Blurry Creatures - EP: 412 The Kingdom Manifesto with Brad Gray and Joel Edwards

Episode Date: March 31, 2026

It's Holy Week, and most of us will say the Lord's Prayer at some point over the next few days without ever really hearing it. Brad Gray, author of "Bringing Heaven Here" and a veteran of over fifteen years of biblical study hiking trips in Israel, joins filmmaker and Evolve Studios founder Joel Edwards in the Blurry Basement to walk through The Lord's Prayer that Jesus gave us and show why it's not a formula or a ritual but a kingdom manifesto. Brad walks through how this prayer functions as a chiasm with "kingdom come" at its center, how each line echoes the Exodus narrative, and why the early church prayed it three times a day as a discipleship anchor. This isn't a crusty piece of liturgy. It's the most powerful thing Jesus ever gave us and quite possibly the most underutilized. The conversation also dives into forgiveness as the number one foothold for the demonic, temptation as spiritual warfare language, and prayer as participation rather than just petition. Joel and Brad share the incredible story of making both the film and the series, a journey marked by relentless opposition and miraculous provision at every turn. The crew arrived in Israel the same night Iran launched an unprecedented missile and drone attack on the country, and when the dust settled and the airspace closed, they found themselves with empty holy sites and open doors no film crew had ever walked through, including the inner tomb shrine at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Six years in the making, "The Lord's Prayer" film and "The Sacred Thread" series are now streaming on Angel. Watch it free at angel.com/blurry and grab the book "Bringing Heaven Here" at thelordsprayer.com. This episode is sponsored by: https://timtebow.com/tree-blurry/ — Get your copy of If the Tree Could Speak by Tim Tebow on Amazon today!https://livemomentous.com — Get up to 35% off your first order with promo code BLURRY at checkout!https://go.goodranchers.com/BLURRY — Get $25 off your first order with code BLURRY at checkout! - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Luke so often, people email us and they have this story. They're out in their woods and they're looking in the bushes. What's that? And when you are pouring your dog food and your dog's bowl, that's the last thing you want to say. What is that? What is the stuff coming out of this bag? You know, I don't think a lot of us think about maybe what we feed our dogs. And that's why we partner with rough greens.

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Just cover the shipping. Go to roughgreens.com and use discount code blurry. That's RUFFF greens.com discount code blurry. Rough Greens makes any dog food better. And so when Jesus says, pray, you know, our father in the, the heavens, the one, you rule and reign on high, you are holy, your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Jesus is talking about how are you partnering with God to see the goodness and power of heaven to take up residence here? And this was like for me,

the moment where everything like, because Jesus didn't come just to take us from here to go there. Right, it's not escapism. Everything he's talking about is how do you get the goodness and power of to take up residents here. The history of our Earth is so different from what we can imagine. It's a 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, it's right to bust 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 Herman event. And this guy defects from the kingdom. That's a big deal. What if the prayer you've known, Luke, for a lifetime, holds the key to living a life of abundance and purpose. We've got director Joel Edwards, and author of the book, Bringing Heaven Here, Brad Gray, in the studio in the blurry basement. Welcome, gentlemen, and come down here. We're talking about the Lord's Prayer today and all things supernatural. We're talking to NT right yesterday about bringing heaven here,

and we're going to keep that conversation going today. So we're excited. I don't know when those episodes are coming out, but we're in that vein with you guys. So we'd love to hop into the story. You made a film, and the film is called, The Film is called The Lord's Prayer. Okay.

Yeah. And then this is the book, Brad, U.N. Two brads. Yeah, two brads. Yeah, the two brads. You could have got a third Brad, you know, and it just could have been three-in-national. That sounds like a great podcast.

Three Brad's, yeah. Now, this is especially fun for me, because Brad, you are a teaching pastor at the church. I go to church of the city here in Franklin, and we know each other a little bit. And then Joel Edwards is one of my best friends in the world. Filmmaker, Evolve Studios. And it was really fun for me because I had sort of the inside track on it. As you guys were out shooting the film, you know, Joel was sending updates and videos and the Iron Dome.

The Iron Dome. Yeah. It was crazy. But how do you make a film about the Lord's Prayer? A very long journey. Yeah, a very long journey. Six years in the making. This thing took six years.

Wow. Where do you start? You start with hopefully a really good idea. Yeah, that was kind of the impetus behind this was for me growing up in the church and actually haven't been a pastor for a number of years. This was about seven years ago for me. I was reading the Lord's Prayer. and it starts before Jesus even gives the prayer,

it says this then is how you should pray. And I just had this moment reading it going, oh, I think you actually meant that. Yeah. You know, and it was... That's pretty clear. It's pretty clear. And yet for most people,

if they're familiar with the Lord's Prayer, which most people are familiar, it's so familiar that it became unfamiliar. And that was true for me, you know. And so really it just kind of started an internal journey to understanding the prayer. And once I just saw how much it transformed, my own journey and how I prayed.

Then when we started coming together, working on an idea for initially a global television series that then went into a film and the television series will come out in a few months, everything around the Lord's Prayer just got unlocked. And we just said, let's find a way to really give people a cinematic immersive journey. That's a lot of content.

So you start with the first two, our father? That's right. Is it start there? That's the first part of the film. That's a loaded statement. That's episode one. It's just our father. It is.

Just those two. That could be a loaded statement for a lot of Christians. That's right. You know, like, and it gets into the Trinity and all the talks that we have a lot on our show. So. And I was, we talked pre-roll, pre-show about this guys. I'm really excited because I think one thing we haven't done explicitly on the show is really talk about prayer. And this is the way that we're told.

Jesus told us how to pray. And I think this is great context because a lot of times when we have conversations on the show, especially with folks that are, we've had a number of conversations about psychedelics and DMT. It doesn't matter if it's that or astrology or new age things. There's all these avenues by which folks connect with the spiritual realm or the supernatural world, right? How do you want to sort of semantically qualify that. And the Bible tells us not to do those things, a lot of those things, whether it be like crazy things like necromancy or sorcery, but also like not to do astrology.

And so people that are having these experiences now modern experiences, whether it be Joe Rogan talking about DMT or psychedelics or folks that are really what we've talked about hopping the fence. Explicately, the Bible gives us a way to connect with God. It's through prayer and supplication fasting, right? These ways that are maybe much less flashy. Yeah, there's a lot of humility in the Lord's prayer. Exactly. So I'm excited to get into this and just really talk about Jesus tells us this is how to pray. this is our way to connect with God that he's given us right um we are past the umum and the thumim and

the things of the old testament where then god had given ways for the for the priests and for his chosen leader to connect with him and through the work of jesus jesus says this is how we pray and you you kind of brad led us off with like you know i read it and realized that we've we've whitewashed us or it's become so familiar it's unfamiliar so where do we start with the lord's prayer and what Jesus is telling us, this is how you connect. This is how you pray. Yeah. What does that begin? And then I would, then I would love to get into the film. We can talk about some of the blurry things that happened out in Israel. But I think this is a topic I would love to dive into, as we really talk to our listeners and even to our own hearts about how we

connect with God in this way, because prayer is a weird thing, right? I mean, it is a weird thing. It's like we pray a lot. People pray 10 years, simply 20 years for something and maybe don't get an answer. And then some people pray and they get an immediate answer. And it's just there's not a formula, it seems, but then we're a given one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think one of the first places to start with the Lord's prayer, even before you get into the actual words of the Lord's prayer, is what was the Lord's prayer for Jesus? You know, it wasn't just a prayer that Jesus was teaching people to pray. It was actually the prayer that he was living out in his own life. And I think that was one of the big reveals for me when I did initial study seven years ago, really a deep, deep dive into this, it was like, oh my goodness,

like this is the essence of everything Jesus was about. And actually, when you look at the entire biblical narrative, 66 books, 1189 chapters, if you want the greatest distillation anywhere in scripture for understanding who God is, why Jesus came and what our purpose is here on earth as human beings, it's actually in the Lord's Prayer. And so when you begin to realize this is, this is a blueprint for daily living. And Jesus was living it out and he's teaching others to do it as well because Jesus has a mission. He's got a mission and he's not just looking for people to help them clean up their lives. He's actually looking for partners to join him in this massive redemptive movement that he is taking to a whole new level when he enters into human existence. And the way in

which he wanted his followers to be reminded of the mission every day. day was actually praying the Lord's Prayer. In fact, one of the fascinating things is that we have an early document. It's called the Didi-Kae, which is an early discipleship training manual that dates to either the late 1st century AD, which is concurrent with the New Testament or early 2nd century AD. And it's the only place that we have around the same time period where we have the entire Lord's Prayer listed in this discipleship training manual. First time outside of the Bible that we have it evidence, and it finishes with, and you shall pray this way, three times a day. So this early church community that is using this as a discipleship training manual, and the Lord's Prayer is just one of

many things, this was the thing that they anchored themselves around three times a day to be reminded all throughout the day, this is what we are here to do. Do you feel like people think it gets repetitive or it gets religious? Yeah. Yeah, totally. And so they don't do it? I think, I think in many cases, people have said it so much that, yeah, they have no idea what they're saying anymore. Some people do it out of habit. I mean, I've got a number of buddies you probably do as well where before, I've got a number of friends in the NFL, and they all tell me, every team, we say the Lord's prayer before we go out onto the field. You know, and at one of my buddies who's been part of this project, he was like, I can't wait for all my teammates to actually know what

they've been praying for so long. And for me, it was familiar enough that it just, it lost any kind of sense of meaning that I didn't even engage with it. I mean, when I realized, I was like, oh my, this is something Jesus gave us. I hadn't even been doing it in my own life. And I'd been a pastor for more than a decade, leading biblical study hiking trips for, you know, 15 years now. And I'm like, I wasn't even doing it. And so this has been part of the fun of working with Joel and our teams on this is to take something that's familiar and just show people how unbelievable it is, how deep the rabbit hole goes with every single phrase. But more than that, not just so that people are like excited about it. They're actually living it out and it becomes that daily blueprint through which you recognize this is, this is what I'm supposed to do on a daily basis.

So let's do that. Can we unwind it a little bit? Can we can we sort of un- Yeah, can we break down the verse and go through it? Yeah. You know, we hear a lot of the same. stories over the years on the podcast and sometimes you put the pieces together and as Christians oftentimes we hear the crucifixion story and we don't hear from a fresh perspective and but the cross is one of those stories that if you could hear it again for the first time maybe it can move you in a different way and that's why if the tree could speak is such a fascinating idea it's the new book from tim Tebow and it's a story of perspective of the cross and the crucifixion and the perspective and what if the wood itself could talk and tell the story it's very poetic it's got great illustrated

narrative. I read it with my kids and my oldest son was asking me a bunch of questions about it. So it's really near and dear to my heart. It's not just something that we're just saying on the podcast. Yeah, it really makes you slow down and feel the weight of what Jesus did. And as we walk through the season of celebrating his resurrection, this is something I think that will stick with you long after you put it down. You want to pick it up. Maybe you make this a tradition every Easter season to reread the story. It's, as you said before, it's amazingly illustrated. It's got stunning graphics in it that really Capture people, kids and adults of all ages. I love the fresh perspective.

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Well, I think, you know, start with just what it is, right? I think for most of us, my experience with this is this is an old, crusty piece of scripture and teaching. It's like something that Jesus said. And it's not that, at face value, it doesn't feel like it's that impressive. You know, it's not some grand illustration or parable. It doesn't have all of the dynamic elements of stories or teachings that he normally gives us. It's just like, hey, this is how you should pray.

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, real quick. But it's really fascinating. It's literally at the center of his teaching on the sermon of the Mount. It's like the absolute nucleus of everything. And we talk about that in the film. And there's so much more there. And so the idea is, okay, have we overlooked this? Is this, is it really just a crusty piece of liturgy? Or is kind of maybe if once you get into it contextually, and you know, we say this all the time, a context is everything. You have to understand it. What did it mean to them? What does it mean to us? There's so much of it. It goes into context.

Once you start peeling it apart, it really becomes fascinating. And so the way that it's broken down is literally in the movements. Our father in the heavens, holy be your name. So this idea originally came as a television show, which is still going to happen. We just ended up making a pilot and went on this journey. And we ended up making a film as Mark Burnett saw our pilot and was like, this should be a movie first. like you need a little toe into this before you go seven episodes. So it's 82 minutes, but then the show is going to break down each one of those sections.

So yeah, I mean, each section is so rich. I think it was interesting about this too, though, before we start with our father, is that the disciples have been with Jesus for quite some time now. And it's funny to me that at this point they're like, well, teach you stop to pray. And I'm like, have you been with the guy for walking around Judea for how long? Yeah. You know, which I always think is funny too. Like they don't, it feels like us.

It feels like Israel all the time and in the Old Testament and just like, yeah, we don't really know what we're doing here. We're going to do your own thing, like, you know, or we're going to forget, you know. Yeah, well, actually, the interesting thing about that is that it's later in the gospel of Luke. It only shows up in Luke and Matthew. Luke is a little bit later. It's chapter 11. Great book. Matthew is in, you know, the sermon on the mount begins in Matthew chapter 5.

And the sermon, it goes five, six and seven in the Lord's Prayer is in chapter 6. What's fascinating about Luke's version is the preface to that is the disciples asking Jesus to pray, teach us to pray like John taught his disciples to pray. And one of the ways that we look at that and understand that is that we believe that every rabbi who was training disciples had a particular prayer that was unique to that particular group. So if you heard somebody praying a prayer, you'd be like, oh, you go with John the Baptist, or you go with Jesus. So prayer was a significant part of their daily rhythms.

they had multiple prayers. So it's not so much are they teaching us how to pray. It's what is the prayer that is unique to us? Or what are you all about? Because it's in the very prayer that you have the nucleus, as Joel was mentioning, of everything Jesus was about. And one of the things that they understood is that any time a rabbi gave you a prayer to pray, it wasn't just a prayer you prayed asking God to fulfill it. It was a prayer that you knew you had a part to play in making it a reality. So you're both asking God as well as going in what role do I get to play in making this thing a reality because they always understood prayer as participatory, not just petition. So interesting considering our conversation with NT Wright we had, I can't help but

think like his, in Ephesians, and this is a bit of an aside, but he was talking about the idea of his take on predestination, for example. And his take is it's vocational, not locational, in a sense that like that we are all given jobs within the body and that's what Paul's talking about and it's really interesting if that's what the context of prayer is that we're not only

asking God for things but also asking for our assignments maybe or our participation and that's what Paul's echoing then later in the letters is saying you've been chosen for these jobs for this thing. You know he's got to come around

and continue to try to explain people because I think NT kind of puts us on our minds that there's like a preloaded thought of what's going to happen when Jesus rolls on the scene. First it was, is this actually the guy that's supposed to come here? So everyone brings all this baggage emotionally into the moment. And then obviously Jesus teaches them, they're kind of getting it. And then Paul has to come back and be like, wait, okay, so let's break this down again. I think that humans are real hardheaded. And it takes a long time of hearing the same things. Okay, I get it. Maybe I'm

slowly getting it. We slowly change over time. But let's break down the verse. Kind of phrase by phrase and sort of what our listeners and me particularly, us, you know, Protestant people who haven't heard with thousands of times. Well, I think, too, is this is, you know, as Joel mentioned, everything that we're doing with this is about context. And context is everything. And yet the vast majority of people have never been taught how to think about the Bible in its comprehensive context.

History, geography, the cultural backgrounds, language, literary design, the visual settings. And that's really where the prayer unlocks. for all of us, you know, whether it's been something that people have said or, you know, has been part of their rhythm or it's not been part of the rhythm. But yeah, let's take our father from him because you made a comment, it's like, okay, it's almost kind of like you're almost hitting a wall

for some people, just even with the very beginning. And this is where the context, again, is absolutely everything and unlocks. And I love that you said that because it's something that we've kind of banged the drum on the show is we had Dr. Michael Heiser on and Heiser, the thing that stuck with me is he said, said the Bible was written for you, but not to you, right?

His whole, his whole expose on everything was that this is written to an ancient near Eastern culture that had this foundation of cultural knowledge. And they had, they understood little stories. We, you know, we talk about Genesis 6 and things like that. And it's only four verses. But, you know, they knew the context and the story to that. They didn't need be explained. And I think we forget that often.

In the West, especially we read it, read ourselves into the Bible. and then we read it as 21st century Westerners instead of like, hey, this had a lot of nuance and cultural contexts that we miss because we aren't first century Judeans, right? So, yeah, what do you think our father? Yeah, what do you think about? Yeah, and that's exactly what we just said.

It's what did they hear? Right. Not what are we hearing first. And that's usually where the first hurdle comes is that, you know, when Jesus is teaching them how to pray, if you're going to enter into the vulnerable state of prayer, it's who are you praying to? How do you think about the one that you are praying to?

And when Jesus starts off and says, you know, you begin with our father, one of the big hurdles that a lot of people have is they are immediately thinking about God in relationship to their earthly father. What's the relationship I have with my dad? Right. And if you don't have a great relationship, immediately you're already starting to feel the tension around the prayer. And, but here's the great thing is that God never,

sought to be defined through the experience you've had with your earthly father. And for those initial listeners on that hillside 2,000 years ago, when they heard our father, they would have not first and foremost thought about the relationship to their dad. They would be immediately going through their scripture-soaked minds to go, where does this first show up in scripture? And how does that help us understand who God is? And this is the thing about what we do in the film is immediately we're in Egypt, because for them, when they're thinking of our father, the first place that God identifies himself as a father, the first time father shows up in scripture

is in the Exodus story when the Israelites are making mud bricks in Pharaoh's kingdom and God shows up to Moses in a burning bush, has this conversation, says, I want you to go back and tell Pharaoh that Israel's my firstborn son and I'm telling you, let my son go. which is God showing up as a father.

So the first thought that goes through a first century audience's mind is, oh, this is a God who is aware of our circumstances. This is a God who is listening to the cry of his people. This is a God who makes promises and then fulfills them as he did in the Exodus story. I love that. And then it just runs through.

It's not a huge theme, but it's a threaded theme that shows up in multiple places throughout. the Older Testament or the Hebrew scriptures, that for them they're realizing, oh, God is like the perfect parent that knows what we need. And when we come to God in prayer,

we're coming to a compassionate, aware God who is interested in being in relationship to us just like a familial relationship, which is always the most intimate kind of relationship to have. I think it's interesting he says, you know, our father. Yeah, the plural? Yeah. It's communal.

Yeah, it is. The whole prayer is in the communal, by the way. Well, I think that, you know, there is a lot of debate about speaking to Heiser, like the two powers in heaven and this whole idea that there is a relationship and that at the time this is the division between Christians and Jews. They don't believe that there's a relationship there or Jesus isn't what they thought he was going to be. But it's like interesting that the first thing he says is my dad. Right? And I think that for whatever reason, over the church history, we've had a lot of debates about what that is. But I think it's a relationship that he's talking to.

And I think Jesus and his father are there a lot in the Old Testament. And we've talked about in what context is the angel of the Lord is usually there. Sure. And there's this relationship going on. I think it's like, yeah, we can think about our own father immediately. but I wonder if they didn't fully understand the relationship between God, the father, and the son. Do you think that's a part of it? They had to learn that as they went.

Where does Bigfoot get all this fiber? He sure does look right now. He's eaten a lot of roughage out there. Yeah. Eating pine needles. How do we get that fiber, Luke? Well, we don't eat pine needles or turn trees upside down. You maybe could try that.

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We know where the story is going. It's hard to slow the story down long enough to put ourselves in their sandals and to really understand. I mean, even just think about the very first thing that Jesus proclaims. He says, repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near, which the kingdom of heaven is that does the nucleus of the entire prayer. but he starts with the word repent. And we just think, oh, that's kind of a weird way to start. But the word that is actually used, the word repent there, means to change your mind. So he's starting off and saying, you have an idea of how you think this whole thing's going to get rolled out.

And I'm telling you from the get-go, you're going to have to change your mind. Right? And so this is why he's constantly having to tell stories. The kingdom of heaven is like this. The kingdom of heaven is like that. And he's telling these stories about it. You think it's this way. It's actually this.

Yeah, because they were waiting for a like a conquering, to conquer Rome, right, to bring the sword to, you know, to politically liberate. Which is the reason why we, a lot of, you know, they don't accept Christ as the Messiah still to this day. Right. Just a gap in expectations. Yeah, they're waiting for something else. That's interesting because the repent idea is that like you have to change your mind about this. This is not the way it's.

Yeah, because it is you have to kind of change your mind. And part of repentance means to return to the path. I mean, if you go back to the Hebrew. etymology of this, the idea is that there's two paths in life. There's God's path and there's every other path. And when you stray off God's path, repentance means you're returning to the path. You're returning to the way in which you're called to walk in the world. But the thing that you just mentioned too, that that's super interesting is that because they were expecting a messianic figure who was connected back to Moses, which is, you know, they're looking for a new Exodus. They're

for a second Moses to lead a new Exodus. And they have all of these expectations and anticipations. And it was through Moses that God first identified himself as a father. And so the fact that Jesus is beginning a prayer and saying, pray to our father, to use that language of father is like, okay, redemption is on its way. And this is not actually something we give. Yeah, liberation.

Yeah. When this, we don't actually talk about this in the film, but this is in our first episode, is that it's not just what he's saying, it's on whose lips he's saying this. Because for the people to hear like our father goes back to the Exodus story and that's what they're longing for.

Every year they're coming together during the Passover season to remember how God rescued and redeemed them from their slavery in Egypt and now the Romans are over them. Yeah. You know, so it's just been replaced. It went from, you know,

from the Egyptians to the Assyrians, to the Babylonians, to the Persians, to the Greeks. They had a little reprieve during the Maccabian Revolt. then the Romans come in and now they're anticipating this again. And what they don't realize is that Jesus' mission isn't to conquer Rome, it's to defeat sin, death, and the devil. And that's something that they're going to have to figure out.

It's a much bigger set of a bigger monster. This is why we had to make a movie and an episodic series. And write a book. So, yeah, I mean, human beings since the dawn of time have had more of an economic and political deliberation in mind when connecting with God, right? We're going to politically take over. We're going to economically take over. And there's this four-dimensional kind of war going on outside of it.

Jesus also is one of the last things he says is, Father, forgive them. Yeah. And then at his baptism, this is my son. There's this clear language that's, is that being missed by a lot of people in this day and age? Well, and here's, I mean, this is its own kind of can of worms, but one of the most prolific. Because I think it's just a heavy. Yeah, well, I think one of the things that, that, that, that, that. is also just fascinating when you get into this kind of discussion is that one of the most

prolific passages that people had in mind with the coming of the Messiah is actually from Psalm Chapter 2. And Psalm Chapter 2 has this passage in here where it's talking about the coming Messiah and the language is this because we immediately think it's divine. But it says this. Psalm chapter 2 verse 7 it says actually can go in verse 6 I've installed my king on Zion my holy mountain I will proclaim the Lord's decree he said to me you are my son today I have become your father so this is actually when you talked about being a son of someone in the ancient world it was I've come in the authority yeah of my father yeah so even at the baptism when God says this is my son whom I love with him I'm well pleased. He's actually quoting three different passages from the

three parts of the Old Testament and chief among them is Psalm 2,7. But for them, it wasn't the expectation that the coming Messiah was going to be divine. That was like, they're having to try to wrestle with the implications of you're not just the coming Messiah to inaugurate God's kingdom. It was the later understanding, oh my goodness, somehow you're connected in divinity? Like, that was something that they had to flesh out and learn as they went. That wasn't something that they were expecting. Wasn't that when they're trying to do the lesser Yahweh is the way that the second temple folks were trying to sort of figure this out, right? There's this other angel of Lord. There's this other Yahweh that's, anyway. They're wrestling with the whole thing. But even just saying the language

of our father immediately just bring a whole host of understandings. We were having a discussion on a previous episode that our only begotten is inheritance language. So it's like, you know, and we see that a lot where here's the inheritance of the father to the son throughout the Old Testament. So Jesus was like given.

It's like Psalm 82. Yeah, given the inheritance, which therefore he's given the power and authority. That means just one son with all of his dad's. I don't know. But I can't understand it in any of it. other way. I've listened to my whole life, the church kind of explain this. It doesn't make any sense until you just think, this is a father-son relationship. That's the best way, literary,

to understand, but we are afraid of that conversation for some reason. So, but here it is, and even sometimes Jesus says, you know, not my will, but yours. Right. What? Wait a minute. So there's this, there's, there is a father. We can kind of drum, they beat this drum forever. We spent about 15 minutes on the father. We made two. two words into the first. Yeah, we need to make a movie. That's right. It's right.

It's why we had to do a whole episode of just the first two words. But it's loaded. It's really loaded. And I think the ancients and the moderns, we don't understand either we have dad baggage or we had expectations of what that looks like. But that's interesting. I didn't think that they didn't know that Jesus was going to be, you know, right alongside in terms of power and authority on earth given to him.

Yeah. which is a real brain buster, the more that we read into the story. The thing is completely loaded. For me, you know, as a professional storyteller, like day job guy. Yeah. This is one of those, once you see it, you can't unsee it. You know, kind of pieces of just magnificent scripture that's sitting right there that you just kind of at least I certainly would, you know, just graze over. You know, Lord's Prayer, like we were talking about, usually like something grandpa says at Thanksgiving.

You know, you're like, whatever. You know, this is just old tradition. It's like the Catholics, they repeat this a lot, just like the Rosary, like the Hail Mary, you know. So our father, who is in heaven, art in heaven, ever you want King James, baby, we could do that. How'll be that name? Let's do the, who are in heaven, who is in heaven, it's actually literally recorded in the Greek, which is the language of the New Testament, in the heavens. Plural. It's plural.

Okay. Which is interesting because later in the prayer on earth as it is in heaven is singular. So when you actually realize that the first thing that is being said is in the heavens, it's plural, the first question you do is you go, what's going on with that? And it's just ancient cosmology. How did the ancient people understand the world? Because they didn't have the Hubble telescope. They didn't have the James Webb telescope. They didn't go to space and look back and see how everything was. So they had a very honest reality, which was I got the ground. under my feet and I look up into the heavens. And they actually saw the world up and they broke it down

into different tiers. So they just, that was just kind of their view of having language for what they were seeing. And so you actually have a reference to Paul, you know, in Corinthians talking about, oh, I know a man who was taken up to the third heaven. Yeah. You know, and in Jewish literature of the time, there are three, five, seven, ten, or even more levels of the heavens. But when when Paul drops this reference in Second Corinthians, he doesn't explain it, which seems obvious enough to him that he doesn't have to explain it.

And you go, well, what are the three, like three heavens seems to be the general understanding, which was level one was just for them, is where the birds are and that's where the clouds are. They're all just right here. And then they're like, okay, we see all the sun, the moon, the stars, and they seem to be attached to this dome, right?

So they don't know how, you know, close our closest star is, which is actually insanely far away when you get into, you know, astronomy and all that. So they saw the level two and then the third level. They didn't have a word for universe, for example. No, I mean, they just, they just, maybe they did, but it. They did, but it was, it was more of the word that they actually have in the Hebrew scriptures is Shemime, which is heavens plural. Like, it's always in the plural. That's true. Is that, is that, is that, is that, is that, is that, is that, is that, is that, is that, we've talked about sort of the ancient cosmology, which is like,

second heavens is kind of where all the spiritual realm, all the supernatural beings and the sun and the moon and the stars, they all, because the stars themselves are actually in some of the ancient, or angels or beings, right? And then the third heaven's where God resides, right? Exactly. So the third level is the throne room of God.

That's where God rules and reigns on high. So even just to say our father in the heavens was to be reminded of the fact that this is a God who sits above it all, which was a place of ruling a thought Over the years, we've gotten many strange emails from ranchers that their cows are disappearing. And there's one thing you don't want, Luke, is that some mystery meat. You don't want to not know where your meat comes from.

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The other aspect that you see all throughout the scriptures is that God is not a distant God. He is constantly showing up to his people. He's moving through the heavens. And so when you put those together, you go, okay, so this is really cool, ancient cosmology, this is how the Jewish people thought about God as Father.

What does that make any difference for us when we come to God in prayer? Because that's ultimately what we want to ask. What did it mean for them? And how does that help us to do? Well, when you come to God in prayer and you begin with the phrase, our father, and you are reminded as you slow down and think, okay, this is the God who is aware of our circumstances. This is a God who makes promises and fulfills them. He can be trusted. This is the perfect parent who knows what we need. There's a compassion. There's an empathy.

And there's a relational site. That's really warm and amazing. But can he actually do anything about my circumstances? The very next line answers that, oh yeah, he is the cosmic creator that holds the whole universe into place. And what's more, he's not just a distant God. He's a present God. So it talks about his power and his presence within his fatherly or parental nature to want the best for us and for us to be in a relationship where we can trust God despite whatever circumstances we have. So when you just start off, you go, what kind of a God am I praying to? It's an all-knowing, all-aware, loving, compassionate, cosmic creator who is as close to me as the air that I breathe.

So he's in all the heavens, right? He's all over. I think the presence he's here. His presence, yeah. Yeah, he's there, but he's also here. We talk a little bit about that in the film. We have Dr. Gien, he talks about quantum entanglement and just the idea of how they've been able to measure people, you know, connecting at a cellular level on different parts of the earth. And he's like, that's the God that we're praying to.

So yeah, it's, yeah, you get a big telescope. You're like, wow, it's, you know, light years, light years, light years expanse, but it's also like inside as well. So there's the outer verse, there's the innerverse and God's in all of it. So the prayer starts out very humble, you know, like a know your place in the universe, know who's over the universe, know where he at. Yeah, yeah, but he's also your dad. Yeah, but he's also your dad.

Family relationship. Yeah. But I think you're struggling in the time with a lot of. spiritual arrogance also. Like, we know the truth, and we're waiting for it to show up. And it shows up and we're like, it's not here yet. It's not here yet. And it's like, no, it's here.

It's right here. I actually am here. And I think that was just interesting to me that, you know, the Son of God is standing in front of these guys that spent their whole life studying the scriptures and nothing, no quantum entanglement to the Son of God being in their presence. Talk about losing the plot. You know, like, the guy you're waiting for is right here. this son of the most high and you don't,

there's nothing in your spirit says, hey, this guy's different, you know, like you're completely, on the road to Amos they did, in our hearts burn with us. Yeah, they burn,

they burn with it. Yeah, and again, it's just part of it, it's just the, the broken expectation. Yeah, it's classic, classic image bearer move.

Yeah. We're good at it. But I think we, you know, we don't like to humbly approach sort of anything as humans. We kind of like to come out of with like,

you know, I got this. I got what it takes. Or I want to be in control. Yeah. Yeah. But then that's the thing that's so cool about, and we'll get down wherever you want to go with this. But speaking of the fact of N.T. Right,

he talks about even when we get to the part of just daily bread, not to bypass the rest of it, but he says the problem when we pray for daily bread is that we get there too soon. For many people, when they do go to God in prayer, it's a laundry list of these are all the things that I need. And when you realize that the place where you ask for something is much later in the prayer.

The whole beginning of the prayer is to frame what existence is supposed to look like so that you actually know what you should be praying for. Right? And so when you start off with our father in the heavens, you're going very humbly, like I'm coming before the creator of the universe,

who loves me as the perfect parent, who's as near to me as the air that I am breathing, and he's also powerful, but he's not distant. Because sometimes that's the issue is when people go, well, our father, who are in heaven? Well, God is somewhere far away. He's watching us from a distance.

You know? Not he's in the midst of this conversation right now. It is interesting. The petitions come later in the prayer. The next line is as holy is your name or how it be your name, right? So it's like you're here, you're above it all. And man, you're holy. So something I can't touch, right? Yeah. But that's one of the questions that we also pose is. So God's name is supposed to be holy. Why does that matter? Like what? I don't want to be, you know, sacrilegious. What does it matter if God's name is holy, right? Because we hear that hallowed be that name.

It's probably the most archaic kind of word in there. Like we don't use the word allowed, you know. The old king James. If you hear it a new, like it brings, it's supposed to remind you how precious the name of God is. But even more than that, the word holy or hallowed is in Hebrew, the word kadoosh, which means to be separate, to be distinct, to be other than. And all throughout scripture, God is saying, I am not like the other gods and goddesses. Right? Yeah. I am distinct and I am holy. But here's the thing that's so cool is that there's a two-sided aspect to holy be your name.

On the one hand, what you're praying is, God, I want people to see you for who you truly are, that you are accurately represented. You know, so often God is misrepresenting. But here's the thing that God did very tangibly in the Hebrew scriptures, the Older Testament, is that when he brought the Israelites out of Egypt and he brought them to Mount Sinai, and he starts to give them his, we say, law, it's actually the word Torah, which means teachings,

instructions, God's instructions for life. The whole thing at Sinai in Exodus 19 and 20 is actually a marriage ceremony. It parallels a marriage ceremony where God says, I am uniting with you as a people, people. I am giving you my teachings, my instructions, because here's the other big thing. I'm actually giving you my name. You are going to bear my name. And you even see this in the Ten Commandments, the commandment that says you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

We think of that in terms of, well, just don't use God's name inappropriately. Don't be throwing any GDs around. Yeah. And actually, don't be yelling. Don't be yelling haste when you hit your toe. Well, and here's the thing is in the Hebrew, it literally reads, you shall not miscarry the name of the Lord your God. And God keeps reminding them, even with the Aaronic blessing, the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face it shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord turns face you and give you his peace.

The very next line, God says, in giving this instruction to Aaron and his sons to speak over the Israelites, he says, and in doing so, you will put my name on my people. It's like a bride taking a last name. Yeah, exactly. Like Queenie taking Edwards. This is where context is just kind of like, you know, it really is mind-blowing. You really have to read it, understand it differently than just, you know, open it up.

I think in our, at least in the U.S., the way I grew up, it's like Bible roulette, you know, open it up, read it. Okay, do this. Is that written for me? Like, it's so different. And so that's what we're hoping to do. It keeps open up to Song of Solomon. I don't know how this roulette keeps doing.

Yeah, I just keep getting there. Keep getting there. Yeah, it does. It's interesting, you know, I mean, most of us fathers who have a moment with our children, it often feels kind of mind-blowing when they look at you and they go, thank you for this, that, and the other. Yeah. You know what I mean?

And you're kind of like, whoa, you kind of like caught off guard because you're so used to being in this, like, I'm just giving to this relationship here. And every once in a while, it's like, oh, there's some. There's some connection here. There's some feedback here. A little bit of gratitude goes a long way. Yeah, it does. I had a while moment with my youngest son.

He thanked me for changing one of his last diapers. And I remember being dumbfounded because it was like, he's two and a half years old. And he goes, thank you, Daddy, for taking care of me. And I thought, this is my first kid. This is not how it's going to go. And it was a moment that I never forget because I was like, I don't know what happens in his, what happened in his mind, but he, he acknowledged what I was doing. And I never expected him.

I thought, you're going to say that when you're 30, you know, like maybe one day. You're like, you get to do that for me in a few years. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And it changed my life in a way of like, wow, this is really like I can understand a little bit more when I read the Lord's Prayer now thinking, God, I'm a father, and I understand that connection. I understand that, like, longing. And I understand that like, but also that's not the purpose.

I didn't have kids to, you know, boost my ego. I wanted to learn about what it's like to love something with all my heart and not necessarily. It could hurt. He could hurt me, you know, and we have, I don't really know what, that's a whole podcast. But in this prayer, it sets it up with like you, you kind of put yourself in this relationship. Like, you see where he is, where you are, you're posturing, your humility. But there's also family. There's an invitation.

God is holy, but he's here. I think oftentimes we just roll in and be like, hey, what am I getting? What's up? What do I want? You know, we know that doesn't work in relationships with females. You can't just be like, this is what I want. You have to kind of go through that you have to sort of introduce, you know, how's your day?

What's going on, the whole things? But men, we can get very. That's five podcasts. We can get very just right to the point. I want to come back for the song of Solomon. Yeah. We could just go, give it. our bread. We've got a lot of material for that.

But I mean, this of itself is like, it's like a closeness, but then it's also this reverence. Like so, yes, he's close in here. Yeah. And yes, he's our dad, but also he's. He's holy. He's holy and he's not to be messed with. We've seen what he can kind of, you know. Well, and this is the thing, this is the part of the prayer

where it starts to get into the participatory. Because when God unites with his people and says, you're going to bear my name and what you do is going to be a message to the world of what I'm like, which is why God is giving all these instructions. He's basically saying, this is what I value, and this is what you are to value if you're going to be in relationship and represent me in the world. Well, when they didn't do that and they got exiled, what you see the prophets keep talking about is you profaned the name of the Lord by how you lived. And there was a point where God was like, you can't misrepresent me anymore.

I need to let you know the severity of what you've done. And he puts them into exile. And he says there will come a time where I'm going to reinstate the holiness of my name because you have profaned it among the nations. So the idea of pricked that. Oh, well, and that's also the thing is you recognize, like if you are a follower of Jesus,

you are the message of Jesus to a watching world. Yeah. The question is, is are you represent? him well. When you say, God, I want people to have an accurate representation of you. You represent God and what you do, you know. About, I don't know, it was maybe a year and a half ago. My family and I were on vacation and we were at the beach and my kids were playing and they were like, you know, we want something, something to drink. There you go. Kids asking for something, you know. And so I go over to the Tiki Hut and I get to the Tiki Hut and I'm putting in the orders for the

Cokes and the Lemonades and all that kind of stuff is I got four kids and don't know how I'm going to carry all this. And I turned to my. my left and there was a gal there who was in her 20s. She's on one of the swings, little rope swings. And she's clearly had way too much to drink. She is just belting at the top of her lungs. She's being obnoxious and it is like you could tell she was completely trashed.

And I looked and she had Yodhaye Vavhe, God's intimate, personal, holy name tattooed on her arm in huge letters. And I remember going, walking away going, yeah, what we do matters. She's literally bearing the name of God, you know, but we all bear the name of God. And what we do is an indication to others who God is and what he is like. And so there's that moment where there is that reverence for who God is. And then in the same moment you're going, oh, and I represent that name in the world.

I got a name on my jersey. That man Oshivets can sneak up on them. I think one of the things that I learned in the storytelling process is bearing God's name is a reminder of the mission. Like there is a mission inside of this. If you look at where Canaan is on the map, it's legitimately the center. Why would God give them that land? Why would he want him, why would he want his firstborn son to bear his name, geographically because everyone passes through it. It's literally the center. He wants to tell everyone

else about his mission, about his name, and how he is the way and he is the truth. So if you look at the trade routes, I mean, Israel, Canaan is literally the center. Everyone has to get through there. So stuff like that, you know, again, when you learn it in context, you're like, wow, I didn't realize that. It's important. He's trying and instructing us and wanting us to bear his name, what that means is to live like him, to follow him, to be all of the virtues. I mean, most of the, most of the Old Testament law and instruction is really like, here's how this practically works. You know, here's how you deal with your donkey running over, your neighbors, you know, olive tree. Like, here's how to do it practically because it all

glorifies him. It all is his way. It's actually going to point people to him and keep people to him. So it's really a lot bigger than just, this is an awesome name. It's a whole lifestyle. Yeah. So you're an awesome god. Your will be done on earth as is in heaven. I think oftentimes we have discussions on the podcast about how earth mirrors heaven, not the other way around. We ripped off a lot of things from heaven. Angels interacted with us, gave us information, other things that we, the weirder parts of the Bible we talk about all the time. But I, I I don't think we came up with a lot of these ideas originally. So there's something we're doing down here is mirroring there.

There's a will there, it's a will here, but they seem to be often very similar. You know, we talk a lot about how there's tables in heaven. They're having meals. They're hanging out. What happens in our minds to think, do you think ancients were having a hard time wrapping their mind around? What goes on up there? What does it mean your will? Aren't it just like a thousand spirits just singing to you all day long?

Is that all that's happening up there? Well, isn't that what kind of, when it got into recently was just that idea that the ancient paradigm was that heaven and earth were so intimately connected, on overlapping. So when Jesus is saying your kingdom coming, you will be down on earth as it is in heaven, how are we meant to read that in context? What are your thoughts on that, Brian? Yeah, and the unlock is the word kingdom. Because that is, you know, most people when they think about, why did Jesus come, right? The thought is Jesus came to die in order to save us. from our sins in order that we could go to heaven after we die. That's part of it, but that's a very,

very narrow understanding of what Jesus was doing. Jesus didn't come just to die. Jesus came to live. Jesus came to demonstrate in flesh and blood what God's will and way looks like being lived out here on earth. And 50 times in the gospel of Matthew alone, the kingdom is referenced. The kingdom of heaven is like this. It's like this. And so you go, what is the kingdom of heaven? because when we think of kingdom of heaven, we think about something that's like way out there. Like city of God, right? Right.

But it's also not just kingdom of heaven. It's also called kingdom of God. And so fantastic passage, Psalm 115, verse 16, says, the highest heavens belong to the Lord, but the earth he has given to humankind. And what the writer is there is talking about realms. And Dallas Willard in his brilliant book, Divine Conspiracy, defined realm or kingdom

as the range of your effective will, meaning if you have this range of effective will, for all intent and purposes, it's a kingdom. Like, you have a kingdom, you have a kingdom, you have a kingdom, you have a kingdom. Like, it's a little K kingdom. We don't use this language very often. Everyone wants to say, my kingdom for this, you know, for a... Right, exactly. For a cold drink or whatever it is, you know.

But the reason why the writer is saying the highest heavens, which is now going back to the cosmology, belongs to the Lord, heaven or the highest heavens is a realm where the things are as God intends them to be. God's will, God's way, it happens in heaven. The earth is different. Why? Genesis 3, messed everything up. And so what's fascinating about when Adam and Eve take from the tree,

sin, death, brokenness, pain, you could summarize it, chaos, entered into the human order, God doesn't just scrap it all and say, well, that didn't work the way I thought, let's just start over. God goes, I'm gonna put the whole thing back together. And when he chooses Abraham and his descendants to be the bearer of his blessing that's supposed to go to all nations, they're struggling to live out that mission to the point that when Jesus shows up from within Israel to get right what has been made wrong, Jesus shows up on the scene and he says, the kingdom of heaven is now.

Like it's arriving. Like we use this language, the kingdom is already and but not yet. it's actually more biblical to say the kingdom is already with even more to come. And when Jesus shows up and he makes this proclamation, what we see is that that phrase, kingdom of God or kingdom of heaven, actually doesn't show up in the Old Testament. But the idea the kingdom is all over the place. Right. What happened was is after the events of the Old Testament concluded, before the gospel events began,

that intertestimental period among the sages and rabbis, they solidified. this language of kingdom of heaven or kingdom of God so that when Jesus shows up and uses the phrase, everybody knows what he's talking about. And what he is talking about is what they were anticipating is that all throughout the scriptures, God is talking about that there will come a time where he's going to act with power unprecedented since the fall in Genesis chapter 3. And the language they ascribe to that was the kingdom of heaven, meaning the goodness and the power that is in heaven is going to start taking up residence on earth. And so when Jesus says, pray, you know, our father in the heavens, the one,

you rule and reign on high, you are holy, your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, Jesus is talking about how are you partnering with God to see the goodness and power of heaven to take up residence here? And this was like for me, the moment where everything, like, because Jesus didn't come just to take us from here to go there. Right, it's not escapism. Everything he's talking about is how do you get the goodness and power of heaven to take up residence here? So it's like there's a dominion versus saying like you have dominion here.

And it's saying that you're playing apart in are you going to align your little K kingdom to the kingdom? Right. So that not only when you're doing what God is asking you to do, you experience the goodness and restoration in your own life, but then you become a conduit through which God works through you to impact other people because you have a realm of influence. That's actually the word I was going to use exactly.

We expand the dominion of heaven in the sense we've used this language before. Like we are the regents, if you will, or the governors of this space. God gave it to Adam and by birthright it's for humans, right? Yeah. Which is why we'll judge angels. According to Paul's, because this is not their place. The dominion belongs to us. but we can also, what we can give that dominion,

which God already has, but he can work through us to regain or reclaim. So when making a film, sometimes there's like a story within a story, sometimes there's like an opening scene that is the whole movie and then you kind of see it. Oh, the end is the beginning, yeah. Yeah, you see it backwards.

So obviously your filmmaker, is the Lord's Prayer like an encompassing film, like movie of all of it? Like when you pull out the data, it's like, well, that kind of started there and that goes Genesis language and that it moves through. Or are there any other relationships, stories in the Old Testament, for example, that mirror the Lord's prayer? Yeah.

We see it all connected. Yeah. It's the whole story. Jesus's entire life is on the canvas of the Exodus story. Like that is the template. It all goes back to Exodus. Now, brokenness, everything that Jesus came to redeem and restore goes all the way back to the very beginning. You know, pretty much everything in the Bible can be.

traced back to Genesis 1, 2, and 3. It's all sitting there. But for Jesus, he's coming as a second Moses to lead a new Exodus. God first shows up his father in the Exodus story. Everything is about why does God rescue Israel in the first place? Is it just because they're enslaved? No, it's because God made a promise to Abraham all the way back in Genesis 12. I'm going to bless you and the whole world is going to be blessed through you. And when Israel's enslaved in Egypt, the plan can't do what the plan is designed to do. Right. Right. God says, I've brought you out. and I brought you to myself. Like that's how Exodus 19,

I carried you on eagle's wings and I brought you to myself and then he says, do you want to be in partnership with me? And their response is yes. And then God goes, then the whole restoration movement is underway.

And that's what the whole Bible is about. You know, when Joel said earlier, the Lord's Prayer, and this is something that Jonathan, Dr. Jonathan Pennington, who's in the film, just brilliant observation. He's like,

the center of everything Jesus, was doing is contained in the Sermon on the Mount. Like that is the kingdom manifesto. In the Sermon on the Mount, the center of the Sermon on the Mount is the Lord's Prayer. The center of the Lord's Prayer is kingdom come. So the kingdom part is the center of the center of the center. Whereas for us, we often think in terms of,

okay, the best is at the end, right? We've got the end of the fireworks display, that's the end. Here's the crescendo. We think in terms of a rise to a top. They did it in a way where, it was actually, they're kind of doing this in a way where you're laying it out and you get to the middle and then you come back down.

It's like a literary sandwich. What is in the middle? It's a caism, exactly. Yeah. That's what the whole Lord's prayer is centered around because once you realize that you have been deployed by God to partner with him to see his will and his way advance in the world, then the rest of the,

the prayer, these are the petitions I need in order to make this a reality. Because you just hit the culminating point of the entire prayer, which is the kingdom. And again, kingdom is referenced 50 times alone in the gospel of Matthew. We like to say for 2,000 years, people have been teaching Jesus. The problem is, is that his message hasn't always been included. So how would they have understood as quickly do you think, how are they have understood on earth that is in heaven? How would they have understood that? You know, there's that whole sort of paradigm where God is far and he's away, but that wasn't their paradigm. No, no, and they actually, and this is one of the things that was kind of a fallacy around

the Lord's prayers, that a lot of people say, well, Jesus instituted a very personal way of engaging with God. If you actually go through Jewish prayers, it is very intimate, it is very personal. But the thing is, is that's so cool about your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as is in heaven, is it comes on the heels of holy be your name. What are they all intimately aware about? We did not carry God's name well. We went into exile. and now that we're in the land, but they still felt like that they were in exile, it was we get to partner with God

in such a way where God's goodness gets to flow through us as a community and that we have the ability to impact other people. So if you just tangibly say, so how do we live that out? We all have influence. We all have resources. We all have gifts and talents.

And the question becomes, is our waking moment, when we get up in the morning, how do I advance my kingdom, my cause, what I want to have happen in the world, or do we say, God, how do I take what you have given to me in order to use that in a way that your will, in your way, gets out there? And that's what you're praying about is,

how am I going to live my life today that partners with the king of the universe who wants to work with me wherever he's placed us? You know, this is the thing is God, God wants people in all facets of society and all aspects of, you know, media and film and nonprofit and for profit in business and education and all of that. And that's how they would have understood it is we are collaborating with God to see his will and his way advance here and now. And I get to be a part of it. I think the first time I thought about something like that was like when I was a kid and we learned about the Underground Railroad. and how like, you know, they were, you know, all working together.

Yeah, that's a great analogy. They're all working together. They all had jobs during the day. Yeah. But then at night they're like doing God's work and rescuing people. And somehow there's this network. And they all have this quantum entanglement of some kind to send and help. And it's like multiple things going on at once.

Yeah, I have my house, but you can use my house. And we can actually like. It's also a train station now. My house is also a train station. Yeah. It stops here. Yeah. But you also realize everybody's working together for a singular mission.

Yeah, exactly. And that's what this whole prayer is supposed to do is to remind you that you're not alone. This whole prayer is in the plural. Yeah. You're banding together to go, how do we understand who God is and what he wants in the world? And then how do I enact that through what I have in front of me and what God has gifted me to do? It's crazy. I'm looking at this prayer here.

And I never really realized it is a chaos. It's fascinating because it's like, the way that it goes, it's like, you're our father, you're holy, your kingdom. And then it's give us, forgive us, lead us, deliver us. Yours is the kingdom. You're powerful and holy. Just a reminder. Oh yeah, and this is who we're praying to.

It reads, and we've talked about chyazms in scripture, which is really, really interesting when it gets to prophecy and things like that. But interesting that he, that he even, this is the way he presents it as well. Like Jesus is saying this is, because it is, it's repetitive in a way. It works to the middle, then it works back out in the same way. So after heaven, we give us this day our daily bread, forgive us our debts as we are forgiven our debtors. So after you've acknowledged who God is and he's a father, he's holy, God, your will, right? Your kingdom, your will.

Now I got a couple things I need, right? Right. Which is, so where does this go and how do we read through the rest of the prayer? Obviously, like, we need something. We owe something. Yeah. You know. Well, if you go back to the quote from NT,

right, the problem with asking for bread is we get there too soon. Now that you understand who you're praying to, you're reminded of that, right? You're reminded that you get a part to play. You're called to represent God's name well. God has given you gifts and abilities and opportunities, steward them well to advance what he wants in the world. And you submitted your will till you're like yours, right? It's, yeah. Maybe I need something to. Yeah. Well, and here's the great part about daily bread is that that is something that is used in scripture to just denote what do you need? It's like manna. You know, and it does.

The first thing that would have thought of is God providing daily bread for 40 years in the desert in the midst of their vulnerable circumstances as he was training them to be his message bearers in the world. Because as Joel mentioned, they're in the desert for 40 years. And the reason why they're in the desert for 40 years is that, you know, you can take the people out of Egypt, but it's going to take a long time to get Egypt out of the people.

And God is training them so that when he does put them in to the most highly trafficked, area of the entire ancient world. As Joel mentioned, like everybody's going through there. It's a water bridge connecting the Red Sea to the Med Sea. It's a land bridge connecting Egypt to everywhere else in the world. You know, that's in that part of the eastern Mediterranean world. God's going to put them in the most highly trafficked area because he's once, as the nations are coming through to see how you run your business, how you conduct your, how you treat one another. What do you do with the poor and needy among you? That's going to point people

to go. These people are different. They're different. Why do you do it that way? Do you feel like this prayer is a daily exodus? Like we all think, oh, well, now I would have done that that way. I wouldn't have been Peter and denied Christ. I wouldn't, but it's almost like when you read, before you read the prayer, you're in the desert and you're training yourself to come out of the desert. Or you just put yourself back into slavery because of what you did that day, right? So you're sort of setting yourself, you're asking God to set you free. Well, it's, you're recalibrating. Yeah. There's some real power in liturgy, and there's a reason why the Orthodox Church is the largest growing church right now.

Yeah. You know, as we go into 2006. It's a rhythm. I mean, there's just, there's something to it. And I think throughout this process for me, I kind of relearned that and learned to re-appreciate it again. That there is something about muscle memory and just repetition. It's kind of where Brad went at the top, right, that we find these ancient manuscript from it at the very end of the first second century. and it's like, do this three times a day.

Right. Like, so do this. I mean, I think we sort of, man, I don't know how we separate ourselves in some ways in a weird way. This is like, this is the prayer that Jesus, the incarnate creator of the universe told us this how you should pray. And we sort of just sort of like, that's cool. Right. I'm still going to be like, hey, God, need this.

You know, we kind of do our own lazy human thing, which is what the Bible was about anyone. I think we're always, we've always think we've gotten, we've gotten the degree, we've graduated. and it's like, nah, school's just starting. Yeah. I think that's the prayer to me. It's like school's just starting. Right. Yesterday you got your degree, but today you're starting all over again.

You're a freshman degree. Well, you even go back to Acts chapter one. Jesus has died. He's been resurrected and he's back with his disciples and it says for 40 days he's with him and he's teaching them about the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God. It's like, okay, boy, summer school. Yeah. Like I was with you for three years and you still didn't understand what this was all about.

So summer school, you know? And I think this is a big thing that Joel and I just had the, we just kept talking about was the Lord's Prayer is probably the most powerful thing Jesus ever gave us. That's the most underutilized of anything he ever gave. Because we don't recognize the power that's behind it. And this is one of the things that, you know, for me seven years ago when I was on this journey, is that I just was like, I am not going to go another day of my life, not saying this prayer.

And that was really the goal when we set this out to do the film, the television series, to do the book, is that we wanted people to engage it and be so compelled to go, I can't afford to not go another day of my life not saying this prayer because it's the very, it's the North Star,

it's the anchor, it's the blueprint, it's the thing that recalibrates you to what you're supposed to do. And even the idea of daily bread, so often if you just kind of like write down, irrespective of saying the rest of the prayer, whatever, what you're normally asking for, you're supposed to pause at Daily Bread and go,

am I asking for something that's actually gonna help me with the mission or could this actually detract me from the mission? And if God actually gave this to me, I might think God's not being good, but God's actually keeping me from the very things that's going to derail the very thing he wants to do in my life. That's good.

And so it's a, what do I need for the mission at hand? Now that I am reminded, it's all about kingdom come, God's rule and reign, advancing here on earth, pushing out the chaos. Now when I'm asking for something, I'm asking for the very things that God, I need this to do the mission that you have commissioned me to do. That's what I need to be recalibrated to. I love there's so much space in the prayer too to like dream a little bit too. Yeah. I mean, I think it's interesting as kids, you know, like speaking of school, we all said the pledge of the allegiance, you know. Don't do it anymore. At Christian school, we didn't do the Lord's Prayer.

I can't believe we had more reverence for the Pledge of the Legion. Did you have the Christian flag, though? Yeah, we did. That's a relic. But we should have been doing the Lord's. I'm both in my school. But I think it was a Catholic thing, so we didn't do it, right? Which is sad.

It's definitely not a Catholic thing. It's a Jesus thing. Well, yeah. But I mean. Yeah, but that's how you. A Catholic school thing. You know, I think we were at Baptists running our school. So they were not going to do anything like that.

But you know what I mean? Like it was a board of those kinds of dudes. And I just think it's sad because you grew up and you missed an opportunity to really think about the Lord's Prayer. Because I think obviously once Jesus finally goes, then they're starting to put it together. And I think as adults, we think about, oh yeah, I remember that as a kid. That happened. That makes sense now. And it's like you plant a seed.

Sometimes it takes 40 years to grow. and I think that if they planted this seed in a lot of our children, it would grow one day when they needed it. When they're actually like, oh, man, life is hard, life is terrible. I have this horrible attitude. I can't see anything. I'm not grateful for anything. I don't know what to do.

And then you can think back to, remember when they see the Lord's Prayer with Dad. And now I'm starting to see that that could change my perspective. But we didn't grow up with it. So we don't. Well, it's funny. I think that that is a symptom of so many different pieces of our faith and our practice and how we actually walk this out daily.

I think it's with the Lord's Prayer, it's with a lot of liturgy in general. And again, there's a reason why the Orthodox traditions are just growing right now. They're exploding. And I think that there's this muscle memory. We talk about 10,000 hours that now with all the distractions and social media

and everything now needs to be 20,000 hours. There's something about like repetition, repetition, repetition. Just writing it on your heart. It is literally writing it on your heart. And I think, you know, this project took so long to get done. It's just, it's interesting timing. You know, we talk about God's timing. Like, this is interesting timing that this thing is now releasing.

It's available now. We've got the show coming out next year. And people are so hungry for it. We had a premiere. 1600 people came to the premiere. On less than three weeks notice. Like, that's crazy. I did not come.

There is a, yeah, Luke didn't. I was invited. It was so, yeah. It's a tough season, there was so, there's so much hunger for the audience. I wanted to be there, though, by the way, if we qualified that, I wanted to be there. There is so much hunger for this. People are interested. And so when we talk about teaching it to our kids and maybe we didn't get it, well, maybe there's a reason why so much of the church is deconstructed.

So much of the church is lost. They're like, we don't understand this. It's out of context. Well, it's because we haven't been really locking into it. So I'm excited in just my own story to be learning and growing and have a hunger. I just have such a hunger for this. And so that's why the project for me was like, we have to do this by any means.

Took a very long time to get it into the end zone. A lot of challenges along the way. Do you think there's any nuance to this daily bread just a little bit? Because I'm reminded of the part that at some point, Israel always complained. So there's actually, like we're tired of eating this. Yeah, this is a cool thing.

And we do more in the episode in the episode on this particular phrase. than we do in the film. We hit two facets in the film. There's actually three facets. There's a past, present, and future component to daily bread to Jesus' audience. The first thing that when Jesus says,

give us a stay our daily bread, their minds would have gone back to the 40 years that they're in the wilderness where God provides daily bread, manna, and God's like, I'm going to give you what's essential. Which is really when you're asking for daily bread, what's essential?

That's really the question that's being asked. But there was also a present reality, which was the Romans were ruling the world. And Rome started in 123 BC, they started something in Latin called the Anona, which was a daily bread dole for the citizens in Rome. In order to feed the citizens in Rome, bread lines.

It was. They're passing out bread. But here's the reason. Italy is a phenomenal country for growing grapes and vines and doing wine. Terrible for brimony. for bread, for growing barley, grain, wheat. And so...

The irony that they like pasta so much in bread. But that was the thing, too, is they were constantly trying to make sure that there was enough bread to feed the citizens in Rome. And actually, when they took Egypt, they, I mean, they hit the lottery. I mean, Egypt became the bread basket for the Roman Empire. But whenever that there was a shortage of bread, the other provinces had to give their bread in order to ensure that bread was the daily bread of Rome was given. And so you had to take for me in order for somebody else to get.

Right. So it was a reminder of the hardship that you were under with the Romans because for the Jewish people, they're on the eastern frontier. Like they're the backwaters of the empire. And they recognize, like, things are really, really, really difficult. And so there's a recognition around, man, we need to band together in order for us to have our daily bread. And this is the other thing.

I love one of the things that you said too about. Like, you're supposed to slow down dream, like let it sink in. When you're praying even give us this day our daily bread, we're getting back to the plural, is that part of this is a moment. We talk about this in the film. Not everybody on that hillside was poor.

You've got Matthew on that hillside that day, who was a tax collector. The dude is doing very good. He's got more than daily bread. He's got a lot of bread. Exactly, but here's the so, this is what's so cool. He's got Ziki sauce too. He does.

He does. He does. Got the humus. Yeah. Is that when you pray, give us this day our daily bread, it's also a moment where you're supposed to pause and to say, do I have more than what I need? And can I actually be the answer to somebody else's prayer for daily bread? That's good.

Yeah, because you take too much bread, it gets moldy. And that would have been a thing that they would remember. The maggots are part of the story. And it's so part of it is, and then there's a whole, as, you know, a future, again, connected to a second Moses. This goes back to a tradition that when the new Moses, the Messiah is going to show up, he's going to reinstitute the giving of daily bread, the treasure of manna and heaven's going to be open. This is actually then written down in Second Baruch, which is contemporary, like 100 years after the time of Jesus' birth, about 100 AD, you have. have this. So there's this whole thing around that when the Messiah comes, he's going to give bread, which is, by the way, the whole discussion between Jesus and the religious leaders and the

Copernum synagogue in John chapter 6. Just flipping tables, baby. You know what's interesting about this as I'm reading this, we're halfway through this prayer, is it, it's very obvious to me that it's not a toxic relationship. And I think a toxic relationship is unbalanced completely. It's all about this person and it's a little bit about me. But you have our father, you're holy, you know, your kingdom's here, you're with us, you're hanging out with us, you're spending time with us. It's happening there, it's happening here. And you give us bread, you know, and then you forgive us our debts, which is the next line. As we forgive other people, we're also involved. It's not a toxic. And I think every relationship with the gods, which we argue were real, ultimately it was toxic. Ultimately,

they had a bait and switch situation, but this prayer is showing like, no, we're all in this. and I see your place in this, but I'm also like, you got to humble yourself. Yeah, I'm calling you to this vocationary, right? Because part of the daily bread is like, oh, if you've got too much, you've got to give. I'm giving.

Or be generous. Yeah. Like generosity, because this is one of the things that we talk about in the film, which is if everybody's living with this posture of, if I have something that you need and I'm willing to give, it's not socialism.

This is just, this is how communities work together. If everybody has that mentality, then everybody's going to have their daily bread. Well, socialism is you're forced to do it. Right. So you completely lose the plot. Right. You don't have any generosity.

Like, damn, I have to give this thing or else I'm going to lose it. But taxes. And I would say the next line, forgive our debts as we forgive our debtors. As we also have forgiven our debtors. Yeah, yeah. It isn't actual debts, I would say. This feels like something, it's like we understand debts, but there's some relational debts or something.

Well, it's also sins. I mean, there's some different. The Greek word behind that. can be translated in English a number of different ways. But yeah, it's basically all the ways that we've failed to each other. Trespass is falling short. Yeah, fallen short. Yeah.

And this is a great part of- Your friend's band name and youth group. Fallen short, yeah. Yeah. Right? Yeah. That's awesome. That's all right.

So we've fallen short. So, I mean, obviously the whole world can't go debt-free. That's impossible. Somebody's got to pay for something. Well, and here's the thing too is if you think about God's mobilizing his community to bear his name, to live in such a way that his kingdom is advancing through them, they're being generous with one another, they're locked in on the vision, they know what they need to do. The number one thing that will cripple a relationship is unforgiveness. We heard each other. It's the human experience. And so part of this is

because here's the thing about this prayer is we can look at this now post the empty tomb and go, okay, daily, I am reminded of how much God has forgiven me. Jesus gave this prayer before he went to a cross into an empty tomb, right? So immediately they're going, God, forgive us as we are forgiving one another. It's this realization that the impetus is always, God is the first mover. God is the one who is making this thing happen. We're reminded that before we could do anything, God forgave us that Jesus came into the world and we're reminded that we have been forgiven so much and now we need to learn to forgive others because it's not, hey, accept my forgiveness, right? And then if you can get around to giving forgiveness to one another, it's forgive us our

debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. The implication is you are going to do that. It's not an option you're going to be intentionally doing it. The challenge now becomes how do you become good at forgiveness because it is the most painful part of the human existence relationally. And what's stuck with me too about unforgiveness is we've had a number of exorcists deliverance pastors, et cetera on the show talking about that. And the thing they always come back to is like you don't need to be, it's not Ouija boards, it can be that. It's not these really overtly evil things. He's like oftentimes a foothold people give for the demonic in their lives is unforgiveness. That's the door and the window,

which I think is like ultimate, it's very convicting. Because I think in, some ways we probably all harbor some unforgiveness somewhere, right? And if we're, I think it's interesting that it's called out here explicitly that we forgive, we've been forgiven our debts, so we forgive those that owe us, right? Whether that be monetarily or we feel like we're owed, we've been, there's been an injustice, right? Yeah, right. Yeah, we could be the toxic person. Totally. We can think we get more than we have to give. And it's always, it's like a balancing, a full, because I think you can lose your yourself on one of the one of the one of the one of the one of the I don't need god at all or I'm just

that Bible thumping guy at church is just it's like okay bro you know like it's just too much yeah like your you're you're you're you're no balance here you're not even like I just feel like we can control God or we can we can be do it on our own and I and I think like this prayer because it feels like it's constantly pulling you back into the center of see where you are in this prayer see where you are in the universe and then operate according to Well, we actually spent a lot of time on this forgiveness piece in the film. Probably the most time was spent on the forgiveness side of it because it's so hard. You know, it's so painful, you know?

Yeah. But I remember a number of years ago I came across Dr. Robert Enright, who was considered the father of forgiveness research. So he had done the most work around forgiveness. It's quite the vocation to sign up for. How do you dress for that job? Is it dressed for the job you want? I'm going to be the guy in forgiveness. But it was fascinating because he said in one.

Bulletproof vest. He said in 100% of cases, those who struggled to unforgive had a misunderstanding of what forgiveness was and what it was not. And so it's an important piece, and we actually spent two chapters on that in bringing heaven here to really help people to understand the importance of forgiveness,

but also how to do it, because it's just a really challenging aspect. But you're always supposed to begin with the recognition of how much God has forgiven you. you and allow God to be the one that empowers you to do the very thing that you may think you can't do on your own. And we actually have this amazing illustration. It's a great juxtaposition too. You're like all of the crap that I've done and God's forgiven me. Like it becomes small peanuts it seems like. Yeah. And sort of that you weigh the scales. And what do you think about the next line?

You know, obviously and lead us not into temptation. I mean, does, I think that's probably confusing for some people. It's very confusing. Off the bat. But I would say that the whole prayer is that God is involved in every aspect of our life. So clearly he's leading us places. He's giving us food. He's forgiving us. He's calling us into a relationship. And then so he's not just going to be like, all right, and then have fun. Go on your way to Mordor. Yeah. Good luck. And we, this is one of those things where, again, where does it show up in the prayer? It's the last thing. Like this is the last line. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever was actually something that was added later

to tie up the prayer. People are open up their Bibles. They're not going to see for yours as the kingdom or for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. The prayer actually ends with, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. And when you just realize where we're at in the prayer, it's like if you are successful in the rest of the prayer,

hell's coming after you. Opposition. Blurry, that's blurry. It's very blurry. And this is a thing too is, there were two major moments in Jesus' life and ministry where he experiences extreme temptation. It's in the desert.

Yeah. And it's also in Gethsemit. It's not explicitly stated Satan's presence there, but all the echoes of what was happening in the desert is showing up in the Garden of Getsemit. And what you see here is even, you know, Pope Francis had the language clarified because according to James chapter one,

God does not tempt people. People when they're being tempted can't say God's tempting me because God cannot be tempted by evil nor does he tempt anyone. That's what James writes in James chapter 1. And so the language of temptation

can also be translated as to a time of testing. And the idea is that you're going to be in moments where God does not tempt Satan tempts, but God will test. Or allow it, right? Job.

It's Job. And the idea is that when these moments come, when hell's throwing its best at you, you need to be aware that you do not live in a neutral existence. This earth is not neutral. Right. Right. Because of Genesis 3, this is not neutral.

Like the forces of good and the forces of evil, Shalom versus chaos, it's all dukeing it out here and now. And if we're going to be part of the kingdom of light, when we are a threat to the kingdom of darkness, then you're going to experience opposition. and it's a reminder every day to wake up to the war that we are in. Yeah.

For our soul, for our mind, for our ideas, for our attention. Yeah. Because that's everything Satan will want to use to derail you from being effective ambassadors of God who is working to see God's kingdom advance on earth as it is in heaven. So throw your phone away, right? Well, I mean, the whole point doesn't give any fear. It's not a prayer of fear. It's like, well, then there's this devil out in the bushes.

He's going to get you. So you better watch out. it's like there's this feeling of even the dark I'm in control over. So even though you're going through things. And I think as fathers, our job is to introduce a little bit of fear and risk for our boys, our sons. It's like mothers will be like, no, you can't do anything that's ever going to hurt you. But dad's like, he's got to learn. He's got to go through.

Put him in the creek. Let him walk. But I'm there. So I'm going to make sure. But if dad doesn't ever introduce any element of danger, kids never learn. And then they become weak. The language is, these things happen, don't let it, don't let us die by these things. Don't let it overtake us, but it's still very much I'm in control of it.

Well, we're not unequipped. Yeah. Like that's part of even when Paul gets to the end, you guys just had the conversation with Tom Wright on on Ephesians. The last part of Ephesians is the armor of God. Why is Paul taking spiritual warfare and connecting it to a Roman soldier and then connecting all of these realities to these. And at the heart of all of that, even you even see this with Jesus is that when he is in the desert and all three of the temptations that Satan throws at him, his response is he quotes scripture. Yeah. If the son of God is quoting scripture

verbally as a way of defeating the temptation that is underway, how much more should we be unleashing the word of God in that way as a way of being able to know? Like, we have weapons and and not to, you know, glorify war in any way, it's just we're in the midst of a spiritual battle and we are not ill-equipped. Like, Jesus came to show us how to engage this world in his terms. And it makes, Brad, it makes sense to me, like, that it seems there's such a war to keep us out of our Bibles too, right?

I mean, it's like every, even like just personally, every time that you set aside, it's like, ah, but this is, this fire needs to be put out and this is happening, or this is buzzing on your phone. When you say that, I'm reminded that, like, if Christ is, as you say, is quote in scripture, is a response to temptation, then we've, we better know what's in our Bibles, right? Because that's the best weapon we have. And yet it does feel like, I mean, there's a war on a million things. There's a war on families and the nuclear family and our kids.

But there's absolutely a war on keeping us out of our Bibles and out of that weapon, as you will, that we've been given. I really thought about it like that. It's so interesting. Have you guys come across John Mark Homer's book, Live No Lies? I know John Mark Homer. I've read a couple of his books. God has a name. Yeah.

Live No Lies is really good. And he's got a section there where he talks about Evagoras, which was, I think he's a fourth century monk. But he wrote a book, and it's called the Handbook for Combating Demons. And what it was is he went through his entire life and he said, where am I susceptible to temptation? And he wrote down every time, like everything that would be. constitute and then he found a passage of scripture in its proper context and that he would write alongside of that. So when he was going through that temptation, these were the words he would speak

aloud. And he said, this was the number one way that I was able to stay on the straight and arrow or to not succumb to temptation is because I had already figured out what my proclivities were, where I'm tempted to fall and found something in the Word of God that could speak directly against that and I would unleash that when I was going through that experience. And we started Tom Wright, he said basically the, the only offensive weapon that Paul talks about is a sword. Exactly. And so everything else is defensive, right?

It's a, it's a helmet and a shield. He's at our offensive. And to that point is the Word of God. And he broke down to that just doesn't necessarily just mean the Bible. There's this, there's an aspect to the spoken word, like receiving a word. 100%. So he's talking about sort of what the language would have been there. But yeah.

Oh, the word is Jesus. You know, obviously, I think, I mean, NTIRite said that yesterday, you know, like, you take Jesus with you everywhere you go. Nothing's going to be able to touch you anyway. But I don't think we think about it in those terms. It's kind of like I've overcome the darkness. So it's there. It's a part of the story. Yeah.

But it's not the end of the story. And I think we can, we can often get stuck in a fear brain. And then we just, we're overcome with fear and doubt and we get depressed. We get anxious. but I think this starts with all the good. Yeah. And it gets to like, and there's this other thing. Don't worry.

Is deliver us, is that also Exodus language? Are we talking about? Yeah. Yeah. It delivers from evil too is just, you know, part of it is is just because you pray the prayer, obviously doesn't mean that bad things aren't going to happen, right? But we also say this prayer on the other side of an empty tomb, right? And it's a reminder daily, death and the devil and sin, they have been defeated.

And we long for the day. when Jesus comes back to make all things right, and everything that Jesus did 2,000 years ago on a cross in an empty tomb is gonna be brought to the fullness of fruition. In the meantime, we are reminded like death, the devil, say that's all, like their time is ticking. Right.

Right, and regardless of what happens in our lives, God's will and God's way prevails in the end. We know who wins. And it's just a good reminder that even when things are really difficult, that it's not always gonna be this way. I love it. So finish this out here.

Yeah, for yours is the kingdom. You said it was added later in the power. Yeah, so actually in the Didicate, when I mentioned earlier that discipleship training manual, that actually has two of the three parts of this postscript in the prayer. So already at the end of the first century, we see it happening in it says for yours is the power and the glory forever. The kingdom piece and all of that we first see in biblical manuscripts

in the fourth, fifth century, but already with the Didicate, it's, we've got part of it. And what it is is that when Jesus actually said, deliver us from evil, what's the very next thing? For if you forgive others when they sin against you, then your Heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you don't forgive others their sins,

your Heavenly Father won't forgive your sins. Right. Like he just keeps going with the sermon on the matter. Right, right, right, yeah. And so what the early church just did, and by the way, there's biblical precedent for this. They're using language from other prayers like Solomon used in the temple,

dedication ceremony, all that, is they basically just said, we're going to just put a nice way of tying it up in order to be able to use it in a liturgical setting. So it's a great, it's just a summary of what's the whole thing about. Yours is the kingdom. It's not mine. It's your kingdom. It's your power. It's ultimately for your glory. Amen. Now let's get to work. That's awesome, man. I mean, it's going to change how I think about this prayer, I think, for forever and also wanting to. I think it's just like the characters are all in there. It's a story of relationships. You know, it's like our father.

he's come down here, we're eating together, communing together. And there's also this other character that evil won. So there's all these, it's a lot that's in there. You know, there's a lot of relationships and communication between the two. So I think oftentimes, you know, a lot of these things are debated. Just the relational aspect of our faith is hotly contested and argued about, especially in the Middle Ages of what that all means. but I think if you read this prayer from like a blurry lens where we're like there's a lot of weird characters in all these stories.

It helps you understand the relationship. It's all about a relationship. It's all about coming to the table with something, but not taking over the table, being part of the table, sitting down, eating, communicating, having a responsibility. But it's not your kingdom. It's not your table. Right. So have some respect, but also invite somebody. bring someone with you.

We're all welcome. And what a, what a cool thing and a small prayer that. Well, I just think it also was such important work. Like, I mean, and that's what I was going to ask next

when you guys is like, and it's something that seems so simple, but also so profound, right? And I think that resonates. Like so, you said, what's been seven years making the film,

is that right? Yeah, I mean, this, like we, I don't know how long we've been talking, but this thing is loaded. And that's why,

I mean, it's just, there's, it is, there is so much. there. Can we talk about, I mean, so can we talk a little about like some of the, some of the resistance, some of the things that you guys came up against? Yeah. That has been abundantly clear as this has been from conception to completion has been over six years now. And we went, I mean, it was a lot of

opposition that we experienced. Let's hear about some of that. This is blurry creatures. I want to, yeah, I want to hear about it. I mean, because yeah. I, I think when you try, we're talking about this, When you try to join God in something, you pray, you invite him in to your work. And then he answers and starts connecting dots. Even how the project got started on the same day, two different people who don't know each other, who have got really close relationships with told me about Brad's idea. And they're like, you need to meet this guy. Yeah.

I was like. We found out we were sitting two rows away from each other for two years at Church of the City. I know where Joel sits. And we had never met. And it took a senior producer BSPN to connect us. You know? No, we know. Church goes.

Everybody gets there. It's not a Southwest flight. That's how I treated. I was trying to find. You guys know, Southwest is changing. They are, dude. Delta. How the project came to be, the process of development, we realized just how to structure

this thing. Again, started as a television show. We worked on that for years, made a pilot. Mark Burnett as a legendary producer. Yeah, we just had Chad Hazen this earlier this week, and he was talking about Mark and Refuge. Shark Tank and the voice and all that. He sees the pilot.

He's like, I love this. This is, I mean, he was super kind to us. He was like, this is the greatest thing I've ever seen. You need to do a movie first to let people get their toe in the water. Like, take these seven episodes. There's 30 minute episodes. So you've put three and a half hours of going through here, which is all. And so just for people that don't, aren't familiar,

like you guys are going on site to the locations, right? To Egypt. Yeah, this documentary. The documentary is really, it's a bizarre genre. It's kind of a new genre. Like you just heard, it's like a third teaching in theology, in biblical context. It's a third just experiential, cinematic travel dock. Like, go to the places.

So we're all over Israel, Egypt. We're in Greece. We go to UK, we go to UK for NTRIE for a little bit. Yeah, we're in Jordan. A bunch of places here in the States. And that's something, you know, I didn't realize this. but 99.9% of people of believers will never go to the Holy Land. Think about that.

I'm so what you're describing sounds a little bit like blurry. It's like a third teaching. A third we go wild places. Like we go to Israel in April with a bunch of folks. I don't know what the last third was, but we'll get there. But this is like a weird. You know, this is a cinematic pilgrimage. You know, we believe these words.

We live our lives around the collection of 66 books, but we don't actually even a lot of, most people don't know what it looks like. They don't understand it. They can't see it geographically and that really matters. That was one of the biggest discoveries for me in this process is like the dirt matters, the land matters. There's so much more. It's almost like just reading this stuff is like two dimensional. Well, yeah.

When you go there, it's a very simple example. It's like reading about Gettysburg and then going standing there. Like there's something that's local here. It's like it's so different. You can feel the land and feel the things that happened there. And like, in that case, the severity or the heaviness of what happened. I've never been to the Holy Land. That'll be, you know, shortly here.

But what happens? You guys have any crazy spiritual warfare, miracles? Do you guys have any wild things that happened and trying to make this film? I imagine over six years, especially as we do the Lord's Prayer, the resistance to a project like this has to be pretty extreme. Yeah, the cameras get better from the first year you're making. You know what I mean? Here is the funny thing is that I was actually, we were.

sitting at the premiere and I said to my wife, I leaned over to my wife and I was like, I'm four and a half years different in this film, depending upon what scene we're in. Yeah, you guys started with that camera right there. We started in 1080, we ended in 10K. Exactly. It's a little grainy.

Yeah. No, we did. We had, there were a number, there were a number of stories, you know, and just being able to pitch this idea and to get people to kind of understand what we were doing and to be able to raise the necessary funds to be able to do this. As Joel mentioned, we got to do a pilot,

and the pilot was a pretty wild experience in Israel and Egypt. We were dealing with COVID, so that was the first issue that we had is the idea got developed in COVID, you know, and that was when Joel and I met was in August of 2020, and then we were, you know, having to try to get into the country, and we could get into Egypt, but we couldn't get into Israel,

but we needed to do the trip, you know, with both countries, had to film the whole pilot episode in reverse because we were in, you know, we had to go to Israel first and then we went to Egypt and it was just, it was its own kind of wild story. But then when we went back to film the rest of the episodes to film, you know, all the stuff for the film also, Joel and Daniel and I and, you know, our team were together and, you know, walk us through what happened there, man. Very first night, they all arrived. We were already in.

country. We're working on another project. First night they all arrive. Iran decides to send hundreds of drones and ballistic missiles into Israel. So you guys remember this in April. This is that first unprecedented attack that had never been done before. I were sending videos to me into our Bible study and I was like, oh, yeah. I bet Herica's a little bit worried. No, it was, I've never. Actually, my wife called me. She's like, do you know that Iran has just sent hundreds of drones your way? And I've lived in Israel. I've been there so many times and all this kind of stuff. Like I didn't even, I just almost kind of wrote it off. Like, I mean, I've been here in the midst of challenging times before, but. The news was they're overwhelming the Iron Dome. This is, this is the plan. It worked at night.

But we got, we have video from the top of the hotel and then went into the bunker. But from the very beginning, I mean, that's the definition of opposition. And, you know, many folks on our crew were like, we have to leave. And we're, we're, standing there trying to discern that. We're like, yeah, of course we don't want to be in any dangerous circumstances, you know, there for work. We're going to have to come back. And one of the ways that God answered that was like the airlines all shut down, like the airspace is. Can't leave. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, we we prayed through that and what it ended up being was just the definition of a blessing in disguise. Because do you know all these holy sites that are normally

just tourist, just covered in people. Like if you go into some of these sites, all you see is the back people's heads. And we're there, no one's in there. Like empty. Holy Sepulchre, empty. Wow. I mean, unbelievable.

So we have footage in this that never really has been filmed before because you've never seen those places without lines of people, guardrails and traffic management and all this stuff. Also, the priests, Specifically at Holy Sepulchre, you know, you guys know about this place. Five churches have domain over it. To film in there, you have to get permission from five different churches.

It rarely ever happens. The only time it's ever been shot in that I know before in cinema has been for Morgan Freeman's story of God, which we worked on ironically. This is kind of a different, this is a different version. But they've never filmed in the inner tomb shrine that, you know, is the edicule there. It actually has the, there's a stone from the tomb of Jesus, and it is, you know, allegedly the place. And that's a whole other, you know, conversation about are these places, the places? Yeah, yeah. But this is the holiest site.

And there's never been a film camera in there before. The Greek Orthodox priest was like, come on in. You know, like, unbelievable. That never happens. And that's like the guy who has to basically defend that place. He's like, I'm not letting anybody in here. and he was kicking people out. He doesn't let you bring your phones in, all that stuff.

So we got to film that. Wow. It's in the film, and I don't know that that footage exists anywhere else. So that's a good get, Joel. I mean, it was cool to see that, you know, time and circumstance is, you know. You got the footage, and we talk about all the time, where was the camera when that happened? You didn't film it? I was too scared to film it, but you got the moment.

But we did. I mean, I think the moment that Joel talked about. to that was just really significant was, I mean, this has never been done in human history. No country had sent hundreds of drones to wreak havoc in another country. And this was, you know, post-October 7th. So the country was already thin because of what was going on in Gaza. And then when we showed up, and it wasn't that, you know, Iran released, you know, hundreds of drones because we showed up in country. It was just the timing of it was like, everybody's, you know, especially back home,

everybody wants to come home, come home, come home. We're sitting in the lobby in Jerusalem the next morning after we've been in a bunker and we're talking through like, and nobody knows like, is this going to be the beginning of a much bigger escalation? Our other nation's going to jump in.

Is it going to get nuclear? Is it going to get, all of those questions were happening. And we just literally just got together and we were just praying through and we just sensed God saying, I didn't fly you halfway around the world to fly you back after two days.

Go do what I've asked you to do. And as a result of that, Like we go into the Church of Holy Sepulchre, we go to Gatsimity. I mean, I have been, I've lived in Israel, studied there, I've been leading study hiking trips since 2010. I have been there a lot and under all circumstances. And we're filming things I've never even been able

to set foot into before, not just get a camera in, I've never even put my foot on the soil there. And that was one of the things that was pretty wild was just we get to places, and all of a sudden it was almost kind of like, these are not the drones you're looking for. Yeah, doors are open. I mean, and it's not that just because the country is empty

or the site is empty, it's that they've never allowed cameras in there. So it's a whole other level of permission. And we didn't even have a permit to get into some of these places. Yeah, yeah. You know? Yeah, doors would just open literally. And I've, like in the good way,

not like the poltergeist way. Yeah, not in the blurry way. But, I mean, there was count. stories of opposition. We had a guy high up in the country of Jordan, who was a part of their commission. We had a lot of heated arguments about access to things. After being granted, then we'd show up and then it would be denied. And then it was just like, I mean, we've got a whole team there. It's a whole thing. Yeah. So kind of almost like shutting us down in the moment. There was all sorts of stuff personally that happened to all sorts of different

people on the crew, probably their stories to share or not, but I mean, just stuff that was just constant. This is wrong. This is wrong. Code read here. And yet every day we would go out and somehow somehow we'd find ourselves filming in locations that hadn't been filmed before. Or we could get in inside. And it was just like that. I think that over there, you know, it is, it is so important to them, the physical places, the stories, how the stories are represented. the way that the different churches have different interpretations or different domain over these things. It's like life or death over there. Yeah.

And here it's like our version of this, you know, religion and practice of our faith is just a little, it's a lot different. Well, there's a lot of reasons to control the flow of information in and out, whether it's protecting your, you know, your history or tourism or all those things. And we were in tradition. We were in Machupeche, and got shut down. Just us, a small group of people. Yeah. And they had to call in like a favor to get us out of there. But I mean, we didn't, we weren't filming anything.

Yeah. We were just talking. Yeah. About stuff. Hey, maybe they didn't build this. No, you can't talk about that. And then the locals are like shut us, shut us down. So when you bring cameras in, it's like, then you're creating a narrative.

They don't want that narrative out there. And so, yeah, you would have to have. That's what they want. They want to know what you're filming. Yeah. Especially when you're. Brad at one point's like, dude, I can't change the Bible. He was like, say it like this.

He's like, you change it. I'm like, I can't change it. But we had a moment in Jordan. The rabbis did. Going to Wadi Rum, which is just this. It's like an other world experience in Wadi Rum. It's where Martian was filmed, Lawrence of Arabia, Dune, Star Wars. That's where it's being filmed, you know, over there.

And so we actually had this shot. And in the film, there's a moment later in the film where I'm silhouetted again. against the sun. And we were, it was just, it was all for, you know, B-roll. This was not like critical to the storyline. This is our last day of filming in Israel and Jordan before we were gonna come back and do Egypt and a couple of other countries.

And so anyhow, we literally go out and we're driving for two hours to find this shot. And we're looking at where's the sun dropping. We wanted to have this moment where I'm coming up the backside of the dune and I'm between mountains. The sun is setting and I'm just silhouetted against it. It's just to talk about the journey of just some of the stuff we're talking about. Get your lightsaber out and it's just.

So, well, it does. It feels like that. A personal shot. But here's the thing is we finally find the place. They get set up for the shot. It's taken us a couple hours to find it. And because the shot is to have the Dune be virgin, like so there's no footsteps. Like, I'm coming around the backside.

And they keep having me pop my head up to go, where's the sun dropping? Where are you going to be? And so I'm elevated. They're all off in a distance shooting a long range shot. And in the distance, I see like this two, like the dust just start coming up out of the desert. Well, it's two trucks and they're like hauling through the desert. Like it's like they're going 75 miles an hour. They're fish tailing.

I'm like, what are these guys doing drag racing in the desert? Well, what we don't know at that moment is I'm up and I'm seeing them coming and they're down filming is that these are two drunk Bedouins who think that we're trespassing that we don't have access to film in their part of Wadi, rum and they come tearing at the group and I am watching this and they slam on their brakes coming in hot like a worm yeah like it almost takes out our entire team wow they get out they're screaming our security is screaming it's unbelievable chaos and very calmly i hear joel because i've got on the walking in my in my back pad he goes and we're filming this in five four joel's like three and i come up off the back side and we get the shot and it's like 10 minutes of just I mean they're about to come to blows like they almost took out our entire team like they're drunk I mean it was it was just one of

those extremely chaotic scenes so when you see the shot there's more than just the shot dude the whole thing's like the SEC just means more right gentlemen is right this is awesome thank you yeah this has been great how where can they win the film yeah there's three things here So the book, where's the book? Where can they find it? The film is out. The film is out. And then it goes to Netflix.

Yeah, so it's on film is available on Angel right now. Okay. And I think we have a code for you guys, so everyone can watch it for free because Angel is a subscription service. Yeah. So we have that. The show will be coming out early next year. And so that will be seven episodes of this thing. And then the book is available now as well.

It's all at the Lord's Prayer.com. Yeah, we have the Lord's Prayer.com. Yeah, we have the Lord's Prayer.com. As Joel mentioned, Angel's been very generous in providing a code for people to watch it. So literally people can just put in angel.com slash blurry. And they can watch the film. They did that. They did that.

Yeah. Slash blurry, too. Angel.com slash blurry. And you can watch it on Angel. Who knew? Look at your boys. It just means more, you know. Yeah.

Well, thanks, dude. Yeah, we've learned a lot. There's been a treat, though, just especially because we're friends and, and Frank, having you guys on the show has been really awesome. And I mean, love listening to you teach at church. And then, of course, like, everything you do, Joel, I love, you know. And I will make a quick correction. I'm not a teaching pastor on staff.

Okay, I didn't know how to put that. No, it's great. It's great. I just know that. Hey, that's part of your point. I see you on stage as a pastor. So then you're teaching. No, I know.

I know. So, yeah. Like, in a sort of a non-official stance. My world is now us working together to do this kind of stuff. I love every time I get a chance to guest teach it at church of the city. Yeah. We love our community. Bible nerd.

That's right. It gets on stage every once in a while. It's not officially pastoral or revered at this moment. Not a reverend. I still am ordained. So I technically do have the revered part of that too. I had to hold back some dad jokes in that one. You kept saying my kingdom, my kingdom I kept thinking, I didn't vote for you.

Some aquatic ceremony, you know. But anyway, guys, thanks so much. Some talk. Yeah. Tosses. You're not king to some watery tar. a sword at you? Filmmakers. I don't know.

Anyway. Thanks guys. Thanks guys. Appreciate it. Yeah.