Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 1092 | The Robertsons Wouldn’t Be Here Without Summer Camp & Does Jesus Excuse Adultery?

Episode Date: May 15, 2025

What did Jesus really say about adultery—and why is the story in John 8 so controversial? Jase, Al, and Zach dig into a hotly debated passage and Ezekiel’s warnings. Plus, only Jase can turn a wine joke into a full-blown Bible study! Guest Paul Marty of Tomorrow Clubs International shares how summer camps are changing lives for thousands of kids all over the world, and the guys reflect on how their experiences at similar camps helped shape the entire Robertson family’s spiritual legacy. In this episode: John 8, verses 1-11; Exodus 24, verses 9-10; Ephesians 5, verse 18; Galatians 3, verse 22; Ezekiel 18, verses 1-32; 1 John 5, verse 21; Romans 5, verse 8 — Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? So welcome back to Unashame. We were talking in between podcasts about when you get a text or an email from somebody, Jase, I got one yesterday from a listener that he and I have, you know, conversated, I guess. Is that a word conversated? I think so. I have a dictionary here, but I'm pretty sure that to.

I don't want you to hurt your back picking that thing. Yeah, but so he said he was reading the book of Exodus, chapter 24 verses 9 and 10, where the Israelites were at the mountain. It says in verse 10, they saw God. And I'm not sure if that's the scene when they're at the scary mountain or not. But he said it troubled him because, you know, it says you can't see God and live. And so, you know, you get a lot of questions, and I haven't, I mean, I will answer him at some point. But you get these questions many times.

Sometimes they're controversial, sometimes they're just curious about different things in the Bible. Do y'all ever get those? Oh, yeah. I got into one this week, controversy. So there's lots of controversies out there that you can get into. Well, here's what I had one today. I mean, because I think, you know, these phones have turned into just a plague, you know. I got a little zombie apocalypse take that I do.

my speeches sometimes because it turns people into zombies, you know. They can't even drive down the road. They're on a cell phone. I've noticed they are doing ads now saying don't text and drive. And you know why they're doing ads? Because people are doing it. They're having wrecks. Yeah.

You know, you can't, I mean, we're all driving. And the ads are on people's phones. That's ridiculous. Which, by the way, I mean, last night, this one good thing about the phone, I was taking my nap. I say last night. I was taking an afternoon nap. It was about five o'clock, I guess.

Well, my daughter's in town, and she was taking a nap. And all of a sudden, it goes, and I was like, it woke me up. It was like an alarm clock that was annoying, but it was a tornado warning. And so my daughter came down, and they said, you have five minutes. It'll be there,

which I thought was pretty incredible now that they're giving you the time. time. And so we went down to... You're in Louisiana for this tornado. You're not in Nashville. I'm in a tornado. But you've got PTSD because, I mean, it tore up your entire estate.

Yeah, it did. So we... Well, the tornado that Jay's is mentioning actually touched down pretty near mom and dad's place out on the river. Yeah, we saw the damage. So they were... They had it. It was in the general area, but I'm 10 miles from their place.

And so we had a nice little memory. getting in my closet in the basement and got sleeping bags out and hung out for about 15 minutes. We actually heard the wind like at about 524. You could do it. But we survived, so that was good. And had no damage, but my parents' place, which they're not there, got hammered. Trees snapped off. So that was one positive by the phone.

thing is when you when I get something controversial to get back to your text it's so weird that you just randomly bring that up and we all have an immediate story I actually had this this morning happened to me so some of my friends they don't realize when I say I don't do social media well they'll send me a uh that you may have to help me with the terminology like a link like a meme no like a link that this one was to Facebook well the problem like a video they're sitting in you a video from Facebook, but you could only watch it on Facebook. So I click on it, but I can't go because then it says, well. Because you don't have it on your phone.

You don't have the app on your phone. No, and I don't even, it says, what's your password? You know, I have no idea. So all I could go by was the pitcher. So instead of explaining to them that you're sending me stuff, they do it all the time with Instagram. Well, I'm like, I have an Instagram, but and my lovely wife takes care of that for me. But I have no idea how to get there.

But anyway, but based on the picture, I figured out what the story was. So I just gave a thumbs up because the pitcher, and it was a bottle of wine. And Al, you probably remember this. Our brother made some deal during a little duck show where they actually sold, or maybe it was the network. I don't know the details. But they sold wine because they put literally Duck Dynasty on everything. including wine and they sold it.

So it was a picture of wine. Well, and it was from a post, from a family that we met on when we did our treasure hunting show. But it was years before. So I guess I figured it all out. It's like he was scrolling through Facebook, which is dangerous.

And he found this like, huh, they, you know, this, the mom of the family was going to try this wine. So they didn't know us at the time. So he thought this was interesting. So I put a thumbs up and thought the conversation was over because I didn't know where this was going like, were you out there selling wine?

I had absolutely nothing to do with that, just saying. But Jesus did change the water into wine. I thought we were going down that route. You know what I mean? Because we were there in John 2, right? Yeah, John 2, you know. So I gave a thumbs up thinking that was over. And then he made this comment, wouldn't let it die.

So then I thought maybe spiritual warfare is breaking out. Of course, he's a good buddy of mine. But he said, that may be why. Oh, he said that may have had something to do with them having 13 kids, which was funny because they had 13 kids. And I was like, okay, that's funny. So I put ha ha, but then I thought, okay, here's, let me, let me, what popped into my head was Ephesians 5.

And we haven't started the podcast, but I'm just. simply saying, this is how you turn into something that's kind of, like, you don't really know what to say, because I don't, if he was fixed to ask me, like, what was the deal with selling wine? You know, I'm like, I had nothing to do with it. But I went biblical. I said, Ephesians 518 comes to mine. And let me read that, which says, I think I read this a few podcasts ago. It says, do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery, which is pretty much just unbridled. Just partying.

Yeah, whatever. Instead, be filled with the spirit. So I put, Ephesians 518 comes to mind. What goes in the human body affects your decision-making process. Too much wine or the spirit without limits. And I got that from John 3, that little nugget. Remember when John? Too much wine.

Too much wine. A little wine, Paul says, is good for your stomach. Yeah, well, that's why I put two, T-O-O, much wine, or spirit without limits. But watch how the conversation shifted. Then he said, our jails and prisons are good examples of this scripture, sadly. So he went to incarceration. Well, look where I went. I went true.

That makes me think of Galatians 322, which popped in. my head, which I think I quoted here, but the scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that I capitalized, the promise by faith, and then I capitalized in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe. See what I did there? Yeah. Which is going to go in with what we're going to talk about today. Because he drew a circle around the prison. But I drew a circle around the whole world. The whole world is a slave. Well, no, it says there's a prisoner of sin.

So then he responds, we're in the world but not of the world. So I thought, we're in the world, but not of the world, which is a version of a verse. Yeah. But then I put amen, and I would add, for those in Jesus, Jesus that he's newly created, he created us to be for the world. So I guess if we put that together, let's go with this. We're in the world, but not of the world, but in Christ we're remade for the world to make him know.

And then I put, we might have come up with something here. That's pretty good. And then he says, part of my daily prayer is I hope others will. will see Christ in what I do and say. I thought now that's, now we have a good ending point. Yeah. And then I put me too, I'm pretty sure that's what we were created for. And the Holy Spirit gives us the power.

And he said, I truly believe that. But I just thought I'd share that it all started with a bottle of wine. Ended in a Bible study. And it ended in a Bible study. But I think this is something that you have to intentionally, do. Because I hadn't seen this guy in a month, and that was our conversation.

But I thought that was a good conversation to start today with. That is good. And we're entering into a, I would say, a controversy in John 8 on multiple levels. That's why I brought it up because I knew where we were headed.

Oh, you're crafty. He's crafty here. And this controversy in John 8 actually was brought up in our local congregate. this past week. So this is actually interesting because I've actually studied up on some of this. Let me reset it. So where we are in the text in John 7, the last podcast, we took a little detour, one of Jason's rabbit holes, but a very lucrative rabbit hole into the book of Ezekiel

because we've been talking so much about the temple and the water flow and because Jesus had brought up this living water, living flesh, you know, and his blood, all this stuff we've been talking about in these sort of pictures. And we went back and tied in some more O Testament to that. And so you're understanding why they're having an issue and a problem with accepting him because of who he is as the Messiah, because they're trying to square that up with what they just see as a guy who comes from Nazareth. You know, they just, they can't make it happen in their mind. So we get through that chapter 7, verse 52, and they're still sort of arguing about that. You know, who is this guy?

Is he the real guy? And so Nicodemus speaks up for him. We talked about that. And then there's this section in most of our Bibles. And depending on what Bible you use, it may not be in your Bible, which is the controversial part. This may be interesting. So everybody, it's like, so in mine, when I get to, it doesn't even have 7.53. Oh, yeah, it does.

Yeah, it does. So at 7.52 at the end, I have a line going across, like a literal line. And then it has in a parentheses, it says the earliest and most reliable manuscripts and other ancient witnesses do not have John 753, which is then each went to his own home, through 811, which is the story of this woman called an adultery. Exactly. And it has another line at the end of that. In other words... Oh, another line. Yeah, I'll see that. So it's like a subset in your text. Some Bibles have it as a footnote, and maybe it's at the end of the book of John. Some Bibles have it in Luke, obviously enough, after, I think it's Luke 23. I have it written down somewhere.

Luke 21, 38 for most of them, which it does kind of fit Luke's telling of the story. story because he highlighted a lot of women. Well, they do that because it seems not to be written from these scholarly perspectives in the same way as the rest of the book of John. Well, it also was included in some of the earliest manuscripts that we have. You see the same thing in the book of Mark, it's called the Long Ending of Mark. You see there's a text at the end of Mark that, and this is not, this was the debate that we had a healthy debate, healthy discussion inside the church was that someone was questioning

whether someone believed in biblical inerrancy, the authority of scripture, right, because they did not think that this particular text, and in addition to this, the long ending of Mark was in the original text, but this is not outside of conservative, orthodox Christian teaching. You know, most conservative scholars would say that, well, it was not in the earliest text. And so that's why if you look in your Bibles, when you get to the story about the woman caught in the act of adultery, and you'll have that footnote or that caption that will say these were not included in the earliest manuscripts that were, but were later editions. Well, just to add it to what Zach is saying, when we're talking about earliest, we're talking about, you know, first through four,

century AD, but you do pick it up, you start seeing it from like the fourth to sixth century on. So it has been around a long, long time, and it has been a part, but it was not part of the original canon. That's what we're talking about here. Because we have to be fair with it because there's something unique about the story and how it fits into our Bible. Yeah, this just hit me that a few weeks ago, a new brother, I baptized him in the river.

I think Kirk Cameron actually brought him. And so I apologize, I haven't got back to you because it just hit me that he sent me a question on an email and I was going to answer it later. And I haven't thought about it again until this moment. But he actually asked me about another place in the Bible where this occurs, which is Mark 16, 9 through 20. Is that the one you just said? Yeah, that's called the Long Ending. Yeah, I got asked about that. But now, Mark 16 doesn't get as much controversy

because it basically says... Same way Matthew is. Yeah, Matthew 28 ends pretty similar. And so there's that. But what I was going to say is, I mean, my take on this is, I think we can all agree based on the scholars, it probably wasn't in the original manuscript. And so then you start speculating on why my opinion, I could be wrong,

is that the two main stars of this would be Jesus. We're fine with that. And everything Jesus does in this, I would argue strongly that it's in character with who he is. That's a big point. Because if the text that we're going to read were out of line with the rest of Scripture, we should probably not accept it. But it's not. It does not have any bearing on the rest of it. It doesn't change the way that we see.

Exactly. I think it's definitely okay to teach this. True. But my second point is the other main character is a woman called in adultery. And my opinion is that's probably why it got left out. I mean, it's just because it's awkward and uncomfortable, especially for the Pharisee believers among us, it's like, well, is he saying an adult?

I mean, because he forgives her in the end. If you haven't read this story, I don't want to, you know, spoil our words. Are you saying like you think maybe like the story continued through some type of oral tradition and it was part of the ministry? Yeah, I personally think, yeah, based on everything I read, I think this happened. I don't think it happened within this timeline probably, but they inserted it in my, this is my opinion.

I believe they inserted it because it starts off with Chapter 8 with them wanting to stone this woman, and the Chapter 8 ends with the people who weren't recognizing Jesus as the Messiah, they're wanting to stone him. Exactly. So I think that's why they inserted it here. But I will say this. If you take out 753 through 8-11, it actually flows.

You know, it's like if you just read 752 and said they replied, are you from Galilee, too? Look into it. And you'll find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee. Well, then just skip to 8.12. When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, I am the light of the world. You know, there's no problem. You see what I mean.

It seems to keep going. Well, Jayes, I'll tell you this, there are two people, and because we all research this, there's two people that agree with what you said. Well, three, if you include me, because I agree as well. But to agree with us, one is St. Augustine, who was a- Welcome aboard, St. Church. He was a church father from around the fourth and fifth century, AD.

He agrees with your assessment. He thinks that's why it was left out, because some people might, you know, think that Jesus is excusing adultery, you know. And so that was part of the fear of putting it in the canon. That was, he says that. And the other one in a more modern context is our old friend, N.T. Wright, who says something similar. And also, also D.A. Carson, I believe, also holds this perspective, John Piper. I mean, it's pretty widely accepted among, I would say,

very conservative New Testament scholars, pastors you know, this is not a fringe belief at all. This is probably what most scholars now I would say

on the flip side of that most Christians probably would not like most church members may not know that and may not may push back on it. Well I'll say this. So me reading this passage led me to

Ezekiel 18 which oddly enough, led to a 10-minute overview on Ezekiel, the last podcast. So this is how this all happened. So this is how you... I was going to ask, how did you get...

Because I didn't feel like we did a great job of the... What was the rabbit... Set up? Well, I wanted to see the trail that was... What was the rabbit trail that got you there? I kept that a secret until now on purpose. Yeah. Because I was actually reading whether John 8

should be in the Bible since it wasn't in the ancient manuscripts. Now, I'm not specifically sure how I got to EZICO 18, but I think it was because somewhere in reading these scholars that, you know, they were saying, well, Jesus, when he tells the woman, and we'll read the story, but I'm sure you're familiar with it. That one little line is why everybody who's against this being in the Bible because he forgave an adulterous woman,

who was caught in the act. when Jesus comes to her, he says at the end, when no one was there to condemn her because he said you without sin be the one to throw the first stone, which is why I brought up the little circle analogy, what I did, because I heard a lesson from Jim McGuigan one time, and I thought it was fascinating on John 8,

because he said what happened was, they put this one, they sat her, you know, that's early on in the text. It says they sat her in front of everyone, and they drew a circle around her and said, she was caught. And what Jesus did was then draw a circle around everybody, because he said, you without sin cast the first stone.

So you see what he did there? Nobody knows what Jesus stooped down and drew on the ground. Yeah. And McGregan's point, which was very clever, said, well, I'll tell you what he drew based on the story. He drew a big circle. I like that. It was good. I mean, that's why I wanted to bring it up, you know, which, and I'm saying, if you don't think it affected me, I'd have had that text exchange this morning.

I did the same thing because of John 8. It's like when he drew that circle around the prisons are full, you know, people who may be, bad decisions because they drank too much wine. I took that circle and made it bigger. I was like the whole world the prisoner. Which was the problem with the Pharisees. They tried to keep that circle where they were outside of it. And Jesus, what he was doing, he was just including everybody in it.

But when you mentioned Ezekiel, I thought about, because you have a woman here caught in the act of adultery, right? I thought about just the overtones. primarily those two sisters in that Ezekiel 23-ish area that were adulterous sisters. And they represent Israel and I guess Judah. And the idea is that they were cheating on God, on their husband, with these foreign lovers. And so when you read that, you can tend to look at them. say how horrible of you, particularly because you kind of see the whole progression from

like, I think the vision gives the term like their virgin bosoms. It's kind of like an innocence and young, all the way to they were, their bodies were chopped into pieces and distributed to the four corners of the earth kind of scene. So you see that whole thing laid out. So it's easy for us with hindsight 2020 to read back into Israel's adulterous history with kind of a spirit of condemnation, but to bring it full circle, you get to John 8, you're like, whoa, wait a second, I'm adulterous. Like, I have a wicked heart. I've cheated on God. I am those sisters in Ezekiel chapter 23. Well, because God had chosen Israel basically in a covenant to be his wife to represent him. Exactly. And they were not faithful. So you're in the section of the

God's judgment on Israel because of their unfaithfulness. And I do think that's another reason this story is in here because it is, we're dealing with all Jews at this point. I mean, they're going to bring up the law of Moses and there's two passages. I went and looked them up, Leviticus 20 and the other one was in numbers. And where they get the idea that we should stone someone who is called in the act of adultery, it actually doesn't say that. It just says they should be put to.

death and then it says there's a there's another verse that says they should be stoned for some other act of adultery or whatever but i do i do find it fascinating that there's never been a recorded stoning in the old testament like where that actually where they shared we stoned them yeah i mean i'm sure it happened but my point is for even bringing this up is that they weren't trying to fulfill the law. The verse actually says they were using this as a basis to accuse Jesus. So they were taking the law that was written for God's marriage to Israel and then trying to use this woman called in an act

to put him in a situation where he had no way to win. Because if he says, don't do it, They read it. They said this to test him. And here's the reason why that they might have some charge to bring against him. Yeah, exactly. They were trying to accuse him because if he says, well, don't stoner, they're like, well, you don't believe in the Torah, the law. And that was from God.

And if he says stoner, well, they're like, well, this guy's going around, killing people. You say what I mean? What they were doing is, I got a perfect analogy. They were covering their bases. One time somebody told me in regard to a truck that my son had wrecked, they said it's not total, but they'll probably total it. So they had this particular gentleman, whatever happens, he was going to win because he had it set up both ways. That's what the Pharisees. That's what they were doing right there.

You know what we call that? What do we call that? A B.I. What does that mean? Bad illustration. Not to be confused with B-O, which is body odor. You thought I was going to say something else. So I would have read this, Ezekiel 18, if you'll indulge me.

Remember, this was an introduction. I read this somewhere where it said, well, this had been introduced in Israel about being able. Because when Jesus said, go leave your life of sin. Yeah. He wasn't endorsing that. Of course, adultery is wrong. It was wrong for the nation of Israel to do that and to serve other gods and get into idols and have sex with whoever and whenever,

which is why idolatry and sin are always linked in the Old Testament. And look, in the New Testament, one of the verses in the New Testament books, I'll find it. You know, the last words, I think it's First John. Yeah. When we get to First John, you know what the last verse in First John is? I knew you wouldn't know. That's why I asked you. I mean, First John is just all about, you know, kind of the conversation I had on the text.

It's like we're in the world, but we're not of the world, and the world has been crucified to me. Or we've overcome the world and all this. In this world, we're like Jesus, all this kind of thought. And the last verse in First John is, dear children, keep yourself from me. idols. And it never leaves because they're linked. And it's a way from humans to justify their sinful behavior. I mean, it goes in cahoots.

You change the heart where it's not focused on the one true God. And guess what comes out of it? A lot of sin. Yeah. A lot of breaking of the rules. Well, and I thought, just before you read that, the analogy from the McGuigan sermon was so good because this idea that somehow Jesus was condoning adultery, I mean, he squelches that by his last line of saying,

go now and leave your life of sin. He's not saying he's condone it. He just drew the circle out that anybody can fit in the circle of being deserving of death because of sin. I mean, he highlights hypocrisy as much as adultery. Well, I mean, I think, and to go back to Ezekiel and, for that matter, the entire Old Testament, which is just stained with adultery over and over and over again.

God continues not only to condemn the adultery of his people, he continues to punish them, but he also, what does he continue to do, offer a way out, offer a remnant. A remnant. And so you see the biblical arc is not, God's not, oh, I see your sin, that's okay, don't worry about that.

No, actually the story of the gospel is God sees your adultery, and he says it's actually much worse than you think it is. And I see you there while we were enemies, Romans 5 says, while we were sinners, Christ died for us. And so that goes back to that version of Eden when Adam and Eve sin for the first time. God doesn't say when they covered up. He didn't say, oh, no, you guys have no reason to cover up. He didn't say that. He actually said, no, your cover is, your covering is not durable. And so he sheds the blood of an animal, and he provides another. a better, more lasting durable cover, which foreshadowed the covering in Jesus. But he never says, take the fake leaf off, you guys are good, go around naked. He does not tell them to continue in their nakedness. He does affirm that they need a covering. And I think that's the same thing going on here.

He's not affirming her adultery. He's just saying that I'm present in your adultery, and I love you and I die for you there or I will die for you there. I'm there in that moment, but go and send no more. So, yeah, good point. So I want to share this Ezekiel 18 because speaking of controversy, but we're just going for it. So this is in this part where God's going to judge Israel for its faithfulness from Ezekiel's prophecy perspective. And it says, the word of the Lord came to me, 181.

What do you people mean by quoting this proverb about the land of Israel? the fathers eat sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge. And look, this same phrase is used in Jeremiah 31. And in that section, he introduces the thought, you'll find this familiar, that says there will come a time when God says he will put their laws in people's hearts, which is cross-reference to Hebrews 8. It's definitely looking forward to people having a,

chance to turn from their wicked lifestyle. So that's kind of the context here. And so then he tells these three stories about a father and then a son and then a grandson. So the first one is, verse three, says, as surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, you will no longer quote this proverb in Israel, for every living soul belongs to me. The father as well as the son, both alike belong to me. The soul who sins is the one who will die. This going back to the garden. You know, you eat of that tree and you'll surely die. And what did the evil one say? No, he told you, told them a lie. And so they took their eyes off God and what happened? They weren't faithful and separation happened.

They're not longer here. They died. They died. So then he tells this story. Suppose there's a righteous man who does what is just and right. He does not eat in mountain shrines or look at the idols of the House of Israel, it doesn't defile his neighbor's wife. You know, he doesn't impress it. oppress anyone. I'm just skipping through it. So you have him. He follows my decrees, verse 9, faithfully, keeps my laws, that man is righteous. He's going to live, declares the sovereign Lord. And then verse 10, he has the next person. Suppose he has a violent son who sheds blood, who does other things. And here's this, he defiles his neighbor's wife. You know, there's the adultery, commits robbery, does all these.

and then at the end of verse 13 he says will such a man live he will not because he has done all these detestable things he will surely be put to death and his blood will be on his own head well then suppose he has a son who sees all the sins his father commits and though he sees them he does not do such things he does not eat all that so you got one righteous one that wasn't one was wicked and idols and all this then you have another righteous so then he goes on to say verse 19. Yet you ask why does the son not share

the guilt of his father since the son has done what is just and right and has been careful to keep on the decrees. He will surely live. So he basically says he's not inheriting his son. It's kind of every man for himself is what's described. And he

explains that. The righteousness of the righteous man will not, will be credited to him and the wickedness of the wicked will be charge to him. That's verse 20. So then verse 21 says, here's the key verse, but if a wicked man turns away from all the sins he has committed and keeps all my decrees and does what is just and right, he will surely live and he will not die. There's the fly and all of a sudden he's like, but if that guy who was wicked decides to turn, and look at this language,

verse 22, none of the offenses he has committed will be remembered against him because of the righteous things he has done, he will live. Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked declares the sovereign Lord? Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live? I mean, does this language sound familiar? Yeah. It sounds like repent for the kingdom of heaven is near. He's introducing an idea that there will be, you know, a way to turn, to start over. So that's the gist of it. Read verse 32. Yeah, I think somewhere he says, repent.

He says, for I take no, the last verse, for I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the sovereign Lord, repent and live. Yeah, he also says in verse 30, therefore, oh, house of Israel, here we go, that's what I want to read. I will judge you. I told you, it was a judgment on Israel.

Each one according to his ways, declares the Lord, repent, turn away from all your offenses, then sin will not be your downfall. Rid yourselves of all the offenses. Here's the key. You have committed and get a new heart and a new spirit. Well, where's he going to bring that up again? He's going to bring that up again in Ezekiel 36 and 37,

which is in the section of the hope for Israel, the nations, the new Jerusalem, and the whole creation. So you see the shadow of that, And it helps you understand that and that kind of thinking when you come to John, eight, because Jesus is introducing something, introducing, Jesus is fulfilling something that was introduced way back in Israel's adultery with God the Father. So let me tie this off and we'll pick it up next time we get back into this text. I mentioned into right earlier.

He said, I'm not sure exactly where it. fits in the original codex, but I know this, and I'm confident that God seemed to put it where it was needed. And so I think that's a good way as we approach this. So we've got a, we're going to take a break. And we come back from our break. We've got one of our partners that's going to join us on the podcast. Tell us a little bit about one of the beautiful things that we've been able to do since we're kind of on our own is really find some great minded partners to walk alongside us with the podcast. And so we got one of those that's coming on for a few minutes and tell us about his ministry.

So we'll take a break. Well, Ann, I'll add this. We're going to tell you, I want us to talk about the impact that the camp has had on our life because it kind of coincides with this. There'll be some good stories to be on the other side of the break as well. Well, yeah, that's what I was going to say. The breakdown of the families across our planet has caused, you know, a lot of problems generationally. Yes. And fortunately for us, Jesus is for us.

everybody. And even though the family, the earthly family may break down, he sends people in to share Jesus so they can become a part of his eternal family, which is where we were headed with all this. So we'll take a break and we'll come back when we introduce our friend. Well, yeah, you know, we're big fans of the Hannah-Shame podcast, especially my wife. I don't think she's, I don't think she's missed an episode since we got introduced to you guys. So, oh my goodness. Well, she tries to catch up. Good luck saying her for the next three years. Well, yeah, right. I know that. I'll have to confess every time, so I have these long lines where you have like a meet and greet

and somebody will come up like a guy and he'll be like, man, I got to tell you this, my wife loves your podcast. And I do the same thing every time they do that. And I say, what seems to be your problem? And they just do not know what to say. They're like, well, yeah. I was like, hey. What'd you say?

I just do it for fun, you know, because they don't realize how that sounded to my ear. Yeah, yeah, right. So you're saying you're not quite there yet. So if you don't know who we're talking to, we're talking to Paul Marty, one of our dear friends from the Tamara Clouds, Paul. Thanks for coming on and being with us, brother. Hey, it's great to be here. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah, we were talking about because one of the things that we're pushing for right now with you guys,

And it's why we wanted to have you on as these summer camps were doing. You know, summer camps have been a big part of our story. My mom, who has gone on to be with the Lord, if anyone's watched the movie The Blind, she was the one that brought Phil to Christ. But during that same time period, Al, she somehow got with you. And your first kind of real introduction to the Church of Jesus was at a camp that my mom took you to, correct? Yeah. And what was amazing about it, Paul, was she, you know,

Because you guys do so much work and, like, hard to reach places, places where, you know, around the world that you just can't get to. We were right here in the good old US of A, but we were deep into the throes of the setting for the blind, which, you know, is the movie about mom and dad's early life. And we were almost unreachable because, you know, dad had just walled us off from anything spiritual. But my aunt jam, Zach's mom, she made her way through. She was like, nope, you know, my nephews are going to have an opportunity. And so I had two older nephews that lived, one older one year that lived in Houston. She went all the way to Houston, picked them up, came and picked me up in Junction City, living behind a bar and got us to a summer camp in 1974 that she was working at, you know,

as a college student, and exposed us to Christ. And, you know, that doorway open, it changed my life. and I was never the same since. And I didn't really appreciate it, I think, until I got, you know, further along in life and as a pastor later, that I was able to appreciate that investment into me through that camp. And so that's why I relate so much to Tomorrow Clubs and what you guys are doing. Yeah, well, thanks, Al. Yeah, it's a powerful ministry.

In fact, we call up the summer camps the gateway to discipleship because so often that's where kids get introduced to Christ for the first time. just to build off a year's story. And it's also the main way that we introduce new communities to the Tomorrow Club's ministry. So after the camp, a Tomorrow Club starts and the kids can continue on in discipleship with the seeds that have been planted at the camp. So it's powerful, multidimensional. Yeah, what's it?

Because I found this interesting because I live in an area up in the Carolinas. There's a lot of summer camps here. And they're probably, I'm not kidding, there's some nice ones here. Some of them are like $2,500 to $3,000 a week per kid. But what does it cost you guys to put on these camps? I think that's important for our audience to understand. Yeah. Well, Zach, it's hard to believe.

But we do these camps for, we have 100 kids for the average cost is $1,000. So that's $10 for a whole week of camp per child. That's insane. Well, I'm curious. I can tell that you're not from the south. So we don't need subtitles, which some of our last guess, I recommended it. Yeah. And I realized I need them also.

But I was, because I'm hearing your voice and I'm thinking, okay, we got into summer camps at some point. Because if you're, you know, if you're from the north somewhere, it's probably cold, so you appreciate the summer more than we do because during our summers, we're wanting to get out of here. And it is brutal. They were telling all these stories about camp. I mean, you go out there. they take up your phone and it's like 100 degrees. But you kind of get used to it just because of all the pageantry there.

But I was just curious how this got started. How the camps got started? Yeah. I mean. Yeah. Well, you know, we've been doing ministry in Eastern Europe for, and started in Ukraine. Well, it's getting close to 30 years ago now. And, you know, we really were in the beginning, you know, we didn't know what we were doing.

And we were just looking for ways to introduce. the ministry to new communities because it was, you know, we knew that, especially in the Soviet, the post-Soviet kind of towns and villages where we live, you know, there's evangelical Christians. I mean, they're outcasts. They're like lepers in a lot of cases. It's getting better now. But at the time that we started, I mean, it was really difficult to get kids to come to

an evangelical church because they, you know, the stigma that went with it from, you know, three decades of communism. So we found that these camps were really the perfect thing to do. We go around and invite kids to a fun thing. We, you know, we, it was a neutral kind of environment. So it was, it was really just the kind of the perfect venue to get kids there. They'd have some fun and they'd get introduced to Jesus. And that was the introduction. And then from there, were able to go on and do start a club and continue to discipleing them. One of the things, Paul, that struck me was that some of the stories that we've been telling about your ministry, and I love it that is personal.

It's people that their lives are being changed. And some of the places that you mentioned are places that we've been personally. I mean, you mentioned Moldova, which we've done a lot of work there. And there's so many orphans there. And I remember this from like 20 years. ago. South Africa I've been to and done some mission work. Jace has been to Ukraine. Probably it sounds like about the same time, Jayce. Well, when he said that, I about fell off my chair because I didn't know that before.

We just met. But so I was there. I was part of a team that went in 91, 1991. Were y'all after that? Yeah, we got started in 1997. Well, so we were actually the John the Baptist to the Tomorrow Clubs. Because we prepared the way. Yeah, you were. Preparing the way. Hey, let me just say thank you. Well, you know, what's interesting is you know who mainly showed up. We went to, there were only three gymnasiums in the whole entire country of Ukraine.

And we went there and we gave out food. We shipped a bunch of food over there. And we had little house church meetings every night. And I actually, me and the other two guys, we spoke at. university, and they only had a couple of English speaking, where the universities that specialized in learning English. And so that was our, that's how we got in, because they just said y'all can talk about anything and people will show up. So we put a sign up and said, learn this language, and we put the little gospel diagram, the cross, you know, the arrow

coming down, the cross, the two, the arrow coming up, and the arrow coming back, meaning, you know, Jesus is coming back. And we said, learn this language with three Americans. Admission is free. And I thought it wouldn't work, but our classes were full every day. Oh, yeah. And they just wanted to hear English-speaking people. And then, but where all the people showed up is because none of them could play basketball

very well, that what we found. And but we were all pretty good. And so hundreds of people would show up, and then we would invite them to the churches, but it was a lot of kids. and it was really rough conditions. You went there a little later where it was suitable for people to come in because that's the only time in my life that I was actually hungry. The last five days, we didn't have any food because we had given all ours away

because I knew we were coming back. But that's so interesting. Yeah, and like you, we fell in love of those kids and those young people, and it was just such a sad situation. And it really took off there. A lot of people came to the Lord from that time on. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, and thanks to outreaches like that, I know exactly what you mean. In fact, one of the big draws, whenever we can at these camps, even now, we do teach the English language.

And that's a huge draw for kids and parents. You know, again, they'll overlook a lot of things that they might not like about it if their kids are going to learn some English. Yeah. Isn't that something? That's weird how I think God works, even bringing us together today. Absolutely. One of the things that I know we've been talking about something new you guys are doing about the 30 camps this summer. We're trying to get our audience, Unashamed Nation, to invest in what you guys are doing. And we just want to say thank you for being one of our partners on Unashamed Podcasts because you guys are helping us get the gospel out around the world. And we love being able to do that back with you to children. Tell us a little bit about the campaign for the 30 camps and kind of what you guys are doing.

Yeah, well, this summer we're asking the unashamed audience to help us sponsor 30 camps. That'll be about 3,000 kids. And most of these camps are going to be in really, you know, very on-reach places, remote places where a lot of, I would say very often it's going to be 80 to 90 percent. I've never heard the name of Jesus. And there's going to be about 100 kids at each camp. And each, as I mentioned earlier, each camp just costs just $1,000, which for 100 kids here in the gospel every day and being introduced to Christ is, you know, it's hard to beat in terms of investment. So, yeah, so that's what we're doing.

And these are going to be mostly the camps this summer are going to be mostly in the Eastern European countries where we work. There'll be quite a few of them in Ukraine. And a lot of these are for refugee kids that have just been devastated by the war. And I mean, you don't hear that much about this. But, boy, the kids have really been, really been hurt by the war in Ukraine in so many different ways. And this is a chance for us to minister to them as well. One of the reasons why I wanted to partner with you guys is obviously you guys are in these really difficult places. But my own story, growing up in America,

when I've ironically it came full circle for me around camp because my mom had taken out a camp when he was a young man a little boy and and that said his trajectory to become a pastor to be a minister of God's word and then when I was 17 I was I finished my junior year of high school and we and I was in a tough spot at that time of my life I mean raising a Christian home but I wasn't living a Christian life at all and in my community there just wasn't a lot of Christian influences. We went to the beach with the Robertsons one year, that year, and I was sitting in a lawn chair, oh, you may not remember this.

And we were talking, and I was just sharing with you kind of my story. And I didn't realize you were ministering me at the time, but you were. You were speaking truth, the truth of Jesus over me. I respected you. I looked up to you as my older cousin. And you told me, you invited me to Camp Chioka. And I was kind of like, you know what? I think that the Holy Spirit was like, you're going to, you need to.

go there. I didn't interpret it that way at the time, but I went. And my parents didn't have the money to pay for it. Somebody else paid for it. Chris and Johnny Howard paid for my way to go to that camp. And I'm telling you, 11th grade summer, that two weeks at that camp fundamentally shaped the direction of my life from that point on. I mean, I would not, I would be doing this podcast today. Like that is where I had my first encounter with Jesus Christ was at a camp junior year after high school. And so this is dear to our heart. And we really want the Unashamed Nation to support what you guys are doing. We're going to support what you're doing.

We're going to sponsor some kids. I mean, 10 bucks a kid, you can send them to camp. I mean, everybody can do that. And the way you can do that if you're listening is you can go to tomorrowclubs. org slash 3-0 camps. Exactly. Or they can text 30 camps to 4-4-3-2-1. Yeah, let's get these 3,000 kids taken care of and get them in a tomorrow club's camp across the pond and see what the Lord might do.

So thanks for coming on, Paul. It really means a lot that you invited us in to participate in this ministry with you. Well, thanks, again, so much for having me, guys. And God bless your ministry. You're doing a lot, and we appreciate you too. God bless you. Thanks for listening to the Unashamed podcast. Help us out by leaving.

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