is this one that brings this false peace for a time, right? And declares himself God and he is this antichrist, this Christ-like figure, but quite the opposite. And in the same way, you see this. So then, of course, it's no accident. I mean, there are no coincidences, in my opinion.

There are no coincidence, especially in this case. And so you have this false Christ that sits there. And the promise, of course, is the same. But the actionable items is you drink the cup of poison. It's not peace, as you say, not humility, not all the things Christ promised fullness of life and sober-minded, as you say, but in fact, quite the opposite. It's insanity and ecstasy and hedonism and corruption and all those things that live in that bucket that you said, whether it be human trafficking, all the evils and the darkest of

the dark exist in the realities of that. And it's so very interesting to unpack this central figure. Even that little detail, you guys had an epic. episode, you know, the evil things that had happened to the, it's like the cult in the woods. Like, I'm forgetting the name, the Children of Woods episode. I couldn't even make it through the entire episode. I'm so disturbed by it. And then I'm reading and researching for this.

And it's like some of the most destructive type of festivals were hidden, guess where? In the woods of Dionysus, the Feast of Dionysus. Like, that's where they took place in the woods. Well, it kind of reminds me of our episode we did with Doug Van Dorn Luke, where, you know, he said that the idea that Revelation is like, it continues. The anti-crace figure comes and this, it's kind of like revelation is true because it continues to happen. The same story happens over and over again and there's like a son of perdition that comes on the scene and everyone worships him and he's a fake false, you know, Messiah. But ultimately at the end, the final revelation will be the actual Antichrist that unites the world under one religion. Supposedly. It's like most people have that. The final loss.

final boss. It's like Mike Tyson. Mike Tyson's punchout. You got to go to the end. You got to get through so to Poppinski to get to all the way to the end. And because we're, you know, we're talking about this. And I also have feel the sense of responsibility of like, okay, if you're a follower of Jesus and you're like, you were offended by what happened and you're, you're listening to this. Now you've got probably maybe some righteous indignation. And your reaction right now is like, oh man, I'm going to go out onto social media. I'm a blat. Right. I just want to, I just want to like temper that with this. I think that Jesus in his humanity had experienced every human emotion except one emotion and that is shock.

I do not think Jesus was shocked. And I think 2,000 years ago, Jesus gave you and I the marching orders. I had a friend who said this and probably a famous saint, like popular saying now, it's like, pagans are going to pagan, right? Non-believers are going to act in non-believing ways. There's a real dark. Now, how should the people of God act? Well, the people of God ought to act simultaneously with righteousness and grace, with

truth and mercy. And mercy is actually the balancing response to vengeance and wrath. Mercy keeps our hearts soft and suitable to receive the mercy of God and to give it to others. Because all of us who want righteousness are actually offenders of the very righteousness that we seek. So we're in need of mercy, which is why it's a good idea for us to pour it out onto others. And I think Jesus, on the sermon on the mount, gives us the most epic call to action that we could ever give. And that is like, yes, be up to be angry and do not sin. That's in Ephesians, right?

Be angry. Like, like, be, and then now what do we do? And this is what Jesus says in Matthew 5, 10 through 12. I've paraphrased it in my own. I've kind of taken the Greek and I've tried to paraphrase it. And I've opted, instead of the word blessing, I've opted for the word flourishing. Or like, it'll go well with you. So flourishing are all you who cultivate environments of peace amid hardship, persecution, insults,

and just the downright ugly side of humanity, you're not alone. You just happen to join the 2,000-year story of God's people who are misunderstood just like you. Yeah. And you can find a little comfort maybe, even in knowing that you won't be the last. Every generation that comes from now until Jesus returns will be in the very same boat, and here's some good news. There's enough room for all of us in the great ship of God's grace, which is the only place we can experience peace as the children of God. Dude, dropping it. That's a good word.

I was thinking as you were saying that we see this in modern times where the freaking same Marvel movies made a thousand times is that there is only one story that everyone's retelling, which gives you clues. There's an origin story because we're all telling the same story. So somebody told it first, and everyone's doing the same story. And it's like, you can stick your head in the sand and say, oh, religions are crazy. Religious people are crazy. And it's like, no, they're on to something.

You can choose to disconnect from the stories and just live your life and pretend like all religions are nuts. But they're all, they're all on to something. They're all tapping into something that they're trying to find the original. Yeah. And that's why I think what you guys are doing is so incredibly important because if you're listening to this and you're like, oh, hopefully you will not be equipped with some very practical ways to connect people to the original story and be like, oh, what you're hearing, you're enamored by it, the ISIS thing. that's cool. Well, did you know this and this about it? And did you know that actually Jesus did this, this and this? And like, we can be peacemakers. And we can actually give people the ultimate symbol of the absurdity of violence and the perfect image of peace and unity.

And I would say one thing too, Joel. I love your response to this because I, I for one, understand like the righteous ignitination and Christians being upset and offended, right? Because to the point that a lot of people made, you would never see this with Islam. You would never see them mock Muhammad. You wouldn't see them mock Buddha or Krishna or these other major world religions. And yes, that's true. But I think it's a testament to the fact that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. And he is the king of kings and Lord of Lords. And if he wasn't, he wouldn't be the target of all the darkness. We talk about the cosmic. cosmic landscape, and we talk about the way that the unseen realm, as Mike coined that term,

and we talk about the things that exist, and we're in a world at war, and it should not be surprising that Christ is in the crosshairs and is mocked. And I think your approach is what people need to hear and what need to do, because of course there's a visceral reaction to be angry. They wouldn't do this to any other religion, right? Because we saw, we saw what happened in France when they mocked Muhammad, et cetera, right? There was a visceral, destructive, and violent response from the Islam community. But one of my favorite things that we've done in the episode with you, Joel, is that revelation of that in Psalm 82, and this might have been in our

and stranger theology, but the very last part, and there's an aside, and you arise Elohim, right? And take the nations. For there your inheritance. And you go, well, listen, Yahweh took Israel into himself. Jacob was his, right? And he judges these and he says, now they're yours. Elohim. Now they're yours, Jesus. And I do believe as you said that is the pre-incarnate Christ right and so if that is the case then all of these rebellious Elohim that remain and their offspring that remain as demons that the the the spirit of the Nephlam they are all at war with one one single entity and one single

kingdom that's the kingdom of heaven so this shouldn't be surprising and in fact this to be expected but i do understand that but i think the message that you send in the words of jesus and the way he told us to respond and his offering in one hand held up against the offering of Dionysus, it should make a lot of sense. Why we saw what we saw and why it occurred is, it is, as Nate said, there's one story. And it's, and it's, it's, it's, it's, oldest, old as time. And yet, it's the most engaging story. And we're all part of it right now sitting here.

Yeah. And we shouldn't be surprised when the world comes after us for following Christ, or comes after Christ specifically. And he can take it. He's not, he's not shocked. Look, he took it. He carried this all, all of this same. of a future, past, present and future at the time of he was crucified, he carried.

Yeah, like this is JV. Like, what happened at the Olympics for Jesus was JV? He's like, amen. The cross, I got you back there. I think it's important, though, Joel, to talk about this because, I mean, right? Like, some people, they won't even listen to our show because they think that our logo is like secret occult, something, rather, right? So they've taken this outrage and they say, everything is a part of this fall. system. So I can't even

I have to live in the woods. I can't even use a dollar bill. I can't participate in anything. I can't listen to blurry because they have a they have a Masonic logo or whatever they come up with. Which is not. Which is not. Which is not. Which it's not.

Well, you know what I'm saying though? But they take this symbolism and they they almost have they build this massive following almost based on outrage. There's a lot of, there's a lot of voices. Nate, the absurdity. The absurdity of that, they're following the way of Dainisus.

That's outrage culture. I know. It's ironic. Isn't that interesting? Yeah. Don't you think? I didn't even think that. I didn't even think about that.

But there's some, we're always kind of swept into that stuff that happens on the internet. You know, like, oh, blurry's part of it, or blurry's not a part of it. Or why don't you guys say something? And we're like, okay, yeah. So there is this outrage at the Olympics. They're mocking Christ. Okay. What do you do about it?

You know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's like, duh, of course they're going to mock Christ. Exactly. It's like, what do you do? You do what Jesus did, you know? Like Matthew 11, 28 and 29, hey, let's do an exchange of yokes.

That's what Jesus invites us to. Like, Jesus is going to take his heavy, take our heavy and burdensome yoke. And he gives us his light yoke. And he says, come and follow me from gentle and humble. And it's like, that's what this world needs. The world has enough, has absolutely, in my opinion, enough of the reactionary, volatile, every like, you know, picking a fight with every, and it's like, it's not that we should not have, like, what Luke said, righteous indignation, that we should not be, like, be upset by it. It's, it's, okay, be upset. This is Ephesians. Be angry. And in your anger, make the commitment, a covenant in your heart that you will not sin as a result of your anger. Because if you sin as a result of your anger, that by its very essence discounts all that righteous indignation. which you just had in the first place.

And all you're doing is you're fanning the flame of the enemy in that way. And what a greater injustice that is for God's people to fan the flame of the enemy versus pursuing and permeating the ethics of God's kingdom in and through this world. And the kingdom of God, and that I'm just kind of right now obsessed with the sermon on the Mount, the beatitudes, these nine virtue statements that Jesus gives us are nine upside down ways to live in the world that will cause the world. to be like, who the heck are you? Yeah.

And how is it possible that you could be flourishing, not in the absence of self, but in the midst of all the pain and hurtful things of this world? And you go, Jesus, the kingdom of God, right? Like, that's what we do, but that's what we ought to do with this.

There's a tension to be managed and it's a both end, not in either or. Yeah, it's hard. It's hard to be a Christian and not get rattled. And Nick, can I just say, this too, Luke, there's going to be a day when Jesus is going to end all the mockery. There's going to be a day when mercy will be replaced with justice. Let's honestly pray

that the Spirit of God would bring conviction and repentance to all those who mock him before that time. Amen. Yeah, where? This is what Jesus calls us to be. Exactly. Like, this is why Jesus calls us to be peacemakers. And so we don't fear that justice will happen. Actually, I think our fear ought to be flipped, we ought to fear for the ones who are going to experience that justice because of their arrogance and their hatred towards the Messiah. And so it's like, man, if we can be agents of reconciliation, Second Corinthians chapter 5, let's run after that with everything we've got. He's going to flip the tables. He's going to flip the tables. It's going to happen again, right? He's going to turn those tables over in the temple. I have to tut Luke's horn here a little bit

here because when we started the show, Joel, you know, right away, people started attacking us, you know, and Luke told him, pull me and says, you know, we just need to adopt a policy. not to say anything. Can't participate back in the crazy chaotic debate that rages on. Just keep plowing forward and doing our thing and don't say anything. And a lot of times people want us to say stuff and we don't. It doesn't really help. And I think it adds to what you're talking about, the chaos and the division and the whole vibe.

And it was a good word by Luke in the beginning of starting the show because I didn't realize how many just doing the show how much we're lobbying out in the world to frustrate a lot of people, you know, because it's like, I don't want to, you know, I don't want to think about these things, aliens, UFOs, Bigfoot, you know, the gods, giants. And it just blows up people's paradigms, just talking about it. And we're not, we're not trying to egg people on. But inevitably, it does create that chaotic response. I think Luke was right to say, just, don't, don't, don't, just keep going. Just move on. Thank you for that, Nate. I'll have to, have to, I have to replay that sound bite every once in a while for my wife to realize. I'm white every once in a while.

Let's go. I get something right. It was good. It was a good word. I love doing this with you because I just Nate and I just interview interviews, right? And we've done, you know, whenever we're sitting here for four years doing these. But these are the significant, they're all significant conversations, but I, there's something very, very significant about reminding people that the faith we have is very supernatural and cosmic, is your word. And also the things that occur. or also have, as you talked about cosmic geography, there's a cosmic significance to, and a supernatural significance to a lot of the things that occur

in the things we see. And if we miss those, I think we, we and ourselves are not understanding exactly the full picture. And also a response isn't measured enough, right? I think this is such a, this is sobering to remember that there is a response coming, as you say, from Christ.

And it isn't our, isn't our battle in a sense to pick up and to be offended and to burn it all to the ground. Our response is to do with Jesus, dude, and it's pre-lays it out pretty, pretty, pretty specifically. Well, you can see it, you know, as you listen to like weird blurry stuff. You can be like, oh, look what they're doing. Interesting. And it doesn't have to trigger.

It's not a trigger for you. It's like a, you almost smile because you're like, ah, they're doing it again. Oh, that's it right there, Nate. You nailed it. That's, that, if I could be like, what's the goal of this episode? that's it right there. The goal is like, oh, you're going to, you're going to see things. You're going to be presented with things.

And your response is going to be a relaxed kind of grin, smile. Because you have, like, it's like the magic trick, right? And you're like, I know how they did it. Like I don't, I, this, the slide of hand, I saw it. Gotcha. I was like, I was like, hey, nice one. Nice one. You might be getting them, but you're getting me.

And I love how you just phrase that because I think that relaxed response for us versus this aggravated, aggressive response is the response that Christ kind of wants for us so that we are, yeah, we're clear thinkers, man, we can think clearly, we can discern, we can distinguish between what is beautiful and good and what are things that are being destroyed by the corruption of sin in the world. And it's like a very basic premise, but it's like, new heavens and new earth. It's going to be a renewal and a restoration of these things. It's not a rejection of them. And so in light of that, like, we should enjoy the beauty of what the Olympics puts on display with athleticism. And like, there's such great beautiful things about this. And, oh, you're trying to con me into believing Dionysus is the ultimate symbol of the absurdity of violence. Like, nah, it's a nice try.

Rin, smile. I think this is why the disciples, ultimately, after the fact, went to their graves defending Christ, because they probably looked back their whole, like their career with Christ on Earth, be like, oh man, he healed that guard when Peter cut his ear off. He wasn't outraged when these guys came to lock him up and take him and crucify him.

He knew what was going to happen. He knew it was happening. And if he was outraged at any moment in their story in their time when they were learning with him, they would have had a hard time believing that he was who he said he was. But because he was calm and cool. And the one time he was outraged,

it was the religious rulers. Yeah. He was... He should have known better. His words is he's being murdered. Our Father, forgive them. Yeah. I mean, if that doesn't hit you in the field

or with a little bit of conviction. Yeah. You know, I don't know what does. So everyone up there, just be cool hand Luke. Yeah. You know what I mean? Right, Luke? That's what you told me to be.

Yeah, sure. That's what you told me to be when we started blurry. Just be cool, hand, Luke, mate. Just like me. I might have been called that a few times back in the day. Who knows? Back in the day. Back in the day.

I think it was intermaral football in college. Cool hand, Luke, you know. You just, let's go. Long hair, skinny. Real fast then. Well, Joel, is different now. Real fast then. I like these episodes of you, Joel,

because they're kind of a blend of conversation, having your own epiphanies as we're having this conversation, putting pieces together. It's also blurry. It's also a deep dive into theology and history. It's kind of all the things that I like about our show in one episode. Normally a guest will take you kind of down one of those roads, but you tend to take us down all of them at the same time.

And it feels like a good mix, and I think it resonates with a lot of folks. So thanks, Joel. Appreciate that. Yeah. Tell everybody what you're up to, bro. Because, I mean, Proverbs 31. We know that.

We just strange with you. We're working on some side projects. We'll announce later with... Yeah. With your understanding the theology of your TikTok, your TikTok legendary status. TikTok husband. What's going on? What else is going on in your world, man?

Point people towards. Your shoes are getting worn down the street by someone else. Yeah. It's getting sniped by your son. My sons are getting older. No, man, it's family life right now. My boys are playing football. My sixth grader made the football team.

My seventh grader is trying out. And so I'm just trying to learn. I'm just trying to sit and manage that. Ministry is going, life is going well. You know, I'm still doing my Theology Talk Tuesday on Tuesdays on my Instagram at M-U-D-D-D-A, M-A-L-L-E. It's just my last name. Not too many of us out there, so you can follow me on there. And I love, I mean, just as a testimony and just as a witness to you guys, as I'm out traveling,

speaking, I was at a church over the weekend and did a book signing for my book, The Hidden Peace. And I'm not even joking with you guys, at least half of the people. that came up to me would be like, I'm part of the blurting verse. And they almost whisper it just like that. You know, they're like, I'm on to the blurr in verse. And I love, and then, you know, and so I just, man, I'm grateful that I get to do this with you, with you two specifically. Not, not many people that I know that can hang with me for however long we've hung talking mythology, New Testament theology, Old Testament theology,

a little sociology, a little bit of played in some art history, interpretation, I mean, all that kind of stuff. And I really am excited for the projects that we're working on that will, yeah, hopefully be released here shortly. And, I mean, I don't know if you, I mean, BlurieCon, baby. Let's go. Let's go. We like to dabble. We like to dabble. We like to dabble in all those little things. So yeah, you're going to be at BlurieCon. Bluriecon, too. There are no tickets. So sorry about that. But if you have tickets, you get to hang with. This is how bad it is. I've got friends, like personal friends of mine who are like, can I get a ticket? And I'm like, listen, I'm speaking at this event.

think I can get you tickets guys. That's good. You know? Like, it's wild right now. Yeah, dude. Joel, I appreciate you, man. Yeah, we do have some ideas. So kind of help, like, do some more stuff together that's a little different than our

normal guests. So stay, you know, if you're out there, listen to show you like what we're doing here. Stay tuned. We got some ideas, Bruin, how to combine Joel's great take on things and the Blurriverse. I put together some unique materials, maybe some other stuff. So stay tuned. that a little bit. That's what much as we'll do. Until next time, we'll see it. We'll see you. We'll see you in the studio.

We're going to get you in the studio. We're going to get you in the studio. Yeah, the blurry studio is almost done. And we're going to get you in there. We're going to have a, we're going to do this all live in person. And, uh, studio studio, studio, 1980. Yeah. Luke might pull out. I'm a little worried about doing this and doing this live in person. Hey, hey. That's, that's, that's, we're going to give every guest an original copy of Mike Tyson's punchout. So you have to come. I'm a little. So you have to come you have to come to the blurry studio and you get signed by loop he'll tell you he'll tell you the time he just couldn't get past ball bowl and uh about every time yeah he never saw tyson so we're

we have we have some fun things planned it's always a pipe dream it's a pipe dream yeah you never know hey mike mike might be a blurry you might be he might be you never you might not know Mike, if you're listening right now, just know. We're with you. Thanks, Joel. Thanks, bro. Appreciate you.