The Eric Metaxas Show - Michael Wing

Episode Date: January 24, 2024

Author Michael Wing shares his book "The Wisdom and Insight of Matthew Henry: Helping Modern Christians Strengthen Their Walk with God".

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I wub, vanilla. I wub, I wub, wab. Here comes Eric Metaxus. Hey there, folks. Welcome. Every now and again, I get particularly excited. For example, right now, I get to introduce you, you being my audience, to Matthew Henry. Some of you think, oh, Matthew Henry. We know everything about Matthew Henry.

He's a very big deal. And some of you haven't heard of Matthew Henry. As usual, I'm in the middle. I know just enough about Matthew Henry to know that I should know more about Matthew Henry. Matthew Henry was a 17th century theologian, very, very big deal. I've read almost nothing about him, so I was thrilled to find out that there's a brand new book called The Wisdom and Insight of Matthew Henry, helping modern Christians strengthen their walk with God.

The authors are Michael Wing and Victoria Jenkins, and I'm joined now by Michael Wing. Welcome. Hi, Eric. Thank you. Appreciate you having me on. Well, listen, it's my pleasure, honestly, because I love talking about these kinds of things. So for my audience and for me, who was Matthew Henry? Because I know he's a big deal, but what does that mean? Matthew Henry was a 17th century theologian, largely self-taught, as there weren't what we have today, a lot of formal theological seminary.

So he spent an enormous amount of time in the Word. And through that, he came out with what is considered still, today, one of the greatest biblical commentaries ever written. And so he offers a lot of profound insight. When you say the word, there are people who listen to this program, aren't familiar with our Christian vocabulary. When you say Matthew Henry, this 17th century figure spent a lot of time in the word, you mean, of course, the Bible.

He spent a lot of time directly reading the Bible. And his commentary, what is it, six volumes? It depends which version you have. Some of them are six volumes. And then there's a condensed version that's a massive. tomb that's not even hard to carry. But, but I mean, Matthew Henry is famous essentially for this gigantic, monumental masterpiece that he he spent years and years and years writing what was, you know, a definitive commentary of the Bible. And it was used by innumerable, bold names that we would know

in the 18th and 19th centuries. So he was hugely influential in the world of Christianity. I mean, basically, that's him in a nutshell, isn't it? In fact, the legacy of Matthew Henry, you know, we talk about coaching trees like Nick Saban and all the coaches that come from him. Well, Matthew Henry would have a similar tree within the theological family of so many of the great theologians of the time would have Matthew Henry as. almost their prerequisite. Verse by verse, book by book, just an extensive exposee of the Bible.

It is just an amazing work that even to this day in the 21st century, I would suggest, has not yet been equaled. Well, so give us the background on who he was that led him to, you know, begin and complete this masterwork that people are still reading today. If you want to know what the Bible says about this verse or that verse or this chapter, Matthew Henry is one of the places you go on the internet. You know, I have been looking up a verse and, you know, takes me to what Matthew Henry had to say about it, you know, three or four hundred years ago.

It's extraordinary. The thing that's great about Matthew Henry is, I like to refer to as he helps you operationalize your faith. In other words, there's no greater standard than the Bible. The Bible should always be the first and foremost source. Matthew Henry's motivation in doing his commentary was to make it real, meaningful, and relevant for people in their everyday life so that to be able to grow in their spiritual formation, that they could read the Bible and have it be operationalized in their faith.

I'm a firm believer that he probably had something like Colossians 317 in mind, which says, and all that you do, whether in word or deed, do unto the glory of God, not unto man. And Matthew Henry is almost like a great playbook. It's like a great game plan. It's okay, how do I take the Bible and all this great wisdom? How do I operationalize it in my life and make a difference? So what world did Matthew Henry come out of? In other words, what was his upbringing that?

led him to this great enterprise of writing this monumental commentary on the scriptures. And by the way, what year did he begin work on it and what year did he finish it? He was writing in approximately 1640, and it took him almost all the rest of his life, almost another 35 years to finish. It was the work of his lifetime. He was a layperson, which I find very attractive. He was not an ivory tower guy that all he did was work in theological circles. He was a layperson that found the Bible to be the greatest work ever produced.

And he was committed, one, to grow stronger in his walk with the Lord, and two, to try and help people understand. Almost back from the Reformation days when Martin Luther said, it's only the scripture. Put the scripture in people's hands. Let people read the Bible. And Matthew Henry really believes strongly in that. And he felt not only were going to put the word, the Bible, in their hands, we're going to help them understand it.

My word, not his, we're going to help them operationalize it. So it's meaningful on a daily basis. And that's what Matthew Henry was so famous for, is that he'd be able to take the scriptures of the Bible and make it so that it was compelling, motivating so that people would say, wow, I really get that. I really understand that. I'm now going to operationalize that into my life and make a difference for me. Christ. So I want to ask again, what was it that led him to decide, you know, to do this work? It's one thing to have an intention or an idea, but to actually do it. How was he raised? Where was he in life that he was able to

afford to spend this kind of time in the scriptures and commenting on the scriptures? What is his biography, roughly? His parents were, of course, women at the time did not work. So his mom stayed at his home. His dad was a tradesman. And he did work. He did not, he was almost like the Apostle Paul. Paul was a tentmaker and also a great evangelist. Matthew Henry had to work. He did not have the means by which he could take time off. So he's working basically as a tradesman in his father's footsteps and then also working on developing the commentary. What kind of a tradesman? He was doing blacksmith type work. Blacksmith type work. That's not what I would have expected. You know what I'm saying? I picture him sitting in his study as a scholar, but he was actually working as a Smith, you're telling me.

And then on the side, when he had time working on this commentary. Wow. That. And then he also did some teaching. The thing in his private papers, which were intriguing to read, is that he felt that if people truly understood the power and the significance of the Bible, their lives would be transformed. So his feeling was, I have got to help people understand. It's been transformative in my life, he said. I need to help it be transformative in other people's lives. I think he would be extraordinarily humbled and, of course, give God the glory that here it is in 2024. And he, he has, extensive work on the Bible in his commentary is still touching lives and still helping people with their spiritual formation.

It's utterly definitive, folks. In case, again, you're now familiar with Matthew Henry, his commentary on the Bible is definitive. It is absolutely definitive. You want to know what the Bible says about on some verse or you want some clarity. Matthew Henry is one of the first places that most people would go today. This is 300 plus years after he. he worked on it. So just a less than a minute left in this segment, Michael Wing,

what led you to join Victoria Junkins in writing this book about Matthew Henry? Well, I love biographies. And so Matthew Henry's biography I read, and I thought, wow, what an amazing impact the Bible had on his life. And so I went through and spent literally eight years going through Matthew Henry's commentary in a very studious, manner. And I had a similar response. I thought, wow, if people would know that wisdom and the insight, thus the title of Matthew Henry, I mean, you open up the book that we put together and literally any page, somebody will open it up and say, wow, that's amazing. That's fantastic insight. We're going to be right back. I'm talking to Michael Wing, who is the author with

Victoria Jenkins of the wisdom and insight of Matthew Henry. For more than 10 years, Patriot Mobile has been America's only Christian conservative wireless providers standing behind their values and their exceptional service. They're an example of putting the cause ahead of profits, and it's why I am proud to partner with them. Starting today, Patriot Mobile is extending their Black Friday deal to the Every Friday Matters deal, and you can get a free smartphone when you switch today.

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We're talking about the great 17th century theologian Matthew Henry. I have as my guest, Michael Wing, who with Victoria Jenkins, has written a book called The Wisdom and Insight of Matthew Henry. So Michael, just a moment ago, I was asking when he was working on this, and you told me off the year that you misspoke. So he was born in 1662, you said, and died in 1714. So obviously he worked on this book late in the 17th century. Do we have a sense of how many years he spent working on this? It was almost 30 years. It was definitely the significant part of his life.

I would say. He started in his early 20s. And he died when he was 52, life expectancy being a lot shorter now then than it was now. So you had to hurry up and write. So here you have a man whose multi-volume work commentary on the Bible is with us today. It's significant. People are consulting it while we're having this conversation. People are online reading what Matthew Henry had to say. I'm trying to think of the world in which he lived. When we think about the latter part of the 17th century, what would have people at that time been using? In other words, what commentaries did he have available to him? I'm just curious because it's just hard to imagine somebody saying, you know what? We need a multi-volume definitive commentary on the Bible, and I'm going to do it. It's just an extraordinary thing that history gives us, these figures, that God gives us these figures in history?

Well, the interesting thing was, is keep in mind the Reformation had just been a hundred years prior. So one of the primary things of the Reformation was trying to get the Bible into lay people's hands. Prior to that, it was largely only conveyed to them through the priest in the Catholic Church. So to your question of other comment, it's not like today we can go to a bookstore and find any number of commentaries, either on a book of the Bible, or or on the Bible itself. So he was really almost like the Apostle Paul. He had his tradesman work.

He was a non-conformist minister like we would call today, like a non-denominational minister. He was trying to, at the same time that he was trying to minister to people, he was trying to come up with the insight. The whole volume set was not published until after his death. So he was sharing with people as he was writing. And then outside in his personal writings, he never expected it to be, obviously, the monumental work that it was. So he was trying to write so he could teach, preach, and then it started to be compiled by people as it went on.

After his death, it was when the first six-volume set was actually published. After his death, wow. Did he publish the first several volumes before his death, or was it all lying fallow until he died? Well, the volumes probably was not the word that I would use. It would be his writings. They would be writings, kind of like loose papers that were compiled together. Volume is the terminology probably not used until well after he had died. But he had lots and lots of papers organized by book of the Bible.

And his approach was he just started from the beginning. He started from Genesis and worked all the way through until he finished in Revelation. Just unbelievable. So I may have asked you this, but I want to go back. What led you, Michael Wing, to decide, I need to write a book about this? And tell us who is Victoria Junkins and how is it that you came to collaborate with her on this book about Matthew Henry? First part of your question, I've been blessed over my career. I'm a lawyer. I've been a long-time corporate CEO of different companies. And the Bible had always been a big part of my adult life. My faith had always been important to me.

And during my quiet times, I came across Matthew Henry. And seeing the big impact that he had in my life, I thought, wow, I'd like to write a book that distills all the nuggets, the pearls of wisdom from Matthew Henry to give that same benefit to other people that would like to grow in their spiritual walk with the Lord. Victoria Jenkins is a former high-tech manager, MBA, Notre Dame grad, very well-spoken, involved in lots of diversity work. And she shares the same type of passion and love for God. So it was great to have her perspective as we worked through and we edited and we put this together.

So instead of being a singular focus on my part, it was collaborative. And indeed, I think it was a much better product as a result of the collaborative work with somebody of her intellect and her insight. So what are some of the, you know, the title of your book is The Wisdom and Insight of Matthew Henry. What are some of the things that strike you, that observations that he made? In other words, I'm guessing that when he was working in the latter part of the 17th century, there were observations that he made on scripture verses that no one had made before Matthew Henry that are with us to this day, that our interpretation, when we read a scripture verse, it brings to mind this or this or this, that some of those observations, initial observations, originated with Matthew Henry.

Can you think of anything like that? I think the thing is important and great question on your part is that, the scene in the setting when Matthew Henry wrote was England was a tough time to live. I mean, unless you were in the upper crest of society, it was very tough. So a lot of his insight, for example, one thing that comes to mind, he says, it's sad to think how many go away from sermons with the word of grace in their ears, but not the work of grace in their hearts. Wow.

How many times are we Sunday Christians, but not necessarily Monday through Saturday? And that's where I like the word operationalizes, because Matthew Henry, I think, helps us operationalize our faith Monday through Saturday. Another one, when we experience God's bounty to us, this should make us bountiful to the poor. I can't read a lot of Matthew Henry without thinking of Matthew 2540, where Jesus, Jesus, admonished people to say, as you take care of the least of these is how you treat me and take care of me. It was not a suggestion. It was an admonition to take care of the least of these. Another one, he said, divine grace can conquer the greatest ignorance and prejudice. I've done a lot of trips overseas on mission trips, and I'm always amazed.

People many times that have almost nothing, but they have this exuberant faith and this amazing simplicity of their faith. and manifestations of grace that I think shows how powerful the Bible can be. Another one comes to mind, God multiplies his pardon, and so should we. Our society tends to be very judgmental, and wow, what happened to grace? What happened to us manifesting grace to other people? And the beauty of that is our faith overcomes differences. Our faith should be that, wow, whoever they are, maybe by the grace of God, God go I. And that mentality, that approach tends to be, I think, conspicuously absent.

Another phrase he says is, true humanity is good divinity. If we're good practitioners of our faith, people should see that. There should be a transformative effect on our life and in the lives of other people. Now, I've spent a good amount of time in Washington, as have you. And I had a good friend one time. He was on the Secret Service. And he says, you know, Mike, what I hope is is that we're not secret service Christians. And what he meant by that?

And he shared an interesting scenario. He says, what if a law was passed that said it was a crime to be a Christian? Would there be enough evidence in the manifestations of your life that would allow you to be or somebody to be arrested for being a Christian? And, you know, that's amazing. I think there's a lot of folks that, for whatever reason, the faith is not manifest in how we act. how we treat people, how we do things. And, you know, I think our hope, my hope, your hope would be that our lives are manifestations of God, manifestations of Christ and how we act, how we talk, how we treat people.

Matthew Henry helps operationalize that. It's interesting. I mean, you wouldn't know this, but you're singing my song because I just came out with a book this last year called Letter to the American Church, which is essentially about this. and it is, it takes its cue from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who his phrase was faith in action. If your faith is not faith in action, perhaps you have no faith. And so you have so many Christians because of Luther thinking, it's about faith, it's about faith, it's about faith. Yeah, it is.

Do you have faith? And a lot of people kind of act as though faith is this enlightenment, rationalist, theological assent. It's not. You have to actually live it out. You have to actually show evidence that you believe what you claim to believe. and Bonhofer was always talking about faith inaction, not just the ascent to some theological ideas. And obviously the scripture says faith without works is dead. And so it is always about living what the Bible says, not just knowing it intellectually.

Otherwise, you can be like a Pharisee who rejects Jesus. But you know the Bible real well. We're talking about Matthew Henry, the great, very great 17th century theologian. We'll be right back. Tell me why Relief Factor is so successful at lowering or eliminating pain. I'm often asked that question just the other night. I was asked that question, well, the owners of Relief Factor tell me they believe our bodies were designed to heal. That's right, designed to heal, and I agree with them.

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Nutrametics.com, use the code Eric for 15% off. Folks, we are talking about Matthew Henry, a giant in the world of Bible commentary. I really can't think of anybody upon whose shoulders he stands in terms of Bible commentary, but everybody in Bible commentary stands on the shoulders of Matthew Henry. You mentioned Michael Wing that you had read a biography about Matthew Henry. What was the biography that you read, and when did it come out? Actually, not formally published. It was the writings of contemporaries.

So I had to do a fair amount of research. I think my legal background helped out in trying to do that. It was basically a book that talked about important theologians over time, and it was one person's dissertation in seminary that had done that. On that note, I just want to say one thing real quick. You'd mentioned Bonhofer before. One of my heroes, and of course the cost of discipleship is one of my favorite books. I loved your book on Bonhofer.

It was a great book, and I think Bonhofer had it right then, and he's got it right now. The cost of discipleship, his key phrase was cheap grace. And unfortunately, I think in our society today, we make grace too cheap. We don't understand or appreciate the cost of discipleship. And I really applaud you and thank you for the great work you did on Bonhofer. And your latest book, The Letter to the Church, I thought was great also. So I think Matthew Henry would have enjoyed your book.

That's very kind of you. I have to say, I mean, Bonhofer, Really, for him it was a revelation. When he came to New York and people who know my book on Bonhoeffer know that there was this moment in his life. He comes to New York in 1930. And he is just bowled over by the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. Because what he sees there, he does not see in the, at that point, increasingly liberal, mainline Protestant white churches. He doesn't see faith in action. But when he goes up to Harlem to Abyssinian Baptist. He sees that their faith is, it's not merely much more vibrant on Sundays, but all through the week, it was just lived out in every single sphere, including the political. And this is, you know, what I keep talking about is that you can't put boundaries on your faith. If you see in Bonhoeffer's Day in the Black Church in Harlem, Abyssinian Baptist Church, they were constantly mentioning the lynchings in the South.

They didn't say, oh, we don't want to get political. or we don't want to, you know, they just said this is a moral issue. We have a moral obligation to talk about what are God's values in this world. And so, of course, Bonhofer, when he goes back to Germany, realizes I have a moral obligation. And no, not just I. Every Christian in Germany has a moral obligation to speak out against the evil rising all around us. But there were so many Germans at the time who were stymied in a sense. They had this idea that, well, we're not supposed to go out of our theological lane, and you realize that's simply unbiblical. Theologically, I mean, biblically, we're supposed to, if our theology is right, it pulls us

out of the merely theological into every single sphere. And so you say Matthew Henry talks about operationalizing, or is that your term or Matthew Henry's term, about operationalizing our faith? It's my term. I was going to say, it doesn't sound like a 17th century term, no. Yeah, I think he would agree with that term. And I think, The great thing about Bonhofer was his faith, he was a brilliant theologian in the white ivory tower, so to speak. And as he comes to New York and he sees that, my word again, operationalized faith, that's what transformed it when he goes back to Nazi Germany. And he says, okay, now we've got to teach a lot of pastors.

And he does the shadow church, the church that was illegal by teaching a lot of pastors so that day in turn could be meeting with people in their homes. and he was I looked at some of Bonhofer's work and he does mention Matthew Henry in some of his writings when he was doing his theological work. He did not use the word operationalized, but he referenced the fact that the faith must be real. We cannot stay and expect people's lives to be transformed. And Matthew Henry was referenced by Dietrich Bonhoeffer a few times. about the importance of faith being real, faith being something that transforms people's lives. And that was part of the thing I think that moved Bonhofer to his movement

to try and eliminate Hitler and some of the other things that he did, is he then operationalized his faith as well. And I think that's the key is we don't want to be Sunday Christians. We need to be seven days a week Christians. And what I found, and to this day, I mean, I love, Matthew Henry's insight, his wisdom is that I, the book that Victoria and I wrote is fun to read because I pick it up on a daily basis and there's not a page that doesn't have pearls of wisdom and insight. You know what? I can operationalize that today. I can practice my faith.

That goes Sunday to be entertained, but I can take my faith and I can make a difference in people's lives today by how I live and my commitment to Christ. And I think that is. so sorely needed today. I think the church in many respects along the lines of some of what you wrote in your last book, Letter to the Church, American Church, is our faith is conspicuantly absent in terms of being operationalized and making a difference. We're not making the difference. So what I loved about Matthew Henry is, you know, the great thing about the truths of the Bible. It's the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, as the writer of Hebrews tells us. And that's a wonderful standard to operate by. Let's use the Bible as our baseline, our standard, our absolute

source of truth. Matthew Henry helps us operationalize that on daily life. Well, we're going to have to leave it there, but what a fascinating introduction to Matthew Henry. The book is the wisdom and insight of Matthew Henry, helping modern Christians strengthen their walk with God by Michael Wing and Victoria Junkins. Michael Wing, thank you for being my guest, and thanks for writing this book. Thank you. Nice to be with you, Eric. There's no better example of the church staying silent than during the recent COVID-19 pandemic. This is our battlefield.

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Use promo code Eric. I have the joy of talking to Albin, SADAR. Alvin, I understand you have a new book out. I understand I wrote the forward. Yes, you did. In fact, you wrote the forward, and I said, oh, no, now I've got to write a book around this thing. That's what happens. That's what happens.

He asks me to write it forward. I do it. Now the book is on you. I was joking, Eric. I just, I've been. But there's the book, we've talked about it before, but your writing is very readable. That is a big deal, folks. As a writer, I want to tell you.

Well, this cartoons. Writing in a readable way that makes people want to read it. because how many books do you have sitting around your house that you intend to read them, but they're just not that readable? I know, and I wrote a whole series of books called Hamster Homs from Simon & Schuster, and I knocked those things out in an hour or so to write the stories. But this one, I am not, I sweat it over this thing, and you know it, Eric, you write book after book after book, and you're just killing yourself day in and day out, trying to get it right, and this is like 250 pages. The fourth part of it. There's four parts. The last part is all about the stolen election,

And if you still aren't convinced, you'll read it and say, of course it was stolen. It's obvious. And that's my number one reason why it was stolen. It's obvious. It was right in front of your face, folks. Well, we have to also, I think part of fighting is speaking truth. Yeah. So if you can't speak the truth, you're not going to be able to do much about the-

This will help you do it in a whimsical way. So you need to say, yeah, it looks like the election was stolen. Yep. It looks like Bruce Jenner is still a man. Yep. Yep, it looks like there are only two sexes. And yep, it looks like this administration is trying to destroy America, is deliberately keeping the border open so evil people can come in along with the good people.

A lot of evil people are sneaking in. This is all common sense, folks. It is. And I think that we have to, part of what we want to do on this program is encourage people to speak the truth, be a part of the solution by speaking the truth. Yeah, and we were talking about. some of the bad guys in the administration. I want to mention specifically Merrick Garland. Now, if you remember, Merrick Garland was first introduced to the national stage, as it were,

by Barack Obama. He wanted him to be a Supreme Court justice and stay on there as one of the nine for the rest of his life. And, of course, they held off until the election, which was fortunate. But who gets shoved in there once they get a chance? They bring in Merrick Garland as the attorney general, right? And the thing it gets me about Merrick Garland. Every time I see him testifying or something like that, he looks like he's on the verge, ready to cry. Like he's got this weepy look on his face. And it's like, I think this was a guy that in high school, he was probably tormented or something, whatever, because he just looks like he's kind of a wimpy guy, but he's got the power now. And he's getting back at all those people that were, they thought they were so good or righteous or whatever. I don't know. This guy

cannot be trusted like the rest of the administration, but watch out for weepy Merrick Garland, I think there, again, I keep saying it, I think there are a lot of people that are waking up. And you know, folks, I want to say this often, too, that we're all different. So some people are combative and can argue. I don't like to argue. I mean, I like to say what I say in this program, but I don't like to argue with people who disagree with me. But what I try to do on social media is share things. Yes.

Share things. Now, that can get you in trouble. Good. If you're not losing some friends with what you're sharing on social media, why are you even on social media? You need to put good examples of the truth. And, you know, you can share this program. Actually, I say this. Please go to ericmetaxis.com, sign up for the newsletter.

We send these videos out. And you can just share them. And I ask you, I beg you to share these videos on social media. You've got to flood the social media space. with the truth because there are tons of people that are on the fence. They've never heard this stuff before. They're living in a little bubble where all their friends voted for George McGovern, for example. All their friends think just the way they do. Guilty, okay. Right? Yeah. Yeah. You didn't vote for George McGovern. I did. That was when he was running against

the game. Nixon? Of course. Yeah. Well, I was a liberal. I'll tell you when I changed, Roe versus Wade changed me. That was the other time I knew something was obviously wrong in country. I was a, I was a sophomore in college, and Roe v. Wade came down. So he flipped in a year. I just flipped. I said, wait a minute, I'm not a liberal. I'm not a guy on the left. In fact, when I left college in 1976, I said to a friend of mine, you know the number one thing, and this is in my book, by the way, obvious. The number one thing that people on the left hate, number one, is free speech. I said this back in 1976, back in Western Pennsylvania, a conservative kind of area. And that's true. And look where it's

gotten us. You cannot talk. You will be canceled. But Roe versus Wade, I said, it's obvious that we're talking about a life. We're not talking about choice. This is a life. The focus seems to be, well, does a woman have a choice about her body? You know, that's what happened. Our bodies, ourselves had indoctrinated a lot of young women, and it was like, we can even go as far as taking that human life. And now it's like live birth abortion. Yep, that's on the table, folks. Is it a life. I don't know. It's alive. It is unbelievable. Well, again, I guess I want to say, you know, as we're talking here, not everybody has a radio show. Not everybody has the ability to write books. Not everybody has the ability, even to articulate things. But you do have the ability to forward or

to post those who do. Yeah. And so on this program, we have all kinds of guests on this program, and I want to say to you that all these videos, if you get the newsletter, Eric Metaxus.com, we send you all the videos, and you can just, you know, click on the link and forward this. If you're doing that, folks, you're helping because we, you know, we have a limited reach, right? I don't care who you are. Your reach is not infinite, but we have a limited reach on this program. So you may think, oh, everybody's listening to this, but I want to tell you that there are a lot

busy people that they don't have time to listen to the radio, they don't have time to listen to the podcast. If you find something that seems particularly compelling, please post it on social media. That is really something you can do because people always say to me, Eric, what can I do? What can I do? I want to be real clear. That is one of the main things that you can do. To share things that you think will help people process what we're going through. And final thoughts? Well, yeah. For example, the cartoon that appeared on Sunday, well, whatever it was, about the insurrectionists.

It's the velvet rope insurrectionist. It's a nice cartoon. That gets the point across right there in just a picture. These guys are supposed to be violent and they're walking in between the velvet ropes. Between the velvet ropes. So you've got to go to Americanthinker.com. American thinker.com. And share that cartoon.

And share the cartoon by Simon. DeHunda. Oh, yeah. I think I know who that is. Simon de Hundahuta, the cartoon at American at American thinker.com. Alvin, thank you for being my guest. Thank you, Eric. Hey there, folks.

Welcome back. I want to mention Socrates Plus. Now, I think I said this yesterday, but this is, it's a new digital streaming platform that we have launched. Socrates in the city plus.com. Socrates in the city plus.com. If you want to see anything in the future of Socrates in the city, you have to be a member of Socrates Plus. So it's like $5 a month.

If you do it for the year, you get two months free. But we've got a lot of upcoming events. And all the live streams will be unavailable unless you're a member of Socrates Plus. If you're member of Socrates Plus, it's free. So the live stream that, you know, that was set up in the last year or so, which was a new feature. Yeah. That cost was, what, 10 bucks, something like that?

Well, yeah, we would charge $10. And by the way, that was insanely cheap. Right. So. But that's no longer available unless you now have to be a member of Socrates Plus to watch the Socrates events. And we got a lot of Socrates events coming up. And I want to mention February 8th.

Yeah. In Seattle, we have a Socrates event. I can't believe it's coming up so quick. February 8th in Seattle, Socrates and the city event. with John West. We're talking C.S. Lewis, Scientism. Very, very excited to have John West. He's the head of the Discovery Institute.

And the Discovery Institute, they're the greatest. Like half of my Socrates' guests come from the Discovery Institute. They've been on this program. But that event is happening in Seattle. Now, by the way, if you're in the Seattle area or it can get there, you want to be there in person. It's very, very special to be there in person. But most people can't get there.

And if you want to watch it live, you have to go to Socrates and City Plus.com and sign up. So I want to be very clear that we're shifting things now. Yeah. So we're getting with the times. Right. To access most of the content. And we have filmed an entire season already of Socrates in the studio.

Yeah. And those are basically Socrates and the city conversations without the audience of 250 people. We just aired, well, we put them all out, but some of you know the guests that that we have in this first season. We have Andrew Claven. We have Margarita Mooney talking about beauty. Wonderful, wonderful conversation. Hadley Arcus,

Hadley Arcus, again, one of the greatest legal minds ever. I mean, he's a genius. He taught at Amherst for 50 years, but also very delightful and fun to talk to. So we had a conversation about natural law. You get a real education, frankly. Socrates and the city is about the light. of the mind. So I guess I say this to people, and I might as well say it here, when people ask me,

well, what's Socrates and City? What is this stuff? A big part of it is the life of the mind that, you know, you graduate college and you want to continue to be living in the world of ideas and, you know, thinking and exploring truth. And that's what Socrates Plus will enable you to do because we're going have way more. We used to just, you know, do an event now and again. But we've now filmed an entire season of Socrates in the studio. So you got Socrates in the city events. He got Socrates in the studio events. And then we have a number of other programs. When you go to Socrates Plus, you'll see the other programs. The one that I'm most excited about is a gentleman's guide. Yeah. It's going to freak you out people. Yeah. It's sort of like, you know, the old Anthony Bourdain show, but it's you.

It's way better than Anthony Borda. And it's more, the subject matter is about, you know, being a gentleman. And how to do that. Something like that. I don't know if I'm buying that. Well, you know, something like that. Well, it's terrific. All right. So Socrates and CityPlus.com, check it out. Sign up.

Sign your kids up. A letter to the Americanchurch.com. Letter to the Americanchurch. We need your help in getting the word out. It is exciting. Free screenings available for churches only. It's terrific.