The Eric Metaxas Show - Michael Zwaagstra

Episode Date: October 9, 2020

It's Fun Facts Friday with a biblical twist! Michael Zwaagstra shares quirky stories from both the Old and New Testaments with examples from his book, "The Naked Man Flees: Timeless Truths from Obscure Parts of the Bible." (Encore Presentation)

Okay, welcome to the Eric Metax's show. Eric is indisposed at the moment. I'm afraid he's been having GI problems and uncomfortable bloating. But I'm sure he'll be out in a jiff. Oh, here he is now. Looking pale and shaken. Oh, you okay, little buddy? The Eric Mataxis show.

Hey there, folks. Welcome to the program. I'm continuing my conversation with my friend Alex McFarland. We're talking about his book, The Assault on America. Some really foundational issues. We always talk about politics and current events, but it has to go back to what do we believe and why do we believe it. And you, Alex, have been talking about the issue of natural law, the issue of a moral order,

which, as I said previously, we used to all mostly get, even if we didn't understand it philosophically. We understood it fundamentally, basically, intrinsically as a culture. That stopped happening mainly in the 60s. and today we have many people who have no idea of this. And of course, it's why we're drifting to the brink of collapse. But you were saying earlier that you think that there's hope that people, maybe I'm interpreting it this way, but when things get so bad, people tend to say, wait a minute, I must have missed something.

The idea that a man can declare himself a woman, it's kind of like if I cut off my arm and I declare myself, belonging to a species of one-armed people. It's like, well, you can cut off your arm, but you're still part of a species. Every cell within you says that you're part of a species where we have two arms, just because you cut off your arm. You can't change that. We kind of need to make this case that there are things that are immutable,

and that's what you do in your book, The Assault on America. There's a moral order, and we have to continue to make that case because many people don't get it anymore. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, one of the fallacies is reductionism. A reductionistic fallacy is a fallacy that implies nothing but. Well, you know, doctors are nothing but quacks.

Preachers are nothing but lazy people out for your money. And, you know, there can be some preachers that are lazy people out for your money, but not all. So let me say this. A lot of our modern pop noise is rather than do that, doing the heavy lifting of critical thinking, they're just series of slogans and reductionistic fallacies. So we say, well, men are men and women are women. And they'll say, well, that is nothing but some social construct. America was nothing but a systemic entity designed to exploit people. Corporations and capitalism is nothing but, you know, ugly profits and the exploitation

of people. We've got to be able to look beyond this and do what I say is kind of the heavy lifting of critical thinking and realize, look, it's a fallen world. It's a fallen world. But principled capitalism, and that's what we have had, principled capitalism has done more to enable people to rise above poverty, to create wealth in families after generations, perhaps, of indigence, and America, she's not perfect. But my goodness, I often say this, Eric, I think the two greatest nations in world history were Israel under King Solomon and the United States of America. And what I talk about in the book, so many now, millennials and younger, and even some of the boomers, some of the younger boomers, they've never seen an America at her best. They've never seen

an America where in media and journalism, the country was appreciated and affirmed, certainly not in the public school classrooms. Eric, I remember in the 80s when I was doing my undergrad program at a state university, I remember professors denigrating America even back then. And so, you know, I like your analogy of a man cuts his arm off and says, I'm a species of one-armed, you know, people or creatures. We're living in a time right now, the progressives from Bernie to AOC to Kamala Harris. It's like America has problems, so let's burn the whole house down. You know, if you find an aunt in your kitchen, you don't fix the problem by burning the entire structure down. That's what people want to do. And let me say one last thing, though, racism has become a golden calf. Racism is

wrong, of course, because humans have value, worth, and dignity made in the image of God. We're in this point where if you don't hate who I want you to hate, you don't denigrate what I denigrate, you're a bad person, you're a racist, will label you, will marginalize you. All right. So let's go back to colonial America. Would to God that the country had been founded without any presence of slavery, but there was slavery and thank God, we acted and we did what no other nation is done. We fought an internal civil war with ourselves to get slavery ended. In 1805 as Jefferson began his second term as president,

Jefferson was refusing to do business with slave trading nations. So the restitution and the correction of the slavery problem was begun at an early point, and that's wonderful. Here's my question for the militant, you know, deconstruct America progressives. I would say this. Go back to the 16th and 17th centuries. And you don't like what America was at that point. Fair enough. So where else would you have gone to have gotten a better shake?

You know, I mean, really, if America at her founding and for the first, you know, real century of America's existence, we weren't perfect. there was slavery. And then there were Jim Crow laws throughout the Democratic South. All right. So that's bad. We all agree. Okay, tell me where else on planet Earth

would you have gone and had a better shot? Well, I mean, and let's get serious. Slavery is not a white thing. Slaven, since the beginning of time, fallen human beings have exploited other fallen human beings along the lines we would describe as slavery. Since the beginning of time, since the beginning of history, only because I wrote my book on William Wilberforce,

do I understand that blacks sold other blacks into slavery? Africa was a nation in which slavery existed. So the idea that white Americans somehow invented this 400 years ago, it's the most ridiculous thing imaginable. And you talk about teaching confused false history. That idea is a lot. a lie, but it's a particularly wicked lie because it's a confusing lie. It's not just a simple lie, but it's a lie that kind of confuses all of history. Every race has been guilty of slavery and

slave trading. It is not a racial issue. It is a sin issue. It's a human issue. It is. You know, from 1570 to 1630, Caribbean nations apprehended. and sold some quarter million Scottish slaves. Now, I'm a MacFarland. My Scottish ancestors came to America around 200 years ago through Charleston. But here's the thing. I'm not calling on Disney to end the Pirates of the Caribbean ride or movies or franchise because I'm a descendant of Scots, some of whom were slaves.

I could say, okay, Caribbean islands were engaged in trading of Scottish, slaves, oh, as a Scottish extract, and anything that has Caribbean in the title. No, I recognize it as an unfortunate point of history, but, you know, praise God, I'm living in a free American now. And Eric, I know you've heard my story. In the South, there's poor, and then there's chicken farmer poor. And I grew up on a, we raised chickens. I worked like the Dickens to get through school and got married to a very wonderful Christian young lady. And in the whole world, she finished nursing school. I finished my first undergrad degree. And in the world, in the whole world, we had $58. Now, I'm not poor-mouthing. I'll be the first to tell you, Eric, the Lord has

been really good to me. The Lord has been so good to me. But my mother and dad declared bankruptcy in their 70s. I mean, we were, you know, there's, there's male, there's Caucasian male, there's conservative Christian male, then there's Southern with a bad rural accent male. I mean, I have five strikes that would mitigate me not having any worth as a human being. You know, white, Caucasian, Christian, conservative, Southern, ah, nothing to live for. But look, folks, been there. If you work hard, say your prayers and live right, you'll begin to get some traction. We're going to have to leave it there.

Wonderful to talk to you, my friend Alex McFarland. Well said, the book is The Assault on America. Get a copy. Thanks, Eric. Hey there, folks. It's Eric McAxas show. As you know, sometimes on Fridays, we like to do Fun Facts Friday. Kind of just a fun thing where you learn facts that probably you didn't learn before.

Or actually, if you learn them, I think that means you didn't know them before. You may know some of the stuff we're going to talk about, but I very rarely get a book out of the blue that appeals to me and then have the author on this program, but that's exactly what happened. I got a book out of the blue called The Naked Man Flees, Timeless Truths from Obscure Parts of the Bible. The author is Michael Zwagstra. Sounds vaguely Dutch. Michael, welcome the program. Well, thank you very much, Eric. It's a pleasure to be with. you. Oh, it's my pleasure. You've got to make sure that I pronounce your name correctly, because these Dutch names infuriate me. How do I say it? It's pronounced Zwaxtra. You got it right on the first try. Well, you are, you know, and a lot of times people come on this show, and there's some big pastor, author, something like that. You are literally a public high school teacher who decided to write a book about, I would call them, fun things in the Bible, strange

things in the Bible. Very appealing to me because the number of things you write about are things I've wanted to write about because they're quirky, they're odd, some people never heard of it. And the title of the book, The Naked Man Flees, refers to that scene in the Garden of Githemone, that some people know, some people don't. But I just love this kind of stuff. And then as I read through the book, you do a tremendous job of telling the story logically, clearly. You're the kind of teacher. Everybody wishes they had in high school. I know that you're in Steinbeck, Manitoba, Canada, you said, correct? That's right. That's where I live. Well, as I say, it's a joy to have you and to talk to you about your new book, The Naked Man Flees. I assume people can get that online wherever they want to go,

correct? Absolutely. And if you go to Amazon, for example, and just type the naked man please, it'll pop up pretty quickly. Yes. Well, it really is wonderful. So let's leap into it. Maybe we should start with that story, first of all. But even before that, tell us, what was your idea in writing this book? When did you get this idea?

I mean, you're a public school teacher. Suddenly you say, I want to write a book and get it published, publish about the Bible. Where did that come from? Well, it came from, frankly, many years of studying the Bible and teaching about the Bible in various contexts. because in addition to being a public high school teacher, I also teach courses on a part-time basis at Steinbeck Bible College. And so I teach courses the deal with the Bible. And I've also taught adult Sunday school for many years. And one thing I've noticed is that even for many Christians

who read the Bible for years and feel that they know it well, there are just some parts of the Bible that most people seem to overlook, that we don't look at very closely that we tend to miss. And that's because there's a broader narrative that we often assume about some of the famous characters in the Bible. We assume David is a certain way and Moses and such. But there's actually other details within the Bible that don't fit the flow that seem to provide a different perspective. And those are the parts that we're most likely to miss. They don't make it into the popularized movies. They don't make it into a lot of sermons. And so I thought it was important to write a book that addressed some of these lesser known, some of these more obscure parts of the Bible. And

and try to make them understandable for the broader public. I mean, and you say obscure, we could also say just weird or strange. Some of them are just strange and weird. And I got to say, I love that. As a writer, when I find something like that in the Bible, you know, like it says, 153 fish, you say, hey, wait a minute. What are we talking about? Is that real?

Is that symbolic? There are a lot of weird little things in the Bible that don't, they don't lend themselves to easy understanding. So what you do in this book, a number of which you focus on some of these things, a number of which I myself had missed. But let's talk about the title of the book, The Naked Man Flees, because that's the first one. It's what caught my attention. And it's one of my favorite quirky details from the Bible. So let's just talk about that because I know there are a lot of people listening who don't read the Bible, who don't know about it at all.

and then there's some who know just what we're talking about. But for folks who know nothing, what are we talking about? Well, the title is based on the incident that happens in the Gospel of Mark Chapter 14. And this is when Jesus is in the Garden of Gitsemone. He's been arrested by the Jewish leaders and the guards have seized him. But then right in the middle of that, it mentions that there was a young man that had been following Jesus from a distance, and then the guards seized him. But he ran away and leaving us.

linen garment behind, and the text says he ran away naked. And it's this weird little tidbit that he's never mentioned directly anywhere else in the gospel of Mark or anywhere else in the Bible. It's one of those obscure references, obscure stories. And what I do with this is I suggest there's a couple of different possibilities for who he might be. Some have said he's the, he's the writer himself, who is just ashamed of his behavior. I mean, that's possible. I've heard that I've heard that a few times that, oh, yes, we know that this was Mark himself or something like that. But take us back to, you just said a linen garment, often it's translated a sheet. It's like it's a naked dude wrapped in a sheet wandering around the Garden of Gatsimony.

Even that is unclear. Why is somebody walking around wrapped in a sheet? Is there a suggestion that it is something more sophisticated than actual garment? And it might be. But the challenge here is that no matter how many different, how much, we look at it, it remains unclear about exactly what's going on here. And what I argue in the book is that that's actually okay, because what this incident does is it shows that the writer of the gospel of Mark is writing actual history. He's writing what actually happened. If you were making up

a narrative about the son of God being arrested, why in the world would you put it in this bizarre reference to this guy, naked guy running away after Jesus was arrested? You wouldn't put that in there. that doesn't really fit the narrative of the story. But as we know in real life, things happen that don't fit the narrative. It happens all the time. And Mark, when he wrote this gospel, decided to put this little piece of information in there because it actually happened, even though it's a little confusing, a little weird, a little strange. And yet I find it to be powerful confirmation that this is actual history that we're reading here. That is exactly what appeals to me about most of the quirky stuff in the Bible is that you say, if somebody were making

this up, there's no way they would put this in there. It doesn't make any sense. The only thing that makes sense is this happened. They wrote it down. So this is like, you know, the classic example. And again, I'm glad it's the title of a book so people can remember it. The Naked Man Fleeves. You talk about a number of strange incidents in the Bible. And at the end of every chapter, you sort of make it personal, don't you? That's right. Because the goal here isn't just to tell some interesting stories. I mean, that's relatively straightforward,

and I could pick these stories and just retell them and leave it there. But my goal here is to show that even in these obscure parts of the Bible, that there is actual application that this can have in our lives today as Christians. And that there is a purpose here. There are good reasons for why these incidents and these text. are there. And so in each chapter, I do try to point out some reasonable application. Well, again, that's another thing that I really liked about this, and it's why I wanted to have you on, because I have to say that, you know, there are zillions of books out there about the

Bible, this or that, but there are very few that communicate very clearly and that are genuinely helpful. And your book struck me as one of those very rare books, that you communicate clearly and entertainingly at the same time at the end of every chapter. It's real meat. about, you know, what this means to me. And I think almost everybody's looking for something like that to do as part of a devotion or something along those lines. So let's talk about some of the other odd moments that you devote chapters to. Oh, sure.

That's, there is, I'll mention one here in particular that has always stood out to me. And that's where God almost kills Moses. Even just saying that, that just sounds, well, wait a second here. What are we referring to? if you go to Exodus chapter four, and you see that this is right after Moses has had his encounter with God at the burning bush, and he's been sent to Egypt to go lead his people to the promised land. There's one part, there's from verses 24 to 26, where it says that God met Moses in the wilderness and was about to kill him until his wife, Zipra, grabbed a flint knife and cut off his son's foreskin in order to circumsizing.

him. I mean, that right there is so bizarre. I mean, I don't remember this. You kind of think, gee, I think I would remember that, right? Because it's crazy almost. And yet there it is in the text. When I read it in your book, I really was, I really thought, how in the world have I missed this? And then, and you explain it, what does it mean? So go ahead. Well, sure. It's important to recognize here that circumcision was commanded for the Israelites. for all the male descendants of Abraham, they were required to be circumcised. It was the most basic of commands. And see, here you have Moses, the man who God has chosen to lead his people to the promised land,

and Moses had not circumcised his son. That is just such a breathtaking display of disobedience and a cavalier attitude. There is no way that Moses could leave the Israelites out of Egypt when he had failed to do the most basic command that God had given. It was a problem. We're going to go to a break, but this is a cliffhanger because, man, that is like one of the weirdest things, and it's right there in the Bible. We'll be right back. I'm talking to Michael Zwagstra.

The book is The Naked Man Flees. Timeless Truths from obscure parts of the Bible. We'll be right back. Hi, folks. These uncertain times can cause uncertain gut slowdown. Worrying fear can wreak havoc on our digestion, making it hard to feel optimum. Bloading, less energy, and occasional constipation can slow you down in your, daily activity. Try life change tea to get the tea.com. Life change tea can help get things moving so you can

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you may notice that I have a bobble hell of him near me. He's here to remind all of us that when you go to MyPillow.com, you get whopping discounts if you use the code Eric. Now, there are a lot of people who haven't done that, and we have your names here. And Chris Heim's Ann Albin pointed out to me that there's like three pages of you whose first name is Eric. You, you're so, I mean, that's humiliating for me that even though your name is Eric, you're still not willing to use the code Eric.

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Thank you. Okay, I'm talking to Michael Zwagstra. That's Dutch. The title of the book is The Naked Man Flee's, lovely cover. It looks like a Greek, like a Greek vase. I think you said your wife designed us. Didn't you say that? Yes, my wife Angela designed it. She's very talented that way. Let me tell you, great job. I don't, I don't blow smoke. You were just talking about this weird thing where Moses's wife senses that God's going to kill Moses for kind of blowing off. this command. Everybody's supposed to be circumcised. Their son is not circumcised. So are we to infer that Moses just thought, ah, it doesn't, I mean, it doesn't seem that Moses would brazenly

flout God's law. Did he just think he's above it or he didn't care? I mean, it's, or do we not know? We don't know for sure, but what we do know is that Moses was supposed to have done it. There is no excuse for Moses to not have circumcised his son in that context. And his wife had to take quick action. She had to take a flint knife and circumcise his son on the spot. Now, I obviously won't get into any detail or be graphic, but let's just say that circumcision is unpleasant enough when it's an eight-day-year-old, eight-day old baby. It's much more unpleasant when the kid is older. And his wife ended up having to do this. And then she says to Moses, surely you have become a bridegroom of blood to me. She was mad. But God spared Moses at that point. And,

it's just a weird story. It doesn't make it into any of the popular movies. You won't see it in the Charlton Heston Ten Commandos movie. It's not the kind of thing that somebody's going to preach on, I don't think. No, it's making to a lot of other sermons either. There's a lot of weird stuff that you say, like, I don't think that's going to fly from the pulpit. Well, I got to say that just open my eyes. I don't know if there's anything else to say on that. Well, I'll just say that I think there's an obvious point of application, and the point of application is that if you feel that God is calling you to an important, role, an important minister role, maybe to be a pastor or to lead a parish church organization, make sure that you've dealt with the fundamentals in your life. I mean, if you're going to lead a pro-marriage organization, you should probably make sure your own marriage is in good shape,

that sort of thing. Like deal with the basics, the fundamentals before presumptuously assuming that you're just ready to start leading God's people. I mean, when I read that in your book, I just thought, you know, here's a guy, meaning you, the author, who does not shrink from straight talk because we need that kind of straight talk. There are a lot of, there are a lot of people who take lightly, you know, the idea of walking with God or serving God. And so that was really, I just thought that was terrific. You know, all the applications, very, very straight. What are the things can we talk about? I read less than half of the book, but what I read was so great. What else would you like to highlight?

Well, there's so much in there. I'll mention another one, and this is from the New Testament, from a chapter called Who Forgot the Bread? And it's from Mark chapter 8, and the incident begins with Jesus having an argument with the Pharisees, and they're challenging him, and Jesus is responding. And then Jesus and his disciples get onto the boat, and then the disciples, they start arguing with each other

over who forgot the bread because they didn't have any bread with them. And Jesus tries to use this as a teachable moment, saying, beware of the bread and the leaven of the Pharisees. But then the text says that the disciples again started arguing over who forgot the bread. Now, what makes this so interesting is that just shortly earlier, Jesus had performed the miracle of feeding the 5,000. And then after that, he had fed the 4,000. Where is this in the Gospels, by the way?

to look this one up. This is great. This is in Mark chapter 8 and where they're having this argument on the boat and the disciples, they can't, they can't agree. The chapter is called Who forgot the bread? It's chapter 24. And they keep on arguing about this. And Jesus is trying to teach them, but they keep arguing, oh, you know, you forgot the bread, you forgot the bread. And meanwhile, they've got Jesus with them who had not once, but twice miraculously fed thousands of people and here these dummies are on the boat thinking, oh my goodness, we're going to starve because we forgot the bread and they weren't paying attention to Jesus. And I look at that incident, and it's, again, a reminder to me that these disciples, they were ordinary people, regular guys

and very thick-headed at times, as in just some really tough, you know, to get things through their heads. And I would say, are they really that much different than us? You know, we sometimes today, we end up with we're facing a problem and a challenge and we forget that wait a second didn't god just help me through something like this like a month ago and here i am freaking out again about the very same problem i'm really like those disciples and i'm i'm glad the story's in there because it shows that if jesus can work with those guys who couldn't figure out what to do with the bread he can work through us today as well tell me again which chapter and mark i want to make sure that i look at it that's Mark chapter 8.

I mean, I don't remember, this is, this is why I like your book. There's stuff in there that I think, I don't remember that at all. You know, I've read the Bible. I've certainly read Mark. But it's kind of funny that there are things, and you stress this in the beginning of the book, that we just kind of skip over for weird reasons. But it is funny that they're talking about this. Anyway, I love that.

I love that. I love the one also where you talk about Abraham shoeing away the vultures because that is a kind of a gruesome thing. I've heard that preached on. I've talked about it myself. And the idea of this bizarre ceremony, talk about that just for 10 seconds, and then we'll come back and you can tell it in the next segment. Well, Genesis chapter 15, verses 7 to 11, God tells Moses to bring a bunch of animals. to cut them in half and walk between them and offer them as a sacrifice. This is no easy thing.

Absolutely gruesome. Yeah, no, this is, I never thought about that before. We'll be right back, folks. The book is The Naked Man Flees. Stick around. Almond, I would like to talk about relief factor. Sure. But you know what, even better than my talking about it?

What about if we hear from Julia? Can we hear from Julia? Yeah. Is she here? Let's go, let's go. I had pain in my hands that kept me from work and doing projects around the home. I heard about relief factors. on the radio and began taking it.

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The book is The Naked Man Flees. And, okay, so there's this other chapter you said where Abraham is doing this covenantal ritual, this ancient ritual. And he has to cut all these animals in half. And I never thought of the tremendous. gruesomeness and gore and blood. That's, I mean, it just seems like physical work to cut. What are the animals that he cuts in half?

Well, there's a ram, there's a heifer, and there's a couple other sacrificial animals as well. And so he has to get these animals. And even if he had servants helping him, even with that, you're bringing these animals and you're cutting them, you're cutting them in half and you're offering it up as a sacrifice. And then the text tells us in verse 11, that he was there all day.

And when evening came, like the vultures came, and he shooed the vultures away, like that he kept the birds prey away. And we miss this. Like those few verses there, we tend to miss it because we're so focused on Abraham being told that he's going to go to the land of Canaan and it's going to inherit it,

and he's going to have a son and descendants. And so we tend to zero in on that, and we overlook what's happening in between, that Abraham isn't just being told something that, okay, let's go on to the next thing. He's spending the whole day at this sacrifice, and he's not a young man either at this point. He's an old man having to go through all this work and all this hardship in order to, in order to follow God's commands. It's a very powerful idea that God basically makes this covenant and puts himself in the humbler position of the two,

which is exactly what God does in sending Jesus to earth. You see this over and over that God shows us love by saying, you know, I will never break this covenant. You might break it, but I will never break this covenant. So it's a very powerful illustration. But these details, I mean, the idea that Abraham shrewed vultures away, it kind of makes it seem very real, doesn't it? It does.

And it shows that Abraham, yes, he was a man at faith. But as you read in the book of James, that Abraham's faith was completed by his works, meaning that his faith was real, and as a result, it led to good works, and it led to Abraham being obedient. Think of how different that story had been. If God had told Abraham to offer the sacrifice, and Abraham had said, no, I'm busy today. I need to do something else. Or if Abraham had offered the sacrifice, and then the birds of prey, the vultures come, and

that Abraham just walks away going, okay, I don't want to deal with this. it would show pretty clearly that Abraham wasn't serious, but he was serious. He lived out his faith. He followed up his words with actions and shooting those vultures away because it was a sacred sacrifice to God shows the type of man of faith that Abraham was. Yeah, he didn't pray him away. He shoot him away. That's right.

Okay, so there's a chapter about, I think it's Elijah, about smashing babies on the rocks. One of the most gruesome things in scripture when you read something like that. Talk about that. Yeah, this is from Psalm chapter 137. And when Christians think about the book of Psalms, we tend to gravitate toward, you know, the Psalms that praise God and express thankfulness and gratitude. But Psalm 137 isn't expressing thanks or gratitude.

It's expressing anger because this, the Psalm was written after the Israelites have been taken into captivity by the Babylonians. And the psalmist is expressing just frustration. at this. And at the very end, the very last verse of the Psalm, the climax is, you know, that blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock. It's just this gruesome, this gruesome thing that he's that he's calling upon. And this is a Psalm. It's a song. It was meant to be sung. And there it is within the book of Psalms. And again, we don't usually

hear much about this Psalm among Christians today. I mean, it's one of those things. It's a classic example of why somebody, people would want to throw the Bible out and just say, I don't want any part of this God. This is gruesome. It's primitive. It's horrific. So it is hard sometimes for us. If you read through the Bible, you do bump into these things and you think, whoa, I must be missing something because this is, it's horrific. The context, of course, is it's another world. We can't imagine in our civilized society what it would be like to live. in, you know, the Bronze Age or, or it's so long ago that there are things about it that we can't relate to. But that is certainly one of the most gruesome. It is very gruesome. And as you pointed out, it was a different time, a different world. Sadly, this type of thing was very common.

But what I think is important here to note is that the Solmist, yes, it's gruesome and graphic, but you notice he's not going out in smashing babies against the rock. He's imploring God for vengeance, and he's using the language of the time to say, God, I am so upset, I'm so angry, will you avenge us? And if you go to Romans chapter 12, where Paul says, you know, vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord. Well, that is very true. So the psalmist, he is asking God to take vengeance, and he's using the language of the time, he's using the context of the time. but this is not an endorsement of smashing babies against the rock.

It's rather reflecting this, this Israelite who is so frustrated, but yet even the midst of his worst hardships, he's praying to God and he's being open and vulnerable and honest, and that's what the Psalms is like. It reflects real people, real believers, who are expressing their faith in God in ways that are often uncomfortable to us now. That's the thing about the Psalms, about a lot of the scriptures,

but the Psalms in particular, they don't say things necessarily the way they ought to be. They say things the way they are. They're expressing something. And if you don't give it the full context, you think, well, what is, is the Bible recommending that I'd be full of doubt, that I'd be complaining to God? No, it's expressing that.

And I think a lot of times Christians think, I'm going to be holier than the Bible. I won't even express that. If you leave it there, that's not good. But expressing it and being honest with God is good. Absolutely. And, you know, it's interesting. And the New Testament references this as well, that, you know,

that if your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat and if he's thirsty, give water to drink. But then the very next part, for by doing so, you will heap burning coals on his head. Even in the context of loving our enemies, that's actually the best form of vengeance that there is, because if they have any sort of conscience at all, it just burns them that this person that they've wronged is being kind and good to them. And so the true New Testament ethic here when you look at it all in context is that forgiveness and love of others of our enemy is really the truest and the best form of vengeance because then we're leaving it all up to God. And that's the way that we should approach it as believers. Yeah, it's a kind of spiritual warfare to love our enemies. It has real power because it releases the power of God since we step back ourselves.

We're going to be right back for a final segment. I'm talking to Michael's Wagstra, starts with a Z, ends with an A. The book is The Naked Man Flees. Get a copy. We'll be right back. Georgie girl swinging down the street so fancy free. Nobody you meet could ever see. Hey there, folks.

Final segment talking to Michael's Wagstra starts with a Z. The book is The Naked Man Flees loaded with interesting things and more than interesting, meaningful, powerful. What, you were just going to say something before we went to the break. Yeah, and I just wanted to say here that, you know, that it's, when you look at these obscure stories, it still raises the question sometimes of, why should we look at these? Why do we have to go in depth? And, you know, in the very last section of my book, I take a look at one of the well-known

stories of the Bible, one that is not obscure, and that's in Matthew 18, 18, when the parents bring the children to Jesus and the disciples try to tell the children to go away because Jesus doesn't have time for them. And Jesus rebukes them and says, let the little children come to me for to such belong to the kingdom of God, that we need to accept the kingdom of God as a child in order to understand it. And so on one hand, the gospel is so simple. It is so simple that this idea that we're all sinners and we need to accept Jesus and that we need to believe that he was raised from the dead. it's so simple the child can understand it. But we don't stop there because what does it mean to accept faith as a child?

Well, some people will say that, well, it means we have to have everything super simple and there can be no complexity and no depth wrong. Children, when they love their parents, they want to learn from them. And they want to go deeper and they want to understand. And that should describe us as Christians as well, that, you know, if we believe in the Bible and if we believe God has given this, this book, we should want to plumb the depths of it. We should want to go deeper. And that means that we should take the time to look at some of these challenging, obscure parts of the Bible. You don't

stick to just the well-worn parts that get the standard sermons about them. Look at some of the harder parts. It's, there's more to David than just the time he defeated Goliath. There's more to Moses than leading the Israelites from Egypt. There's more to Abraham than traveling to the promised land. There's just so much more. And so what I try to do in the book is, is show just how much depth there really is within the Bible. Well, see, that's the thing, Michael, if I can say why I like the book as much as I do and why I wanted to have you on is because I think books like this are in short supply. In other words, to really appreciate the richness of scripture, you need someone to show you. You need someone to say, have you seen this? Have you noticed this? And as I said, I don't see many

books that do it as well as your book does. You obviously are somebody who has really studied the scriptures. And so it's kind of wonderful to be with a teacher where you're actually learning stuff that you didn't know before, that you didn't see before, because it does kind of open other doors in the scripture that you maybe didn't even see, I guess. Well, absolutely. And, you know, it's, I still learn new stuff from the Bible every time that I'm reading it. And one suggestion I'll put out there is that if you find that when you're reading it, you tend to skip over parts, try listening to it on audio, an audio version, because then it forces you to slow down. And some of the chapters in the book came as a result of me listening to the Bible on audio while I was driving my car. Like I'll tell you, when I was listening to Genesis 15 and that story of Abraham and the vultures came up, I heard that and go, that's not in there. And as soon as I got home, I pulled up my Bible and I go, oh, my goodness, how did I miss this all these years? It still happens to me when I'm listening to it on audio, even though I've studied the Bible for a long time. So there's just, there's always more there for us to learn.

Well, that's a fact. It is the Word of God. Let's just be clear. It's not just literature. It's the word of God. There are things there that, my goodness, until the end of time, we'll be discovering new things. We're out of time. Speaking of time, Michael's Waxter.

I want to thank you for your time. and thank you for the book. I recommend it highly. It's called The Naked Man Fleeze. Timeless Truths from obscure parts of the Bible. The Naked Man flees Michael Swagstra. Thank you so much. Well, thank you very much, Eric. It's been a pleasure to be with you.