#STRask - How Do I Determine Which Topics at Work Are Worth Commenting On?

Episode Date: January 5, 2026

Questions about how to determine which topics at work are worth commenting on, and a good way to respond when you’re in a group Bible study and hear earnest, lifelong Christians talk excitedly about books or content creators that aren’t orthodox.   As someone who works in an open room with six others, where topics shift quickly and it’s hard to interject with multiple people chiming in, how do I determine which topics are worth commenting on and asking questions about? What is a good way to respond when you’re in a group Bible study and hear earnest, lifelong Christians talk excitedly about books or content creators that aren’t totally orthodox?

This is Amy Hall and Greg Kokel and happy new year to you. Welcome. Welcome to the hashtag SDR Ask podcast in 2026. I can't believe it. Me neither. All right. Greg, this first question comes from radio. Hi, Greg and Amy. How do I determine which topics at work are worth commenting on or asking questions about and which are not worth pushing back on? I'm in an open room with six others where topics shift quickly and it's hard to interject with multiple people chiming in.

Wow. I'm chuckling because I have experiences in the past. So go ahead, Greg. Well, maybe you should answer it. Some things are hard to answer unless you're immersed in the context in which they happen. I find myself falling back on that point with certain challenges or questions or concerns people raise. And my answer is I don't know. I think there certainly is nothing wrong in many circumstances with asking questions, and especially if they're clarification questions. Because as written in street smarts, I have a whole chapter titled, Questions Keep You Safe. They do. You can ask all kinds of questions, and because you're asking a question,

people might infer from your question your point of view, but you're not advancing your point of view, at least. And so strictly speaking, you're not vulnerable to challenges. But when people say crazy things, like, look, I think a woman should have right to do whatever she wants with their own body. Okay, you might hear that in the workplace. And everybody's going, yeah, amen, brothers, their sister, how are they put it? You know, probably not going to say amen, but they probably won't say right on or groovy either. But in any event, they say things like that. You say, really, you actually believe that?

I'm just curious. So a woman can do anything she wants with her own body? Well, not anything. And she can't hurt other people. Oh, okay. Now, it's clear. Now, notice, in that instance, I didn't take it any further. So you don't mean she could do anything she wants.

with her own body, as long as she's not hurting some other individual. Am I understanding you correct? Okay. In other words, you could let it drop and not make it into a big deal, but you've actually made a really important point that you might be able to revisit in the future. Because people make these blanket statements as if that statement taken at face value is patently obvious. It's absolutely true.

And it gives us unlimited justification for abortion. But if a person says, well, you can't do anything you want with your own body, you can't hurt another individual, now you've had the person created a circumstance, asked a question in which a person is acknowledging a legitimate limitation. And it may turn out, then, if you were going to take it further, and maybe in this kind of environment, all I'm suggesting is playing it really safe and just asking questions like that open-ended, but they're not entirely. open that they're trying to get clarification out of the table and qualification in a number of cases. I believe in God is just, it's just ridiculous. Really? What's ridiculous about it?

Fair question. I don't know. I'm not even sure what they're going to say. It doesn't seem to me. It's ridiculous. I don't have to make my point. I'm just asking the clarification question. And with regards to a woman has the right to do whatever she wants with her own body,

that's the bodily autonomy argument. If a person says, well, not anything, I mean, not if it hurts another individual, okay, now you've got a criteria by which to assess, maybe in the future, if you want to follow up, whether abortion does that. Does abortion hurt another individual or human being? That would be the next step in a conversation that you could take. All I'm suggesting here is in that kind of environment where it's kind of a free-for-all, it's fair to raise very precise clarification questions that in your own mind is going to help out

maybe defuse a silly statement or a silly or shallow justification for something bad, something immoral, something evil, or some criticism of Christianity or of Christian theism broadly. So I worked in the film industry for 10 years, so I had a lot of time where I was the only Christian in the whole organization. Yeah, tell them what you did, just for fun, because people are going to be able to what does she do? Oh, I worked for a miniature effects company, and we built things like spaceships and buildings in a miniature scale and then blew them up most of the time. When you blew the, I mean enlarge them or destroyed them? Destroyed them.

Yeah, okay. In our back parking lot. But it looked like the real things are being destroyed. Of course, they don't, that company's probably out of business now with. Yeah, I don't know if they're still, I don't know if they're still doing anything anymore. All the digital stuff that's going on. Anyway, but, okay. So anyway, it was a lot of fun.

And I loved the people there. It was, it was a great company. And one of my questions for you, Rachel, is I wonder if they know our, already where you stand. Because what I found is that a lot of times people would try to drag me into political arguments when I was trying to have arguments about spiritual things because I'm not even sure why. So they're going to have their own concerns and agendas trying to bring you into those conversations. But I did have, in my office, I had this chair that I started calling the philosophy share, because all these people, they would come in, they'd sit down, and then we'd have

these conversations about all sorts of things. So once they knew kind of where I stood on things, they would want to have the conversations. Interesting. So I, of course, this was, you know, 20 years ago. So I don't know if things have changed, but my guess is probably people still enjoy talking about these things, or at least someone in that room is going to enjoy talking about things. Especially of congenial in the process. Exactly. Exactly. But what I tried to do, was to keep it as close to really foundational worldview issues as I could get it. Yeah. Because the problem is once you start getting off into the results of the foundation,

which would be like more political questions that have to do with things that are farther down in the worldview area, it's harder to argue up there when you, they don't understand the basic ideas of where you're coming from. So I try to move the conversations towards those more worldview issues. Is there a God? What are we as human beings? Are we created? All those sorts of things that you can build on later, but they have to be in place or they're not going to understand you at all. It's like saying, well, I'm against abortion.

And what they hear is, I want to control women. Because they haven't heard, I think that what's in the womb is an unborn human being. who is a right to live, and they haven't heard all the foundational things. So I would constantly be trying to move the conversation towards those foundational issues. And the second big thing I would say is focus on clarity. So one thing you could do, if you're listening to them talk, and it sounds from your question like they all probably agree with each other, and you're the odd person out. So one thing you could do is say, well, it sounds like maybe you don't quite understand where they're coming from. Are you interested in hearing more about that to try and understand the other side? And then if they are, you can even be explicit. I, this is not to convince you. I just, what I really want is just for you to understand the reasoning behind it. You don't have to agree with me, but I don't think you're understanding the actual reasoning. I think you're maybe impugning their motives in some way or whatever. So maybe if you understood, it would make more sense.

Are you interested in that? Yeah. And then you can focus on clarity rather than trying to persuade. Makes you think of this phrase. I think it's called plausibility structure or something like that. And it's that people who don't have a framework in their mind to see how, say, the Christian ideas fit together, they seem completely implausible to them. So they don't have any reason to take it seriously at all. But once they get the foundational elements that you were just talking about, this creates a,

just a category of plausibility. Am I using the right term, plausibility, structure, or something like that? It's something of plausibility. I thought you were going to ban me out here, Amy, because you know all this stuff, but I can't remember so well. But anyway, just the idea that certain things don't seem plausible to them because they don't see the larger framework. You explain the larger framework, then it seems more plausible.

But that's because you've laid this foundation for them to look at it from a different angle. One last question about your former job. Okay. Did you ever see a movie where you actually saw a scene that you were involved making and blowing up? Oh, of course. Oh, of course. Oh, okay. But it was a long time ago. I mean, do you want me to name it? Just name one. Terminator 3. Oh. Yeah. I actually have a credit in that way. I only have like a couple of those. But we're your, is it saying? This is a long time ago. Or Amos. It says Amy Hall. So you can all go out and look for that there. Yeah, it was a great place. And honestly, I found that so many people were willing, especially if they know you to start with. And again, I don't know if this has changed now because it's been a long time since I've worked in a secular job. But people were completely willing to have conversations with me and talk about things. And they were interested. And I think sometimes we're way. more scared about it than we need to be. Yeah. And understandably, in a way, how many things have

developed over the last 20 years. But I would say in the last six months to a year or a year and a half, there's been a real softening in our culture. Everywhere I go, and I was just in South Florida this weekend. I got in last night. And of course, this is before Christmas that we're broadcasting, so making this. But the pastor's telling us, our youth groups are filling up, our church is filling up, and they have five services, five, two on Saturday, three on Sunday morning. That's a lot of work for me. But the pastor does it every week, because more and more people are coming. And there does seem to be a softening and an interest that haven't seen for a long time. I just want to throw one more thing out there that just occurred to me. The question

is which topics are worth commenting on. And like I said, I would try to move most political topics towards the foundational views of the nature of humanity and creation and all those sorts of things. But I also think when you look at one thing that people, that secular people accuse Christians or use against them now is they'll say, well, you Christians didn't do enough to stop slavery. Of course, then they turn around and say, Christian shouldn't say anything about abortion. Yeah, yeah, right. So I would say maybe if there is a political issue that you can imagine in the future people are going to look back and say, why didn't you do more to stop that? It's not going to be something like tax rates or something like that, even though you might have strong opinions about that. It will be the more weighty moral issues like abortion, like gender transit or sex transplants.

I shouldn't even say any of those things. So it's going to be things more like that, the gender assignment surgeries. Sure, yeah. And so maybe that can help you to figure out what is it that later on generations will say, why didn't you do more to stop this? And those might be things worth maybe working up towards because, again, you have to lay some sort of a foundation in order for your arguments to make sense, I think. So hopefully putting all this together, that will help you figure out what to talk about and what to let go.

Because it's hard to let things go, but you can't be talking all the time because you also have a job. Okay. You got to blow things up in the parking lot. Yes. Here's a question from Elaine. What is a good strategy in group Bible study when you hear earnest, lifelong Christians talk excitedly about books or content creators that aren't totally orthodox? How do you decide if it's worth deflating a person's joy or letting it go? If you need to weigh in, what dictates immediately versus later?

Okay. Is this a question about how the leader of the group conducts himself or somebody who's in the group conducts himself? It doesn't say. So maybe you could answer for both. Well, certainly, in my view, if you're a leader of the group, you have a more weighty responsibility. And I'll tell you, here's, I understand the difficulty here when people are really, really excited about something that turns out not to be so good. And you don't want to, you know, pop their balloon or rain on their parade or whatever, but sometimes that needs to be done. But I think there's a simpler, there is maybe a gentle approach.

and I have run into this myself when I'm having, it probably happened this last weekend when I was having dinner with a client, pastoral staff members, after doing a couple of services and some things came out. And the way I put it, I says, let me push back on that for a moment if it's okay with you. Can I push back on that a moment? It's just letting them know that I'm going to disagree and almost implicitly asking for permission. But it's like a rhetorical question. I'm not expecting them to – I'm not even really asking for permission.

I'm just warning them because usually I say, yeah, sure, go ahead, no problem. But let me push back. Here's the perspective that I have. And then I'll offer a clear perspective, but I'll own it as my own. Or say, for example, in the Bible study, and you could even – this could be done by a leader or by a member of the study, but I think it's more important in the case of a leader. And if it becomes a pushback of sorts, what the leader can be doing is say, this is part of my role as being a leader of the group. I want you to think about these things.

And some things that look great aren't as great as they look or feel. So here's in the talk, give your information. But if you're just a member of the group, say, let me, I'm familiar with that author a little bit. did you know that this author holds this, this, and this, or however, and introduce the ideas like that, but you're introducing them not an accusatory way, like, you're wrong about this. That guy's a heretic. That would be one way of doing it, but that's the kind of thing that's going to raise hackles.

But if you say, hey, let me push back on that. Do you mind if I have another perspective on this, it's another way of putting it? I have another perspective. Or, you know, I've read some things about the author. going to have some concerns. Can I share those concerns? This person believes X, Y, Z, and then, you know, talk about that. There's a problem here. The problem is X, Y, Z, you know, so you fill out the concern and the, the disagreement, but notice how I tried to ease into it in a way that kind of protects the person, even though it is going to maybe rain on their

parade a little bit, maybe drizzle on their parade. Would you do it right there? Would you do it after? No, I think I would choose to do it right there. And the reason is is because the comment and the approbations that's given of this author or whatever is public. And so I don't want to, if that's where the damage is being done. But it also, I think, communicates something else.

It's okay for us to disagree amongst ourselves in a group. And what you do is you model how to do that. I actually talk about this in the second chapter of the tactics book. Just how important it is for us to have arguments is the way I characterize it, but I point out that an argument, in the sense I'm talking about it, is not a quarrel. It's a disagreement that is buttressed by reasons. And if we do this with grace, this is what helps us to figure out what's true. If we don't allow that in the church, in our church groups, oh, now you're just, we don't

want to start an argument. Well, wait, wait, wait, wait. If that's the attitude of the leadership or anyone in the group, now, now, now, now, we're not going to disagree. Wait a minute, then the first person who shares their view wins. Because nobody can take exception with it. We ought to disagree. We ought to be able to disagree, be allowed to do that in a principled way. And this is what I developed there in the second chapter of tactics. We have to, or else we're, how are are we going to be confident that what we believe is actually true, and especially when it comes to critically important things. So let's talk about it.

And if we can model that, if the leadership of the group can model that, or they could just say, hey, we're not shutting this down. We can talk about it if we have differences of opinion. Now, some people are getting to get really defensive because they're not grown up enough, I guess is the way I want to put it, to be. be able to handle a disagreement because their egos are on the line. And that's unfortunate. And we can be careful with people about that, but I don't think we should let that rule the discussion. And I wonder if the strategy would be slightly different for men versus women, because I think

women are more likely, perhaps, to have their feelings hurt where the men are more likely to get defensive and... Well, I'm glad you said that rather than me. There might be a slightly different approach. You have to treat people as individuals, you know, and so, but wanting to be gentle and charitable, but, you know, I'm not so sure about that. Thanks for sharing that. I think if I understood you right, and then you might want to ask a clarification question, but let me, let's think about this for a minute. I have a few questions about that. Do you mind if I offer a pushback?

You know, you can ask that question just to ease into it a little bit. Would you have the same approach if you were another member and not in the leadership of the group? If I was just a member of the group? Yeah, I would. Because, you know, in home groups, you can't count on the leader being theologically alert enough to address a mistake or a problem or having the courage to do it or the ability to do it. If you're, I think you're careful as a group member, you can do that, but in the way that I just described, there's always going to be a little liability to that. People might get bugged or whatever, but, you know, what's at stake here? Now, I don't take exception with everything.

People say, well, the Lord told me this, and I felt the Holy Spirit leading me, blah, blah, blah. And many people know my concerns about that kind of talk and that approach to Christianity. in that what is clearly an abuse of certain biblical language like led by the Spirit. Romans 8, Galatians 5, and you read it, it means something different. But I'm not going to pick a fight every time it comes up because a lot of times it's just not going to be useful. So you have to make decisions about whether asking a few questions or offering an alternate point of view is going to be worthwhile. However, if the issue has gravity to it, it's going to be more important that you step in and say something and ask more questions. I think one thing that really helps is if you can do it as matter-effectly as possible.

Don't get angry or, like, agitated. I think however you respond, they're going to reflect back to you. That's a good point. So I like what you said about, oh, do you mind if I offer some pushback to that? because it's my understanding, blah, blah, blah, or what do you think about this? I think as long as you are doing it in a way that they don't feel like they're being put on the spot and singled out and being ganged up on, if it's as matter of fact as possible, I think that will help.

I know for – I don't know if this is true for men, but I can say for me that it's harder than you would expect to deflate somebody's – excitement about something. I will never forget the first time I had, I had an assignment. We had to have Mormon missionaries come over. And they came over. And one of them was just so excited. And he was so happy. And I really had a hard time saying anything against him, against what he believed. It was way harder than I thought it was going to be. And I remember telling Kevin Lewis was my professor. And he just said, imagine them in the flames of hell. That was his response. That's classic Kevin Lewis. Exactly. But in reality, that is what will help you through this. So if the question is, how do you know when to do it? I think if this is going to bring them away from the true God

and prevent them from knowing God fully, that should be your motivation. And you can even say, you know, my concern about it, though, is that the way he understands God, because it's so important to know God is this and this and this. So if you can put it on the positive thing that instead of the negative thing, like they're saying this and that, but maybe pivot to here's where I think he gets it wrong. Like God is A, B, C, D. And I think he gets that a little bit wrong. And if we miss out on this, we don't we don't know God as he is. or somehow, I mean, anyway, I... That's kind of the glass half full version instead of my version, which is the glass half empty. But I get it. No, that's good. It depends on the person, like you said. But I think that, I think hopefully those things will help.

I'm trying to think if there was anything else. Just be a matter of fact, what do you, maybe you could even ask. This is probably a way I would ask later on just if it was just me and that person. And I might say, I don't want to put them on the spot if it's in the whole group. But what you might say is, oh, what do you think about their view that I heard that they think this? What do you think about that view? And then maybe they haven't heard it.

Maybe they don't know. Or maybe they believe it. So then you can figure out where to go from there. But I think if you're the leader, I think you do need to say something then. Yeah. For the sake of the group. For the sake of the group, yeah. And as part of your responsible leadership, I think having the leader.

rule that I'd never want to say anything that upsets anyone or maybe offend somebody is not actually consistent with Jesus' behavior, because there was a number of times in the Gospels where Jesus speaks and the disciples go, hey, Jesus, oh, no, you offended them. Or a scribe says that. You offended them. The scribe said, okay, well, I got something for you, too, you know, and he doubles down on the scribe. So there are times where we risk the offense because of the importance of the issue.

And I will also say you won't do it totally right at first. You will get better at it. You learn how to interact with people in a way that makes them not feel like they're on the spot and helps them to think through it and points them to what's good. But you have to make mistakes in order for that to happen. I just told one five minutes ago, you know, I had to learn how to be able to deflate people in a way that that was positive and helpful. Deflate people? Is that what you mean? Deflate their ideas.

Well, she was saying that there, you know, is it worth deflating a person's joy? That was her question. Oh, I see what you're saying. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So you will get better at it. So don't just have grace for yourself and do it as humbly as you can. And it is oftentimes worth it to deflate their joy when they're joyful for the wrong reasons about the wrong thing kind of thing. Well, thank you so much, Rachel and Elaine. We really appreciate hearing from you. And we'd love to hear your question to send it on X with the hashtag STR Ask. Or you can go to our website at STR.org. This is Amy Hall and Greg Kokel for Stand to Reason.