Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 1159 | Phil & Miss Kay’s Messy Start Mirrors a Couple You Already Know

Episode Date: September 5, 2025

Abraham’s story shows how God builds a nation through faith, not shortcuts. Al, Zach, John Luke, and Christian continue their study of Genesis, tracing the tension between Sarah’s quick fix with Hagar and God’s covenant promise, revealing how Abraham’s failures paved the way for his legendary faith. The guys connect Babel’s downfall, Sarah’s ambiguous laughter, and Abraham’s silence to the birth of Israel, highlighting why trust in God always outlasts our schemes. In this episode: Genesis 1; Genesis 3; Genesis 4; Genesis 6; Genesis 9; Exodus 6, verse 3; Romans 1, verse 16 Today's conversation is about lesson 3 of The Genesis Story: Reading Biblical Narratives taught by Hillsdale Professor Justin Jackson. Take the course with us at no cost to you! Sign up at http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ Chapters: 00:00–07:32 A Return to Duck Dynasty Days 07:33–18:32 The Scattering of Nations 18:32–26:47 Sarah’s Shortcut & Hagar’s Tears 26:48–31:27 Phil & Miss Kay’s Early Chaos 31:27–38:56 Abraham Makes a Rookie Mistake 38:57–49:43 The Birth of God’s People More about The Genesis Story: Genesis is a book of fundamental importance for the Jewish and Christian faiths and has exerted a profound influence on Western Civilization. In addition to being a great religious text, it is also a literary masterpiece.  This free online course explores some of the work’s major narrative themes, including the complex relationship between God and man, the consequences of a rupture in that relationship, and the path towards reconciliation. Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://open.spotify.com/show/3LY8eJ4ZBZHmsImGoDNK2l Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. — Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? Well, we're back in Genesis today. I'm in studio, which is kind of a big deal because I've traveled quite a way to get, quite a ways to get here. It's weird because I'm so used to seeing you in a box on the monitor that when you're actually here, it throws me off because I keep looking at the monitor. Well, yeah, this is an important thing we're doing here. If you haven't heard yet, we have an ad-free episode. Every single Friday thanks to our partners at Hillsdale College.

And we really want you guys to take these courses online at Hillsdale with us. All you have to do to join us for Unashamed Academy Powered by Hillsdale College is sign up at Unashamed for Hillsdale.com. It's totally free. We're all taking the courses right now. We're in the book of Genesis. How long are the classes what? You think about 20? I'd say they average 25 minutes or so.

Yeah. Or you can speed up the audio. You can. I know. So somebody telling me, I don't know. You know, I listen to my daughter, listen to my podcast in double time. And it totally freaks me out. I can't.

It sounds like the time and half, though. It's like the chipmunks are doing it. You start at 1.25, then you can work your way out. Yeah. I can't do it. This stuff, though, you don't want to go fast. Like, I'll listen to it and I'll stop and I'll rewind it and I'll write it down. And I'll listen to it again.

You got like the more you listen to it, the more you get out of it. Exactly. They're all on video. You can take them wherever, or whenever you want. If you want to follow on this week, we're on lesson three talking about Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar. But I did get in late last night. Well, which is why we're giving you a pass for a half a lot of time getting a started today. Because Zach was supposed to be in at 930.

And then all of a sudden we get a text. We're delayed. You know, I'll be there at midnight, but you didn't get into like 1 a.m. Oh, one. Then I'm like, what's... After 1 a.m., which is after 2 a.m. my time. And then I'm like, what's the deal with a rental car? Because trust me, I've done enough flying into Monday.

Monroe, once we get past like 9 o'clock, it's like rental car people are nowhere to be fast. Once you get past 5.30. Like 5.m. They're like, they're out. 5.30 is generous. 530 is generous. I would know.

I was in a serious mind because they cancel my rental car. And apparently you can't get an Uber in Monroe. No. So then I call John Luke. Nobody answers. Of course. Then I call Christian. You know why?

Because every time you call Christian or John Luke or me or me on the phone, you know what comes up on the phone, don't answer. No, actually, you know who I did call? I called Reeves and he answered. And you called Reeves at 1.m.? I called him about 11 right before I took off, which had been 10 y'all's time. I said, look, I'm in a bind, and he said, I'll be there. So he not only looks like Jesus.

He acts like Jesus. I land 1145, which was not true. I ended up landing at 1230 or after that, because I don't know what happened up in the air. but so but we made it and um and every you never even woke me up which i appreciate but i don't want to complain about being too busy because i know you guys are these guys are filming a show so i wanted to ask you because i'm super excited about doing this project with you guys and um i wondered because now we all were part of the original show you know and what that entailed and i know how much work that is and how hard it is but i also know it's also rewarding because you get to

with your family so what what's been your experiences on the revival. Dynasty, the revival. Yeah, I'm curious. It's been really fun. Everything we filmed has been hilarious.

Yeah. And I mean, that is. Like, we get up and we just laugh and do the stuff we kind of normally do. It's been a blast. It really is fun getting to spend that much time with your family doing fun things that, you know, you normally typically do.

And you're getting to, yeah, spend all the dime with the kids and their interaction with, with William Corey's really sweet. So I think it's been a blast. It's definitely interesting, you know, playing yourself in a show. It's funny. It's kind of a, you know, it's just an interesting dynamic of knowing you're being filmed and you're playing yourself.

But different from when you were playing Captain America and all the Marvel movies. Yeah. Different, different than those movies, which were a big success, by the way. We're very happy with how they went. Captain America, Wonder Woman, now playing the roles. What about you, Lou? I came into this, like, okay, this is going to be a newbie. Because you were part of both.

Because I was part of both. So the first time I was very much like typecasted because I was the like, like, unaware high school kid, didn't know what was going on. And then you had like bumblebee tuna and the whole. Which, by the way, is one of the most beloved episodes of the original show. Oh, I know. I can't escape it. John Luke high on Novakame.

Yeah. The wisdom teeth episode. And that's like me. and that's what, like, people know me. Like, that's the wisdom to the guy. Like, that's who I am. I'm like... The guy totally blitzed out of his mind.

Yeah. That's your... He was chaneling his inner... I was. His inner pet detective. I was. It was full Ace Ventura. And this time, I was like,

that's not going to be me. I'm going to be the intellectual. I'm being smart. I'm going to be a clean cut. I'm going to be, like, this version of John Luke. And then we started filming. I'm like, no, I am kind of an idiot.

You couldn't reinvent. I can't read because that's who I am. I'm like, no, okay. I'm going to push that. You're a smart guy, though. I mean, you are the only nerd that bought the commentary. I did. He did.

And he has the course material. I would buy the commentary, but I mean, we moved pretty quick on this once we decided to do it with Hillstow. And so you've got the Genesis commentary. Yeah, well, it's because I was already like, like, as soon as we said, this might be a thing. I went on and I bought the books. And I'm going to take this regardless.

So you guys, what? People ask me all the time, they're like, what do you miss about the original show and doing it and all that? Of course, I miss the impact, which now it's fun to drive in here again and see folks all summer, like, coming by to do the tour and see the stuff and hopefully see you guys. And so that's been fun again, the impact. But what I missed the most was getting to spend all that time with my brothers and their families and which you guys are getting to do. And so even though we all live here together, everybody has separate things that they're engaged and involved in. And so the show sort of centralizes that. And mom was always really big on the idea that she had her family together.

And so when you see those, in our case, in the first show, with the family dinner scene sitting around, that really, those really were moments of coming together. And so when I watch you guys doing it now, next generation in the revival, I just think, man, what a cool thing to get to see that passed on. Yeah. And that your kids will get to experience that.

And one day they get to watch themselves on television when they were little guys running around. That's huge. That's important. Yeah, it's funny getting to be in the moment because like I said, we don't know if it'll continue on for more seasons to come,

but right now we're just trying to be in the moment. I think we're happy with kind of with the way the shows have turned out and we think it gets better as they continue to go. So just trying to live in the moment and spend as much time with the families we can. Yeah, it does. Well, you know that this is important to us,

though, these Hillsdale episodes because to squeeze these in with our production schedules is pretty, incredible, but I am excited about being able to do this. You said you would have taken this course regardless. And by the way, it's not too late to sign up. You can go to Unashamed for Hillsdale.com, sign it for free. And you can take these courses with us.

We're in Genesis. And I knew about Hillsdale. I said this in the last episode. They've had four million people have taken these courses online, these free courses. And I get the Imprimus thing in the mail. I think you may get that as well. I remember listening to the talk radio years ago when I was in college.

And they would have all these promotions for Hillsdale because they don't take any federal funding. I remember hearing about it. So I've always read the imprimist, but this is the first time I've taken one of their courses. And I've really enjoyed it. I don't know about you guys. Oh, yeah. I actually realized I had taken not the course but parts of this course. They put it on YouTube.

And I had watched those like years before, even. doing this. So they have tons and tons of stuff. The one I listened to before wasn't on Genesis, and now that we're getting into it, they've got Genesis and C.S. Lewis and history and literature and theology and all kinds of stuff. Well, I thought that in the original

first lesson of this genesis, Larry Arne, who's the president of university, did a really nice job of explaining what their charter is as a university, and it's interesting because you could probably say the same thing about every university

in America when they started, including the Ivy League schools. It was about moral character. It was about foundational. It was about freedom. It was about all these different things. And it's sort of morphed into what it is today. And sometimes we don't even recognize what's happening on college campuses. So I think it's been interesting that they've sort of held the line on what a college

meant even when our nation started. And the idea that you build foundational things in young people, that they can build on that and knowledge. And so I just, I love their mantra, what they're trying to do. I love the fact they recognize. And like they say, it's about freedom. So people can come in. They don't make you sign anything that I believe this or I believe that.

The thing is they're just offering it out there for you to take and decide. Yeah, they're a liberal arts, private Christian school, but they don't require. Right. But I think their whole model is that we want to educate, we don't educate our country. And they've got over 40 free online courses taught by the Hillsdale faculty. we're doing the Genesis one, but we'll do some more as well. They've got, I think, CS Lewis courses. They've got, I think I saw one story of David.

They've got the Federalist Papers, which that'd be interesting to do. So we'll let you guys kind of speak into our next course, but want you to take it with us. That's a big part of it. We're going to do this every Friday, Unashamed Academy, powered by Hillsdale. So with that, we are in, I think we left off Genesis. We're going to move into Genesis 12. Yeah, he paid. Dr. Jackson picks it up.

in 15 because he kind of centers in on the relationship of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar and that story. But I encourage you guys to start in 12 because I've always thought it's very important to understand Abraham's and Abram in the early part of it, his beginning, because the reason that you read about him so much in the New Testament and Paul talks about him a lot. Yeah. Galatians and Romans and, of course, the Hebrew writer talks about him. And James talks about him. So almost every New Testament writer mentions Abraham's faith.

and I think the reason why is because his calling shows you his capacity, you know, that basically it was like, I want you to go to a place. I'm not going to tell you where it is until you get there. And I just think about all the, you know, I don't even get in the car now to head someplace without figuring out where it is on the GPS or, you know, tell me where I'm going. And so the idea of the beginning steps of Abram and Sarah and then Lott, of course, in his family with him, I think it shows the capacity and it shows the character that's there. And so as you get into the story that we're going to get into today,

it's important to know the basis of who this man is. And, you know, I mean, that's why he's the father of the faithful because he was willing to take some of those steps out there. And some of these are really difficult things that God's asked him to do. Oh, yeah, sacrifice his own son. Exactly, which I thought was really powerful. Yeah, I mean, it's a pivotal text in the scripture that we refer back to a lot. And even in the New Testament, it's referred to quite a bit,

this whole story. I mean, Abraham's referred to quite a bit. Right. That's the bother of our faith and then how he exercises that with Isaac. I was saying coming out of our last episode, we left really kind of with the story of hope, but we were kind of like hitting on the fall of man. You had mentioned how bad things got in Genesis post fall. So Genesis 3, Adam and Eve, they get the curse, they're banished from the garden. Then one of their sons murders another son in the next chapter, and it just continues down there.

And it gets so bad up until Noah's on the scene that the Lord's like, this is, like, this place is so wicked. Like the Bible says, I think one's translation that he repented for making man. And so then he's going to like, could build this arc, and I'm just going to destroy everybody because this is, except for eight of you guys. Basically, it was a reboot. It's a reboot. What's interesting about it, though, we were talking about being fruitful and multiplying when you made that awkward comment about his sister and being naked and unashamed. I still feel awkward about it.

That was gold, by the way. But the truth is that I was thinking about, like, if you look at the two pathways in reality, you have God's pathway, which is always lost. and life abundantly. It's to be fruitful and multiply, have dominion over the earth. And then the other one is a death work. It always ends in a death work.

And I think that's why the evil one always attacks the foundation of life itself. And so when you look at that command, what's called the cultural mandate in Genesis chapter one, to be fruitful and multiply and subdue the earth and fill the earth, that's the same exact command that God gave Noah and the other seven after he had flooded the earth and they came out of the ark. And Genesis chapter 9, do you know what he says to him?

Be fruitful and multiply and go fill the earth. And that's kind of the same thing that he says in Genesis 12 to Abraham. Like basically, I'm going to give you a bunch of offspring. Be fruitful and multiply. And so then that's the backdrop of which we enter into the story. But you know, is that there's still this point of rebellion because when you get to chapter 11 right before we're picking up the story, you see still there was that idea. we want to build our own tower, we want to do our own thing, we don't want to go out, we don't

want to spread out, we don't want to do what God tells us to do, we want to be our own God's. Yeah. And so you still see the prevalent mindset that's still there sort of permeating through that early humanity. And so then we go through several generations before we get to this miraculous call, and this is going to be now begin the process of bringing a Messiah into the world. Because that's what Abraham is. He's that first step into this first step.

into this, first the patriarchs, then into Israel, and then into the prophecies, and then ultimately did Jesus come down there? Yeah, what did you say, he's made a point last podcast about the Eastern perspective or? Yeah, versus the Western. Yeah, well, there's so many Eastern things with like, whether it's chyasms or kind of literary tools that, you know, because from the Eastern, like numbers and numerical things

are so much more important than to us. They're just numbers, but there's all kind of hidden things. in that. And yeah, Dr. Jackson talks about, yeah, just the original language of the way that the things are written. And I just think he breaks that down really well. Yeah, John Luke and I both got on like a little bit of a Michael Heiser kick. What was the Unseen Realm?

The Unseen Realm. You actually read that before me, I believe, because you'd read that years ago. And then somebody introduced me to his work recently, but he says the same thing that, like, we have to interpret the – We're reading the Bible too much through a Western lens, which is interesting because to understand the basis of Western civilization, we probably should return a little bit back to the Eastern perspective in which it was written.

And so when you get the story that we're all participating in right now, before Abraham gets there, like the world had gotten so bad again. And Heiser's point is the sons of God that came into the women and created the Nephilim and all. That may have happened again in Genesis 11. So they're making this, they're going to make a name for themselves, right? They're going to build a tower. And that tower, it's another version of a temple motif, right?

We're going to connect heaven and earth through a tower. So you see that, you see that same thing happening again. And God says, no, that's not the way this is going to play out. And so he confuses their language, and he scatters them, which, by the way, he rectifies in Acts Chapter 2 when he brings the nations back together and they can hear each other in their own native tongue, which is an interesting thought. But Babel was kind of like this, that was like the, the end of like an era, right?

And God said, I'm not going to allow this to happen. So that's why he creates nations in the first place. Right. He creates nations and he disperses them. And then he takes one of those nations, which would be Israel, Abraham, Genesis 12, and he pulls them out his portion for himself. And he makes the covenant with Abram. And the covenant was, I'm going to give you a lot of grandkids. Yeah.

And this is a man who had no kids. Yeah, yeah. Which was the starting point. went for Dr. Jackson because he said the promise is made. And then Abram just looks up on Dan's, you know, basically has a comment and says, man, I, yeah, I guess my servant is supposed to be my, you know, forward bear of children because I don't have any. In other words, he's just like reminding God, you know, you made the promise, but I still don't

have any gets, you know, and that becomes a jumping off place. Have you all ever heard, I've heard one scholar talk about this, and it's an interesting thought. It doesn't have any mention of it in scripture. but the idea of like if Abraham was the first person that God asked to partner with or if God, like, it's just an interesting thought if like God had asked other people

to partner and they had said no then Abraham was just the first person that first one to say yes yeah. It's just an interesting thought. I never thought about it. I've heard of that in about Abraham's father whose name I guess we can look it up but was it er. No but they were in er.

This is Genesis 11, 20, or 30. And Tara took his son, Abram and Lot, son of Heron, his grandson, Sarah's daughter and law, wife of Abram. And they set out from Err of the Chaldees towards the land of Canaan, and they came to Heron and settled there. And the days of terror were 205, and then Tara died in Heron. Then the Lord said to Abraham, go forth from your land and your birthplace and your father's house. So Abram's birthplace was Err. Tara, Abraham's father, took their family halfway to Canaan and then died and then Abram went the rest of the way. So just a thought, actually you don't even know.

This might just be my own thought, but I'm sure somebody else thought of this before, was Tara asked to go first, but then he stopped halfway and then God asked Abram. go to a place I don't know, and then Abram picked it up in the rest of the way. In Joshua, he indicates that he had worship of other gods, he and the family. And so Abram

was called out of that. Of that. Which is interesting because when you get to Exodus, we should take Exodus too. That would be a good one to take. In Exodus, God appears to Moses and basically says, hey, my name is Yahweh.

You know, my name is I am. Nice to meet you, you know, kind of thing. And he says, I didn't, so you're the first person that I've told my name to. He told Moses, I said, I never told my name to Abram. I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but I never told those guys my name. I just, I just appeared to them as God Almighty. So kind of the redemptive nature of what's going on here, like, like Abram, Abrams being called out by Almighty God, right?

He doesn't know his name yet. There's not like an identity attached to this, the personal identity attached to Y'all as Yahweh yet. And I think that's interesting because you're getting the very seed of our entire faith, right? It's just this is a process that God's like, he's doing something. But to your point, I don't know, like, I don't know. Yeah, we don't know. Yeah. Maybe he was called out. Maybe he wasn't, but we do know that he worshipped foreign gods because Joshua 24 mentions that. Yeah. If you want to kind of get in on this discussion, go to Unashamed for Hillsdale.com to sign up at no cost, and you could take these classes with us. Super easy. You'll love it. Trust me. We're in,

we're in our third course on Abraham, Hagar, and Sarah. So we get to Genesis 15, and the word of the Lord comes to Abraham, Abram. This man will not be your heir, because he's questioning, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir. And then they go and make this covenant. And so this covenant is made that this is the way it's going to be. And it's interesting because the passage of time with anyone creates sometimes a doubt of when is this going to happen. And I think in any, whether Eastern or Western culture, you know, there's an impatience with all of us. Like, okay, so when are we going to get to this? And so some time goes by here when we get to Genesis 16. And I think to your point, Zach, of maybe these are the baby steps of faith. Because when we get

to Chapter 16, Abraham's wife, Sarah, she says, well, here's a not. Here's something. Maybe this is what God meant, and I'm paraphrasing, but this basically she's saying, I got an idea. I have this maid servant, you know, I have this person that, you know, she was Egyptian, ironically, that it would all wind up there. And, you know, she's young enough. Why don't you take her as a wife? And then I thought Dr. Jackson did a really nice job of describing that, you know, because there's a lot of translations that call it concubate. She was taking as a wife.

It was an elevation. of out of the hierarchy of what was there. Not what God had said, but what they came up with. Right. And then she says, and you can maybe produce a child with her, which is exactly what happens. And, you know, this is kind, to me,

it's such an overview of what, back to this idea of that we somehow can improve upon the plans of God. And like, because of our impatience or because of our pride or because of whatever it is, that we can somehow come up with a better plan. And it just, and it creates this whole quagmire that leads into this next process,

which is this whole lesson, about what happens when you're outside of that. It doesn't mean God doesn't still work, but it just means we create all these issues that God never meant to be. And I think it comes from our own impatience of just really in the end of the day, just trusting him. If he said something, it's going to happen. But, you know, it's very hard to embrace the impossible when we're mired in the possible at all times. We just can't see it. So if we can't see it, then we figure out we've got to come up with a plan,

which is what happens. They're sort of a kind of weird callback to Adam and Eve with that of like Sarah taking it upon herself. That's right. I've never thought about that. Oh, there is. I think you see that repetition play out throughout scripture, but I use the word motif a lot

because it's like these repetitive things that kind of play into a bigger picture. I've mentioned the temple motif quite a bit. you know, Garden of Eden was the original temple. And then when, in the exodus, when the tabernacle was instituted by Moses, by God's command, that was a temple motif. It was a mobile temple nonetheless. Then there's the permanent temple structure that happens in 1st, 6th. And then obviously with coming of Christ, now we're at the temple.

So I think you see these things play out. and the pattern of sin is also one that plays out. I mentioned in the last podcast how he talked about how the garden, we were initially put in charge of guarding and protecting the garden and cultivating it. And then because of sin, the garden had to be protected from us. But don't you think that's like the nature of sin is that we're given this dominion over the earth and what we intend is simply to take that dominion and the hand it over to the idols. And a lot of that comes from just the lack of trust.

God, are you really going to do what you say you're going to do? It comes in the form of, ironically, it's weird because it seems like we're wanting control, but what we're actually doing when we try to grab was gods, we're actually giving control over to the idols. Because the idol in that case is security and deliverance. And so Sarah, for whatever reason, did not really believe that God, either he wasn't good enough to fulfill his promise or wasn't powerful enough to do it. So it was almost like, well, let me help you do that. Like, we're going to make, this promise is going to get done.

But they were just so skeptical. Here's a thought on that. So jumping ahead into the future to the next lesson, which we haven't talked about yet, is about Rebecca marrying. Isaac. And one of the things he talks about in that lesson is how active Rebecca was, in contrast to Isaac's passivity. And we actually see this three times already. You've got Adam and Eve where

Eve is the active role in this. And now you've got Sarah, who is also the active role. Doubting God decides, okay, let's come up with another solution here, let's try to figure this out. Then you've got Rebecca. in a good way, taking the active role in their relationship with Isaac. But the sin of, and I think it would be easy to be like, oh, well, that's the women, they're trying to think, and the men were having faith, but they really weren't.

Like, Adam, Abram, and Isaac, it's not that they were having faith. It's just that they didn't want the responsibility. Exactly. They were just passing on the blame. Like, whenever Eve and Sarah and Rebecca, came up with something, they were like, okay, sure, that's like, helps me, let's do it. Like, they weren't being the leader in that situation. They weren't trying to walk with God or anything.

They were just had this passive role, which allowed the doubt to come in whenever another idea came up, they were like, yeah, sure, let's try it. Well, perfect example, perfect illustration of that. I think you're so right, Gen. Because when the early days of our company, and, you know, I was young, I was just, just, you know, a teenager. But I watched, like, dad was driven on making duck calls and making the best call. And he did not want any of the financial responsibility of running a company, which we all

know, that's one of the biggest parts, right? How are we going to get enough money to do supplies and all that? So he, but he didn't want to deal with that, you know, but that came with a job. But he didn't want that job. So he just totally pushed that off to mom. And it was just like, Ms. Kay figured out. Well, you know, mom, she's trying to get. food on the table, feed the kids, but at the same time, keep stock running into the business

and keep all these things going on. So she's at friendly finance and every place in town trying to make it all work. So obviously not the best decisions made early on for a company trying to build itself, but again, it was because of a lack of faith and responsibility that went into the process. So that's exactly what you're seeing in this situation. Why, the idea was in the beginning in the garden, remember this was the idea of a completion, a God-like, union of people coming together and making something really good. But the minute they get separated out, this is what you're starting to see. And bad decisions get made.

And so I think that's clearly what's at work here. And then it creates now a son and a rivalry. We talked about God not being rivals with us. But this created a rivalry. This was Sarah's idea. But we don't get four verses into it. And she's like, she's mad. She's mad about it.

I don't like this idea because now you're on the same level as me. well, of course, you came up with this plan. It's like as human beings, we come up with something we think will work. We get into it, and we realize it won't work because it never was God's plan to begin with. Which is the dining alone, what I said in the last podcast. It's the dining alone without God. It's, I'm eating the tree for its sake of itself. I'm making this decision on my own.

I'm departing from God's presence in this, and I've got to make sure that this happens. And one of the things that Dr. Jackson brings up, which, by the way, If you want to jump in, you can go to Anishamperhillsdell.com, sign up and check us out. I'll check the course out. But he mentions in this particular lecture. He mentions Genesis 15 in here that Abraham expresses in this chapter a desire for an error, which he does. So, I mean, he is passive. I think that's an interesting point that you brought up, which I want to type in a second here, with something.

but in Genesis 15, this is a key text for understanding covenants, and particularly like covenant theology. Like God's making a covenant with Abraham in this text. He's Abram at this point. And the covenant is that I'm going to give you what I will give you, this is verse 2. for I He says,

O Lord, God, what will you give me? For I continue childless and the heir of my house is Elizer of Damascus. And Abraham said, Behold, you have given me no offspring and a member of my household

will be my heir. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him. This man shall not be your heir. Your very own son, which you read a while ago, shall be your heir. And he brought him outside and he said,

look up in the skies. And he said, Count the stars. And Abraham's like, I can't. There's too many of them. He's like, well, that's how many grandkids you're going to have. So that was a covenant, right? Well, this is what's interesting about this covenant.

To seal the covenant, what happens next is absolutely bizarre, if you don't understand it from an Eastern perspective. And it flies in the face with what Sarah was going to try to do. Because Sarah's like, okay, let's make this covenant between us. You do your part, and I'm going to do my part, and we're going to come together. But what happens in Genesis 15 is God says, cut the animals in half and put half on one side, half on the other. And the idea is we're going to walk through both parties are going to walk through this. And what we're saying here is if either one of us break this covenant, may this happen to me.

Until the covenant. Yeah, until death to its part, right? But what happens is that God puts Abram to sleep. And God alone walks through the covenant. So it's a weird covenant, right? Because it's essentially, it's God saying. What he's saying is, Abraham, you couldn't hold your half of the bargain anyway. Well, what he's saying is if either one of us break this covenant, may this happen to me.

Foreshadowing the cross of Calvary. And I think that, but that gets into this question of, well, do we have any responsibility in this? And I think that the term that I think applies here, I got it from Francis Schaefer, it's called active passivity. like we're to be actively passive. And this is what it means to have the faith of Abraham, is that we're actively passive. And Schaefer uses the story of Mother Mary, who conceived the child of God in her womb

that we call Jesus, the Messiah, Emmanuel God with us. But what did she do to get that baby inside of her womb? Absolutely nothing. But she did yield her body to the spirit. And I think that's what's happening here with these individuals, is that they're not actually,

they are taking the passive role, but they are having to submit ultimately to the plan of what God's going to do. They make mistakes along the way. They try to circumvent the promise by the whole Hagar-ishmell debacle, which turned out to be a complete nightmare. But in the end, who fulfills the covenant?

Right. Exactly. Yeah, you see, because we talked about this in the first podcast, too, is, you know, the four different relationships that were suffered in the garden. Yeah. the human to human, and you really do see it in Genesis 16 with Sarah and Hagar.

Like, you know, like you said, it's just right off the bat. She has this plan, and then she immediately doesn't like the plan. And then, you know, the two of them kind of go at it. But it's cool, too, and it shows really God's redemption of after Abraham and Sarah did that with Hagar, you know, God gives Abraham the promise in Genesis 17 and renames him Abraham. So I think that's cool too. It shows God's, like, yeah, God's redemption and God's mercy that, you know, even Abraham messed up and didn't trust the plan.

It was skeptical, but God still fulfilled the promise. Have you ever done that? You take matters into your own hand and then you think, and then it blows up in your face. You're like, crap, why did I do that? Like, why was it? Well, why did I do that? Because you didn't have the full perspective until after you had the perspective. And so it's like, man, if I could just.

go back, the hindsight's 20-20. And so that's one of the reasons why God gets to determine the best course of action because he has 100% hindsight and foresight. Like he sees all. He knows all possibilities. He does everything that could possibly happen in every possible world. His middle knowledge, four knowledge, whatever kind of knowledge you want, God's got it all. We don't have that. We have a very limited perspective. So that's kind of the natural reason why you know, it's kind of stupid for us to be like Sarah, which we are, and think, well, we're going to somehow partner with God into planning and the, and whatever the, whatever the thing is. Yeah, let me help out with that.

Right. You know what I mean? And then even look at it from, from God's perspective, because if you go and read, which I'll give you a rabbit hole that I won't get into on here, but I'll encourage you guys to go read the book of Galatians, which is a really interesting take that Paul has on this whole story that's quite different than when you're actually reading the story. Because when he talks about, he makes that same idea about the seed and the countless generations being the idea of through Christ being the seed. But then he paints in Genesis, I mean, Galatians 4, a whole different look at this thing that Hagar was a slave mother. And we weren't born into slavery. We were born into freedom and sonship. And he gives you the whole different

picture from the God view, which is quite stunning to me. Because when I read this story, I mean, Sarah seems more like the bad guy here. Yeah. I mean, for sure. You know, because she's like, she comes out with his thing. She's the one mistreating this woman who didn't have a choice. Yeah, exactly. What did you all think about the, Dr. Jackson mentions the laughter, that the laughter

could be either joy, a laughter of joy, which was kind of more the Jewish view, or a laughter of skepticism. I think it's both skepticism because I think there's the relatability to when God asks Abraham, why that Sarah laugh. So I think there's a funny, I think there's a callback there to them, they both were skeptical. Yeah. And kind of, that's my thought. Yeah, I kind of thought it was more of a skepticism, too.

What do you think, John Luke? Yeah, to me, I've always heard it as skepticism, and that's how I've kind of like taken it. Like, more like a scoff than like a... Than like a trusting. Than like a trusting, like joyful laughter. But I like what Dr. Jackson says is that when he's in this video, he's like, we're not going to resolve this. and he's like just hold these things in your mind. And I thought that was such a good way to think about it.

It was like we don't have to answer every single question. You hold them in tension, yeah. Let's think about these things throughout, through each direction and then test them to see which one seems more like Abram, which one seems more like God in this situation. Well, and I think it speaks to just biblical truth in general. We always tend to want to go either or, and a lot of times it's both and,

which I think in this case it was both and. In other words, when Sarah finally realizes it, There's no doubt hers was skeptical. I mean, it was pretty obvious. But at the end of the day, I think she laughs out of joy because it happened. I mean, she's a 90-year-old woman having a baby. I mean. Yeah.

Well, he says it either way, I thought this was a key point going back to the act of passivity thing that I mentioned from Schaefer. It doesn't matter if it's really skeptical or joy, the laughter, because in the end, both of those are going to require her participation. And that makes some people uncomfortable, right? Yeah, that was the funny part, yeah. But some people are we don't participate. Well, yeah, you kind of do.

You're not conjuring up your salvation. You're not bootstrapping yourself up. It is all the grace of God. Yes, yes, and yes. Mary didn't do anything to put a baby in her womb. The child was conceived by the Holy Spirit. But she did yield her body to Schaefer's point. And I think it's the same thing here that we yield to the work of the spirit.

We yield. And so I love the way Schaefer would put it. we raise the empty hands of faith. So when we come before a holy God, yeah, we do lift up something to Him, which is nothing, which is like, but I do lift my empty hands, and I just submit myself to him.

So submission is the participation. And that's what happens here. And there's really no way to, yeah, because she could have been laughing at doubting God, or, yeah, she could have been laughing at her, thinking about her and Abraham, you know, doing the deed at that age. So there's, there's multiple things that she

could have been laughing at. Well, I... Well, he talked about that. He was done multiple times, I agree. He talked about that on, on... He did. He talked about that. That was just a pause for a comment.

No, Dr. Jackson talked about that. He did, and you're right. I thought the same thing. How old were they? 90 and 100. Yeah. But he also, Abraham slept with Haygard. So, like, you know, she was younger.

She was younger. We said, oh, yeah, but he was still... He was a deep-not. You know, so. Well, that's why I'm not giving Abram a pass on that one, because when Sarah is like, hey, sleep with a slave girl, Hagar, he's like, okay. All right.

Oh, well, I hate to do it, but I will, I guess. It was like a typical man. Okay. If I got her. If you say so, you're my wife. All right, sure. Yeah. What could go wrong?

Yeah. No, but just to laugh on the fact of, like, Sarah is laughing just because of all. all that happened, and now it's happening. Like, she realizes she was wrong. They went through this whole thing with Hagar and Ishmael and the whole thing, and then she gets pregnant. And it's just like a, this is, like, I can't believe we went through all of that trouble for then it actually just to work out.

And remember several years had gone by before there was a revisit. Yeah, 13 years. Yeah, 13 years. 86 to 99. So a lot of time had passed. And so then it was like, you know, I mean, I'm pretty sure she'd given up on anything else going on, and then all of a sudden it was.

One of the things that struck me is because the one thing I love about this course, how do you get it, Zangs? Oh, you get this course at unashamed for Hillsdale.com. It's free, no cost. So one of the things I love about it is that I've learned something new every time that I hadn't thought about before, at least once, and sometimes multiple things. And I had really never recognized the next lesson we're going to do,

is Abraham and Isaac, and I spent a ton of time there, especially in Genesis 22, because there's so much pictures of Jesus there. But I hadn't really made the link that really Ishmael's salvation was so close to Isaac's salvation. I mean, that whole setting in the wilderness, like she had left him under a bush,

you know, a Hagar to die because it was over or out of water. And God shows up to save him because he also still lived under promise, even though it wasn't God's plan, he still provided. There was still mercy. There was still mercy.

And he found her by the spring of water twice. I was just about to bring that up. That's a woman at the well. Yeah, that's it. I know. Both in their shame, and God meets them at a spring of water. Right.

Yeah, one of the greatest points I think in this particular lecture was that she was near water and she was thirsting. Like she was basically dehydrated and was going to die and given her son up to die. And then when she's at the water, she can't see it until God opens her eyes. And then she can see the water. So she can't see the waters until God affirms

that he's going to bless her, that he hears her suffering. And I thought that was a really powerful point because how many times, like, you know, think about like mental illness is such a prevalent thing nowadays with anxiety and depression and you've seen all the stats. I mean, it's astronomical. And if you've ever been in that season, where you're in that season of despair, like sometimes you can't see the water that's right before you until you can know that

God hears your suffering. And in this case, he makes the point that God says, okay, I see your suffering, now go suffer some more. And sometimes that is the answer, right? But in the end... Which he says is the whole theme of the Old Testament, and he's probably right. Yeah.

I mean, when you get to Job, I mean, there's a lot in that, right? Well, we want to... We want to go around that suffering. And I just think, man, what if Christ had done that? I'm just going to forego the suffering part. Right. We wouldn't be sitting there having this conversation.

Well, I do like the idea that we're talking about the father of the faithful, and yet we're pointing out, of course, a lot of those flaws. But, you know, there's a little story drop here that Dr. Jackson doesn't deal with, but it's all throughout this text that we're not reading. And that is, you remember Lott, who's his nephew, leaves when he leaves, and he goes with him. And then they get to a point where they're so successful, they have to separate. And so Abraham lets the nephew decide where he wants to go. Well, he looks down in this rich valley, and by the way, there's two major cities down there, and he's like, well, I think I'll go there. Duh, you know, that's the land of milk and honey in his mind.

So he's going to go down the easier. Abrams stays up in the hills. the mountains, a lot tougher sledding for what they're doing. Well, guess what's happening this whole time to Lott in his family down in the valley? Terrible. Like the whole place becomes so bad. So this revisit to come back and renew this idea about Isaac happens against the backdrop. But that whole place is about to be wiped out. Remember Abraham tries to, you know, basically bargain for lives and souls?

So the idea is that as bad as the situation is and to go against the plan of God, and the difficulty this family faced, imagine them compared to Lott's family down in Sodom and Gammar. Oh, yeah. When you just totally say, you know what, we're just going to let culture decide how we live in. Lot lost everybody except as two daughters. Everything and everybody.

Exactly. So I just, I think it's a good backdrop for those of us to say, look, we're struggling in faith. Sometimes we still make mistakes. We don't trust in God. But we're not just like punting the whole thing and say we're going to live in full-blown idolatrous culture. culture, because when you do that, destruction is imminent.

Yeah. So, you know, he didn't get into that, but I just couldn't have to notice it. Well, I think it's important because you've got to see what has God ultimately accomplishing is that he is, he is accumulating a people for himself. And that's first going to be the Jews, first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. I mean, it's the whole name of the podcast. We mentioned it all the time. The gospel is first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.

Romans 116. Romans 116. So right now what we're in, we're in the initial phases of first for the Jew or we're getting, who is Israel? What does that even mean? Like that's not even a thing yet. Like that's happening.

Like we're at the very beginning of the birth of a nation, the birth of Israel. And Isaac is through Isaac, shall your offspring be reckoned. So it's going to be Isaac. But Isaac's not even the one. Right.

Who is Israel? It's Isaac's son. Jacob, which we'll get into in the next podcast. But that's so important to Zay, because the idea is that all this is done way before Moses and Sinai and Israel and the conquering of the land and all the stuff that happens later, I think God has always shown us that it always starts with the decision to listen to God. And that's before all the other stuff. And so even today, it's about a decision saying, you know, you're Lord, I'm not.

You're the I am. I am the one that follows. And so I think all this, that's why Genesis is such a rich study, because even as you studied the Patriarch, it's built and based on faith. Oh, so good. Well, we're going to, next week, we're going to get into Abraham and Isaac, and this is that Genesis 22 story, which is, I mean, you really did just read that chapter over and over again, because this is where he's going to offer Isaac up as a sacrifice,

and we'll talk about what all that means, which I thought was a great. episode. I thought that was awesome. Our great, I say episode. I'm thinking in terms of podcasts, it was a great lecture. A great lecture lesson. Yeah, so we do want to thank the donors, the Hillsdale donors, for making all these courses available for free online. These guys have people

that are back at them. They really believe in educating America. I sat down with their entire team, their executive team, and the vision of what they want to do at Hillsdale is they want to educate America on these foundational principles of what made really our country. And that's why we'll start with Genesis because that Genesis story

is the beginning of all of it. We're going to do them every Friday. So join us every Friday for Unashamedle Academy powered by Hillsdale College. All you got to do is go unashamed for Hillsdale.com to sign up at no cost and you can take the classes with us. Again, that's Unashamed forhillsdale.com. They've got over 40 other online courses that are taught by the Hillsdale faculty, courses on history, literature, theology, politics. I do want to do the CS Lewis course before we get out of this year. What we're trying to do is what Hillside is trying to do is encourage people to never stop learning. You know, my mentor was a guy named Bill Smith, the same one that led to God to Christ.

And one of the things he stressed to me over and over and over again, he said, I'll never stop studying. You know, because we get an opportunity to express our opinions, to study the Bible, to teach. We're all on podcasts and we get to talk about this all the time. We're super busy. But we're never too busy to learn more. And one of the things that I've really appreciated about this course with Dr. Jackson is he is open eyes to things I hadn't seen before.

And it's just because someone else who has dedicated their life to study something opens up the door for us. And I've even learned that from you guys. This is a great experience because being around other people and looking at it from their perspective, you get something new and different every time. So as we're learning, and they make it easy because these are short bites that you can grab 30 minutes, you know, to get into the search. They got a little quiz afterwards, which I've missed at least one on every quiz, I think, except the last one. Well, I'm 100% one of all.

I was, yeah. Well, I was 90, 900. That's what I was. But I missed the one that was both of the above and then the second one I put true instead of false. So you know how it is with Jess. Those are more difficult. You kind of, you overthink it sometimes? No, I think that's, I'm glad you'll share that thing.

Because if you get in here and you don't, and you miss a few, that's okay. Yeah, I could have retaken it and gotten a hundred and then just told you I got a hundred. It gives you that. The quiz makes you want to like pay more attention because you're like, there's a quiz. There's like a natural accountability. My notes are actually on, I keep my notes on the, you can have a note on the thing. Yeah. So I'm typing my notes.

And then like right now I've got all of my notes pulled up. And there's just like lesson one, lesson two, lesson three, lesson four. So I've got all my notes here, and then they have like a study guide that goes along with it. So, I mean, you can go honestly as deep in this as you want. But if you really want to learn Genesis, to me, this is a great opportunity. We're going to do this over six weeks, six episodes. So to take the course, listen to the podcast, do your reading. You're going to learn the basics of Genesis.

It's a great foundation. It really is a great foundation, a great Bible study. I'm glad we get to do it. Yeah. All right. Join us every Friday for Unashamed Academy Powered by Hillsdale College. Make sure to go to Unashamed for Hillsdale.com and sign up. It's no calls to you.

That's Unashamed for Hillsdale.com. And don't miss an episode of the Unashamed podcast by subscribing on YouTube. And be sure to click the little bell and choose all notifications to watch every episode.