The Eric Metaxas Show - Doug Giles — The Bible and Hunting

Episode Date: August 22, 2025

Author Doug Giles makes a bold biblical case for hunting, showing why scripture supports it as part of God’s design.

Welcome to the Eric Mattaxas show. We'll get you from point A to point B. But if you're looking for point C, well, buddy, you're on your own. But if you'll wait right here in just about two minutes, the bus to point C will be coming right by. And now here's your Ralph Cramden of the airways, Eric Mattaxas. Hey there, folks. Before we get to our guest, we had a minute here.

I wanted to kind of give an update on my Revolution book. It's interesting. I was recently, I don't know if you, if you Keith or you, Chris Heimes, ever listen to Joe Rogan. I never, ever, ever listen to Joe Rogan. Do you guys, I don't listen to any podcasts. I do. I really love a lot of the guests he has on. Well, I'm not against Joe Rogan.

I just don't listen to podcasts typically. But it's a big investment. One thing I don't seem to have his time because I'm working on my book about the revolution, especially, right? So every spare second, you know, I'm working on the book. But the other day, our friend Seth Ward said to me, Joe Rogan interviewed Ken Burns. Now, Ken Burns, most people know he's the big PBS documentarian who did, you know, the Civil War came out in like 1991 and he did baseball and did it on and on.

We've lost track of his stuff. but he has done these extraordinary documentary series for PBS. And obviously next year is the 250th anniversary of the birth of the United States of America, which is why I am one of the reasons I'm writing the book on the American Revolution. And he and his team have come out with a series on the American Revolution, which I think is coming out in November on PBS. and I thought, you know, Ken Burns is not where I am theologically or politically, but he's usually fair.

And his work is usually really good. And I wanted to listen to the Joe Rogan podcast. So I listened to most of it. I don't think I'm done with it. But it was so interesting because a lot of the stuff that I would say about America, he does say, But it was interesting. It's interesting when you really know about a subject and you hear somebody say something.

He go, I don't agree with that. He said, it was very interesting. He said that, which you hear constantly that the founders were deists. And I'm here to tell you that is absolutely not true. It is absolutely not true. but you hear it over and over and over. Now, for those folks out there who don't know what a deist is, a deist is somebody who generally believes in God,

but is not a Christian. And my research, I have been astonished at the Christian faith of most of those founders who are responsible for the revolution, the American Revolution. And I, you know, in writing my book, I don't really think that I want to get into this too much because I don't want to write a Christian version of the story of the American Revolution. But in writing the story of the American Revolution, it is unavoidably Christian. It's just unavoidable.

And that's what I find so funny. You don't have to go out of your way and say, we're going to do, you know, there are people who've written books like that. I'm just interested the same with Bonhofer, the same with Luther, the same with Wilbur. I just want to write the book that tells you the story of, you know, this person or this whatever. And so if you wrote the story of Bonhofer and you kind of edit out the Christian stuff, you're not telling the real story of Bonhoeffer. Same thing with Wilberforce, same thing with Luther, you know. So it's kind of interesting that Ken Burns says that because in my research, I have been so amazed by the profound Christian faith. I mean, number one, John,

John Adams. Oh, my gosh. He should be on Mount Rushmore. Jefferson should not be on Mount Rushmore. John Adams should be on Mount Rushmore. Benjamin Franklin should be on Mount Rushmore. These are amazing figures. Now, Ben Franklin's faith, he was not a theologically Orthodox Christian. But John Adams was unbelievably strong in his faith. Incredible. He and Abigail, it's just so clear. John Hancock and Samuel Adams and on and on and on. Everywhere you turn, they're having days of fasting and prayer. In fact, I just wrote about the first Continental Congress. Some folks will remember in 1774 following the intolerable acts, the coercive act. So after the Boston Tea Party, you know, England gets really angry and they want to crush Boston. And so they impose these draconian acts on Massachusetts, on Boston. They block Boston Harbor. It's really like a declaration of war almost. And in response, you have all of the, well, first of all, you have the Bostonians and the Massachusetts colony

saying, we need to do something about this. We need to reach out to the other 12 colonies. And so they call this first continental Congress, which meets in Philadelphia in 1774, in the fall, September into October of 1774. So I bring this up because at the beginning of it, and John Adams writes about this in letters to Abigail and in his journal, but he recounts that I forget who it was. Maybe it was John Hancock said that they should begin with prayer. And somebody, now I'm getting the facts mixed up here, who said that they shouldn't do it. I think John Jay, who was a profound Christian, and Edward Rutledge, who was a Christian, both said, we don't think we should have prayer. Why?

Why? Because there were so many denominations represented that they thought it's going to be way too divisive, so we need to skip this. So Sam Adams, who represents the strong Christian wing from Boston, the Puritans, stands up and says, I have no problem with hearing a prayer. I'm no religious bigot. I can hear a prayer from anyone here. And he's being very magnanimous because they had huge issues. I mean, you have the Anglicans who really persecute.

the Quakers and who were not friendly to the dissenters, the congregationalists, the Presbyterian. There's a lot of division. But he stands up and says, I'll hear a prayer from any man. And he appoints the Reverend Duque, I think it's pronounced, D-U-C-H-E with an accent on the E, who was an Anglican, Church of England, Anglican, to pray a prayer, which was very magnanimous. and it kind of underscores the kind of the American faith, right? In other words, that they're going to say, listen, we're not going to agree on all the details, but we have a profound faith in common. And it was because of George Whitfield that all this was possible.

Because Whitfield used to preach a sermon, this is all throughout the middle of the 18th century, where he would pretend to be going to heaven and talking to Father Abraham and saying, Father Abraham, you know, who do you have in there? Are they Catholics? No. Are they Presbyterians? No. Are they congregationalists? No. Are they, you know, and basically saying, no, the, you know, just those who do the will of God, those who love God, those who, but Whitfield had been laying down this theological foundation through the decades. Right. So that by the time you get to the 1770s, there are many people that say, well, yeah, I am a congregationalist or I'm a Presbyterian or I'm that, but, there's something deeper.

I'm not going to die on that hill. We have this kind of American faith, which is a fundamental kind of Christianity. And so DuCet or Duques reads one of the Psalms and some other books out of the Anglican Collect of the Day, which was whatever September 7th, I think. I think he reads Psalm 35. And then he prays an extemporaneous prayer, which you don't expect. from an Anglican. And it's so moved people. People were moved. The Quakers were weeping. The Quakers who had been persecuted by the Anglicans were weeping to hear this godly prayer.

So it was just so interesting hearing Ken Burns talk about, you know, some of this stuff and going, man, this was this was deeply Christian. It's just unavoidable. You don't need to be a Christian, but you need to acknowledge the history of it. Anyway, all right, I think that's enough for now. That's your super centennial update. We'll be right back. A major retail chain just canceled a massive order, leaving My Pillo with an overstock of the classic My Pills, and this is your gain,

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Ladies and gentlemen, if you listen to this program, you know that I'm friends with a guy named Doug Giles. And occasionally, I will have him on this program. I always enjoy it. For example, here he is, Doug Giles. Welcome back. Eric, how are you doing, big dog?

I tell you, you kill me, man. You write a lot of stuff, and we talk about it, and you have now written a book, book, which is like the apotheosis of Doug Giles. It's a book called the Bible and hunting, and you're holding it in your hand, the Bible and hunting on the cover. It looks like you about to dress out a deer or something. Yeah, that's an access buck. And they're originally from India and Nepal. And they're thriving in the United States, especially in Texas and Florida.

and you know what? The hunters did that. The hunters are the ones that created game ranches and high fences. And it's got, it's premium venison, Eric, if you've never eaten an Axis buck. And not only are they just absolutely beautiful. And but their venison is mooie tastey, big dog. And I think there's more now in Texas and Florida than there is in India. And we did the same hunters with the black buck antelope. and the Neil Guy Antelope and the Barbary Sheep, I'm looking at all of them in my man cave, that hunters, because they put a premium on the pursuit of these animals and the stewardship of these natural resources, we're the ones who brought these animals from near extinction,

and like the scimitar orcs and the attics. I mean, again, that's all hunters. Cimitar what? Cimitar orcs. So it's a big, it's a big antelope. It's sub-Saharan Africa. Again, almost shot out to extinction. And then the Texas game ranchers, the Wile Ranch in particular, they decided, you know what?

We want to preserve this species. And their big, beautiful white antelope. And they've got like an orange rust-colored neck and face configuration. And then the cimitars, their horns are just these long, curved, beautiful horned antelope. And brother, I'm telling you, man, they are three. thriving here. They're not thriving in Africa and those war-torn zones. But again, hunters did that. It wasn't pita. It wasn't some doe-eyed tree-humper. It was a hunter who puts Sabam to Bambi that has caused the, you know, the elevation of these near-stained. I think, I think, ladies and gentlemen,

Doug just said, do-eyed tree-humper. We're going to check on that for you. Now, listen, Doug, you've written a book, and you're just holding it up before it, the Bible and hunting. What led you to write a book with the title the Bible and hunting. I know you love the Bible. I know you love hunting. But what led you to write a book about the two? Yeah, so when I was living in the so sassy Miami-Dade County, and I was interfacing with a whole new group of Christians,

Eric, that didn't hail from the Great Republic of Texas. A lot of them, man, they didn't hunt. They didn't fish. They love God, but then they would think, oh, you know, what you're doing's wrong. Oh, you preserving them in taxidermy, you know, that's, that's just, you know, chest thumping. And that somehow, you know, the scripture frowns upon hunting. And man, I got that in tidal waves when we were living in South Florida. So, you know, being a Christian, I want an apologetic for not being apologetic about the grand pursuit of hunting and fishing.

and so man, I just started going through Genesis to Revelation to see if there was one verse, Eric, one, that poo-poohed hunting. And what I found, and I knew it was there, but I really found it when I drilled down on it, is that hunting not only is tolerated, it's called in Genesis 9 a blessing to mankind after the floodwaters receded, and God blessed Noah and said, you can eat what. whatever was on that arc, just as I've given you plants, now I give you venison for your vittles. And so I just kept plowing through the scripture. You see Eric that the prophets and the poets, David in particular, they utilized hunting verbiage when they're talking about deliverance. David said, my soul escaped as a bird from the snare of the fowler. So unless God's, you know, just a bad communicator, he knew that utilizing, you know, hunting verbiage would

speak to the people about what it means to be a recipient of his mercy and his grace and deliverance. So I tell, you know, after obviously I wrap this book, I challenge people. It's like, if you can show me one anti-hunting verse, in the entirety of the scripture, I'll eat a tube sock because it's not there. Okay, so folks, a lot of you have friends that are hunters. You probably want to get them a copy of this book, The Bible and Hunting. I can just see it. This is a great gift book, Doug.

Maybe you already thought of that, but I just think this is like the ultimate, because so many people we have friends that are hunters, what do I get them? The Bible in hunting, they don't have a book on the Bible and hunting. And if there is a book that touches on it, it certainly doesn't have a cool title like the Bible. and hunting. But so let's get into it because why, I mean, I know that the table of contents is in front of me, and I want to ask questions based on it. Your first question, the first chapter has the title with a question,

who killed the first animal according to the Bible? Okay. Who? I know. Wait, wait, wait, wait. I have the answer. Can I say it? I got it.

I got it, folks. You ready? Who killed the first animal? the Lord did. The Lord did because when Adam and Eve foolishly covered themselves with aprons made of fig leaves, the Lord said, no, no, no, no, no. To cover nakedness, to cover sin,

blood needs to be shed. He shed blood and he covered them with skins. Did I get it right? Right on, man, 100%. I got it. You know, he, and not only did he killed the first animal, but if you want to be like God, then you take the leather from the animal. I'm thinking it was a leopard because leopard print looks so beautiful.

And you turn it into haute couture. So if you want to be like the Lord, you hunt animals, you utilize the leather, and you make fancy clothes to cover naughty people. So the first clothes in the history of the world, of which God approved was made from the skins of animals. Ladies and gentlemen, that's a fact. Look it up. It's in the first couple pages of the Bible.

Send that note, Eric, send this video over to Pam Anderson and inform her that it wasn't faux leather. It wasn't. I don't have Pam Anderson's information, but I'll try to get it. But seriously, folks, that's so interesting. I mean, this is why I love talking to you, Doug, because, you know, we learn things that are kind of basic, but we didn't know them. Like what you're just saying, and again,

your book is the Bible in hunting. But first chapter, you get into this idea that the first clothing ever made of which God approved was made with the skin of animals. Now, we don't know what animals, but that's just a fact,

and that's in the scripture. That is really, so if anybody says, well, I don't think God approves of, you know, you wearing fur or leather or suede or whatever. Well, obviously, they haven't read Genesis. Yeah, they've got no biblical precedent for that, because, again, it's there. And you have to, you know,

take an exacto knife and extract it from Genesis and have your little amputated Bible. If you want to eradicate, you know, the notion that wearing leather, wearing fur, it's okay. Not only is it okay, but God's the one who started that whole party. God started that whole party. Okay, so chapter two of your book, this is another classic Doug Giles title, chapter title, was Noah's Ark one big floating game ranch? Yeah, it's, you know, it's a wonderful story. Well, it's kind of also dreadful because God liquidated, you know, the planet's population

and stood up only Noah and his family after the floodwaters receded. and but you know it's always pitched as you know this this wonderful children's menagerie and you know there's places in kentucky i think that's got a life-size arc and it's just absolutely amazing story but according to genesis nine one through six god told noah it's like all these animals that you got on board we'll pull out your salt and pepper because you can eat them and so god established in genesis chapter nine uh that you don't have to be a vegan and you don't have to be a vegan You don't have to, you know, pursue edamami beans and baby carrots and spinach that you can shoot that giraffe. You can skin it.

You can eat it. Do whatever you want to do with it. And that's the covenant that he reestablished with Noah and mankind going forward. So from a, from a hunter standpoint, that floating zoo is nothing but a Texas game ranch, man. Now, I've never had a giraffe burger or a giraffe sausage. I'm not really aware of people eating giraffe meat. We're going to go to a break here, but folks, when we come back, I'm going to ask about giraffe meat and a lot of other crazy stuff. But the book, I think you want to copy this book, and if you know any hunter and you're looking for a gift, Doug Giles, G-I-L-E-S is the author of the Bible and hunting.

Who does want to copy that? Welcome back talking to my friend Doug Giles. It's spelled G-I-L-E-S. He has a brand new book called The Bible and Hunting, which I'm going to go out on a limb here, deals with the Bible and hunting. Am I right about that? Yeah, man, it's crazy how you connected those dots. Well, that's what I do. And I, before we went to the break, you were talking about, you know, Noah kind of pulling up the ark, letting the animals off, and then killing them

and eating some of them. And you mentioned the giraffe. And now I just want to ask you because I know you've hunted all kinds of exotic animals. But what is the most exotic animal you've eaten? Have you ever, I've never heard of anyone eating giraffe. Yeah, I shot a giraffe in Zimbabwe in 2013 in the Metetsi hunting block. And so this giraffe was an old ancient melanistic bull. And I don't

know if you know what a melanistic bull is. I've never heard of melanistic. Yes. So it's nearly black, man. Like his spots weren't brown and his coat tan. His spots were black. And the in-between spaces of the of his coat were dark brown. And so that's that's a treasure animal. And so I should shot him. And what's interesting because people's like, that's so mean. It's like, you know what's mean? Watch a pride of lions pull a giraffe down and eat him from his rear end forward while he's still alive. The giraffe that I shot Eric, it had scar tissue that was hard as a toilet lid on his belly where the lions and the hyenas and the wild dogs had been getting after him for over 20 years. We guesstimated his age around 20 plus, but just an ancient bull, barely any teeth left in his head. He had sown all of his seed to all the female giraffes.

So it was done, essentially, except for a brutal, god-awful death inflicted by Mother Nature, who we all know she can be a you-know-what rhymes with which. Well, it's funny because most people wouldn't think of that, and I'm glad you brought that up, that basically, you know, taking an animal like that down with a bullet or two is an infinitely better way for that animal to go than, as you just put it, to be torn apart by the teeth and claws of animals that are in a hurry to eat you. And they're not really checking to see if you have a pulse when they start eating. So it's pretty horrifying.

Now, how big was this giraffe? How tall? Oh, my gosh, man. We didn't put a tape to him, but when we did the end of the safari pitcher, Eric, so I'm like 5-11, and my wife and I are standing in front of the hide that's stretched up. And so it's minus a lot of the neck hide. So we're just talking about pretty much the body hide. And it's well over twice, you know, our hide.

I mean, that's amazing. So you've, man, they're a pachyderm. Their skin is super thick. I mean, it's, it's like that, you know, and it's just, I mean, they're not actually pachyderms, but they're like pachyderms, is what you're saying. They got them thick hide, and the one that I shot, it had these, these massive nodules on its, on the bridge of its nose where it had been fighting other bulls for breeding dominance. And it's just a war horse, man, just an, but again, you know, like I said, we only shoot,

like, like, I'm a trophy hunter, which means everybody's like, well, that's so bad. It's like, no, I'm going for the oldest. that has, you know, been driven from herds. He's not breeding that much anymore. Most of them, Eric, are toothless, you know, and so we go in there and we take them out because, again, they've done what they've needed to do, you know, whether it's a deer or an antelope or, you know, anything like that,

Cape Buffalo, you know, always gun for the... But what is the most exotic thing that you've eaten or what are some of that? You've not, I assume you've never eaten giraffe meat. Yeah, we ate the gyathe. giraffe meat. And here's, here's something that's, and it's, it's not that great. It's not that bad. I mean, it's meat. And we, I got so much hell when I was still on Facebook before they banned me for life from this girl, again, from Miami. Oh my God, how dare you shoot a giraffe? Again, not knowing the backstory and not knowing what we're going to do with that giraffe. Once we got it down

on the ground started skinning it, we fed hundreds, if not thousands of people, low fat, fat, high protein, Ted Nugent yumminess with that giraffe. And it was disseminated. As we were driving through the Metetsi hunting concession where we were where we were on safari, you could see hut after hut drying the giraffe meat that they all came to pick up out in the middle of nowhere. And I asked again, the doe-eyed, you know, weepy, weepy tree hump or girl, when's the last time You fed, you know, I don't know, 2,000 pounds of, again, high-protein, low-fat food at your expense to people who, you know, are eating dung beetles and, you know, some kind of maze-type gruel. I mean, we fed, again, I can still see it, my mind's eye, man. Hutt after hut after hut had a ton of graph jerky, or Bill Tong, as they call it, hanging up, drying in the breeze.

So in the Bible, I mean, whenever somebody says the title of your book is the Bible and hunting. And again, folks, this is make a great get. Doug didn't tell me to say this. I'm just telling you, I think it would be a great gift for a hunter in your life, the Bible and hunting. So chapter three is about Nimrod. Now Nimrod, as soon as you say the Bible and hunting, I think of Nimrod. So what do you have to say about Nimrod? Who was Nimrod? Yeah, so when I first got saved, you know, I'm, you know, three teeth, knock you of 50. I don't know anything about the scripture, and I was into hunting, and I was around a lot of whoosies at church that weren't into hunting, and they started nicknaming me Nimrod, like it was

some kind of bad moniker to fly under. And so, you know, supposedly Nimrod went off the rails and built some, you know, evil, ancient city Babylon or something like that. But from a purely biblical standpoint, Eric, there's four times that Nimrod's mentioned in the scripture, and none of it is pejorative. It just says... Hang on. Just going to a break. We're talking to the author

of The Bible and Hunting. Welcome back, folks. Talking to my friend Doug Giles, G-I-L-E-S. The title of his book, Are you ready? The Bible and hunting. I cannot help but think that a lot of people

are buying this book as gifts for their hunters and their family. What a great idea. What a great idea for a book. Yeah, thank you. I just check right before we came on air, and it's only been out like a week, and it's number one in hot new releases

in animal care. It's number three. Animal care. Animal care. I like that. Okay, so what else do you say in the book about hunting the Bible? Yeah, so going back to Nimrod, you know, everybody's like, oh, you're a Nimrod because you, you know, hunt, and, you know, there's evil connotations because of what he, you know, did, but it's not written in the scripture, so it's not to me, I'm just using the Bible as my, you know, source of information. So all it says is that Nimrod was a mighty hunter before God. And so the people try to twist it like he's, you know, shoving hunting in God's face, but that's not the connotation where it says David, same verbiage, David dance before the Lord. And so David isn't

doing dirty dancing before God. He's just, he's just doing it in his presence. I just got to say this you just remind me of something that I that I used to talk about more often. When I wrote my Bonhofer book, if you read the Bonhofer book, you will notice several times I mention the fact that Adolf Hitler, are you ready, was a dedicated vegetarian. Not kidding. Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian. So, you know, if you're going to do that thing like, well, he did some bad stuff. for it. Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian folks, and he owned a dog. So, you know, I don't think it means you shouldn't be a dog owner, but I just think the fact that he's a vegetarian is very interesting. Yeah, have you ever read the book? And I hate to mention somebody else's book when I'm plugging my book. But there's another book called The Vegetarian Myth. And I can't remember the girl's name,

but, you know, she's anti-hunting, you know, just total down the funnel vegetables only. And her doctor said, listen, if you don't eat a Big Mac, you're going to die. So she was like in her early 40s, and she looked like Skeletor, like she's like 70, you know, plus 80 years old. And so she did a complete reversal on her stance about meat eating. And she spotlighted in the vegetarian myth that hunting and game meat, if you're going to, you know, park your meat truck somewhere, that's the best stuff on the planet, you know, avoid the process, poison stuff that you get at H.E.B. Okay, by the way, chapter nine of your book, I like this. The chapter nine says, David's confidence that he could kill Goliath came from killing

apex predators. Now, that is also true, absolutely. Yeah, you see, David, when he's talking to Goliath, and he's talking to, you know, the scared pastoral committing, that they're on the. rim of the valley of Ila, he said that his confidence that to kill Goliath and serve him up to the birds came from killing a lion and a bear with his bare hands. You know, people say, Doug, do you have any problem with what the Bible says? And it's like, yeah, I have a problem with that. Because I've been, I've got a lion right here. You've seen him before. And I've got a 10-foot grizzly bear in this

corner for a young 16-year-old Jewish kid to kill an apex predator like a flipping lion and a bear. Now, if it was a cub, I could see it. But if it's a mature animal, man, I'm telling you why, I want video proof of that when I get to heaven because I would love to see that tussle. But again, David's confidence, man, was I've done it. The Lord showed up for a lion. The Lord showed up for a bear. God's going to show up, and I'm going to take your head off with your own sword. Obviously, David used a sling, and if you're throwing a large stone accurately with a sling at the head of a bear, you know. But here's the caveat is that if they're undisturbed, if they're coming at you, you've got to have some gangster holy ghost anointing on that rock, because you're not going to stop them. They move at 35 miles an hour unless you brain them.

I mean, get inside their noggin, not just hit them in the head, but I mean, actually get in there and turn it into mush. They're going to be turned into bear or lion scat. Uh-huh. Well, honestly, there's so much in the book. What else do we talk about? I like. I'll tell you one thing, Eric, that I think you'd like. Chapter 7, God's idea of interior design.

And so you've been to a ton of churches and, you know, there's floral sprays and there's cute, fat, baby angel prints that look like they've got a good buzz going from their mother's milk that's been liberally mixed with Diet Coke and Nuprin. And when you look at the tabernacle of Moses, man, and I don't know if we've talked about this before, but the tabernacle of Moses, God's, first of all, the first two people that were filled with the Holy Spirit were artist, okay? They weren't apostles, they weren't prophets. They were artists. And so God fills these two dudes to come in there to trim out the tabernacle of Moses. And one of the interesting things, oh, come on, one of the interesting things that he utilizes, sorry, so one of the interesting things that he utilizes is animal skins. So he tells the children of Israel, and they actually have these things, Eric, to get animal skins,

and put them in the tabernacle. So ram skins, porpo skins? Yes. I have read this. Porpo skins, ladies and gentlemen, man. Porpoise is a mammal. But that's, and there's all kinds of other animals, interesting animals mentioned in those passages.

Yeah. Yeah, and statues of rams and lions. And again, this is God. And I know that, you know, we're the temple. now. But I would like to see, can you imagine, Eric, if there's a church, as soon as you walk into the foyer, there's a lion like you've seen at my place, and it's right there for everybody to behold. And underneath it, it says, the righteous or bold as lions. What kind of visual, you know, would that give off to people who walk in, you know, instead of, you know, having a kiosk with

Starbucks or something. And God wanted to impress upon people, gravitas, beauty. And he said, listen, man, I'm going to need some deer peltz. I'm going to need a giraffe rug. And again, I think it's just mind-blowing just how different he is compared to us. Well, that's why in your book, you're taking us back to the Bible. We need to be reminded of this, folks, badly. The title of the book is the Bible and hunting. You've got to know some hunters in your life. Great gift, honestly, great gift. The Bible and hunting, Doug Giles, G-I-L-E-S will be right back.

We're talking to Doug Giles. It's spelled with a G-I-L-E-S. Doug Giles. I'm obviously thrilled you wrote this book called The Bible and Hunting. There's certain things that needed writing. And I think the book, the Bible in hunting, it needed writing because it's kind of almost odd that there isn't a book about that. So congrats on thinking of it. Congrats on writing it.

What else have we? We haven't talked about chapter 11 in the book, which is titled Rise, Kill, and Eat. Yeah, so that phrase comes from the Book of Acts. And Peter, you know, being Peter, he's. He's after Pentecost, he's doing good, and then he gets derailed by Judaizer. It's like, ah, you got to have your foreskin lopped off too if you really want to please Jesus. And so God's got this guy named Cornelius that he's prime for the gospel. And so Peter's preaching circumcision and grace, you know, and so God's trying to get through to that knucklehead to go over to this Italian dude's house to preach the gospel to him and his family.

So he puts Peter in a trance, and he lowers a sheet down and it's got all these animals, you know, that were according to. to Levitical law unclean. And God tells Peter, rise, kill, and eat. And then Peter, again, being the dufus that he was, he said, I'll never eat anything unclean. And God says, don't you call unclean what I've already cleansed? And he communicated the gospel of grace to the Gentile foreskin bearing Asia Minor peeps that they're accepted in the beloved too. And God did the message of or communicated the message of grace through a hunting illustration. And again, I think that's indicative of the fact that they were very well acquainted with hunting and that God who is highly creative could have communicated the message of grace to the Gentiles

to his rogue disciple Peter in any unimaginable type of ways. And he chose to do it with the hunting illustration. And I think right after that, Peter come out of Blastin, but it doesn't say that in the scripture. It doesn't tell us everything in the scripture. But that is interesting that right there in Acts, you have this picture where God says, arise, Peter, kill, and eat. And my late friend, the great Phil Robertson quoted that a lot. Of course, he's one of the great hunters of our time.

and it is interesting how, you know, people who love God can love hunting. And like you, they really do have a respect for animals. This is, you know, that to me is what's so interesting is that you have a knowledge of animals and you care about animals. And what you were just sharing about that giraffe, the way they would have died as opposed to the way that it died when you killed it, people don't often think about that. I'm grateful for your reminding us that. We have less than a minute left. What can we say about your book, The Bible and Hunting, that we haven't already said? Yeah, it's, you know, hunting season is on us now.

And like you said, it's a great gift for people who are unashamedly hunters and anglers, because obviously there's a ton of fishing in here as well. And it's good to have a biblical worldview on all things. And this is a cheeky book, but it's filled with information. and entertainment. And Eric, the audio version, oh my God. I did it. It's funny. And I listened to it the other day after I recorded it a year ago. And I laughed so hard. Milk came out of my nostrils. And I haven't had milk for like 36 years. Wow. That is that's very impressive. I didn't know there was an audio book. Now, now I know. There's an audio book. So the audio is not, Amazon hadn't totally approved it yet.

the Kindle and the Hardbacker available. So we're going a little back and forth with the audio book. All right. But people can go to your website, Doug Giles, G-I-L-E-S, folks. Check it out. We're at a time. Doug Giles, congrats on the book, The Bible and Hunting. Thank you, my friend. Thank you, brother. Have great week.