Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 1179 | Robertson Teenagers Turn Chaos Into a Family Sport & Obedience That Leads to Life

Episode Date: October 3, 2025

Al, Zach, Christian, and John Luke are joined by Dr. Justin Jackson of Hillsdale College, teacher of the Genesis course they’ve been studying for weeks. The guys debate over who’s the current “fat brother” now that Al has lost weight, and wild parenting stories of Robertson teens flipping trucks, stabbing couches, and launching fireworks inside the bath house have them questioning their parenting choices. Dr. Jackson helps the guys trace themes of poetry, politics, and thought-provoking theories throughout Genesis.  In this episode: Genesis 4, verses 6–7; Genesis 18, verses 10–15; Genesis 21, verses 1–7; Matthew 5, verses 23–24; 1 Peter 2, verse 9; Ephesians 6, verse 4 Today's conversation is an overview 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/ 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://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/at-home-with-phil-robertson/id1835224621 Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Chapters: 00:00–06:10 Meet Dr. Justin Jackson 06:11–11:34 The Politics & Poetry of Genesis 11:35–17:01 The 4 Types of Relationships in the Bible 17:02–25:47 Evidence That Zach’s Kids are Feral 25:48–32:13 Isolation From God Ruins Our Lives 32:14–41:11 How to Become Friends with God — Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? Welcome back to the Unashamed podcast. This is our Friday episode, Unashamed with Hillsdale. We have a special guest here today, Dr. Jackson. So, yeah, we were at the Latin food coffee place. We got to have breakfast with you this morning. We saw you. First time we've met you in person, although we feel like we know you because we watched. Well, I watched you. I was a little, so I am obsessive. about being on time, even though I try to be fashionably late. So my fashionably late was I came in at 802.

Well, the truth is I was there by myself at 750, and then I'm like counting out. I'm like, it's 801 and nobody's here. What's, I normally wouldn't worry, but if everybody's two or three minutes late, then I'm thinking, what happened? So then I called Maddie. I was like, is this breakfast on? He said, yeah, nobody's there? I said, no, it's 802?

So what's like 802? I'm like, yeah, but nobody's here. I was at 804. I was like rushing. I was like, oh, no. When I walked in, I was like, oh, they've been here forever. Like, I'm super late. Exactly.

Third cup of coffee. Yeah. I did have quite a few cups of coffee. You did. And I always felt weird because I think they have great coffee, but you have a coffee business, so it's kind of like weird. I think they have good coffee. Yeah.

Yeah, it's good. You judge other coffees by your standard? Oh, totally. Oh, I mean, 100%. Now I judge coffee by John Lick-Sand. Oh, a critical judge. if I didn't like, I wouldn't have even gotten their coffee. If I got that, I drank that whole cup.

So that tells you it's good enough. That makes me feel better. So you're from California? Originally. So I've been here in the Midwest longer than I wasn't coming from. So I left California, age of 26. Okay. I'm older than 26.

You went to college at? So I went to Fresno State for my bachelor's and masters. And then I got my Ph.D. at Purdue. And then I've been at Hillsdale College. It was my first. Are you a bulldog or a boilmaker? Which one are you? Depends on which one's doing better that season.

Just like the rest of us. It could be bought. Like the Auburn fan over here. So it was nice to walk in there because I've been watching you guys' podcasts. It was nice to see the faith. Because then I thought, oh, I sure hope they look the same live as they do. Was I fadden when you saw me or was I a fan? No, he, the has lost.

That gives you a timeline of how long you do watching. I think someone else has mentioned that. Oh, yeah. I lost like a high school cheerleader's worth of weight. He was what they called morbidly ovates. What do they call it, visceral fat? Yes. It was very visceral.

You said that you make fun of death. We make fun of our former fat cells. And now I'm not the fat brother anymore. So now there's a jockeying of position. Who is the fat brother? Well, it turned to Jep, actually, the youngest. And now Jep is losing weight rapidly because Willie will now be the fat brother again who's

John's dad's so Genesis sibling rivalry are we good we have all the oh it's here we got everything but a coat of many colors

yeah it's really hit home for us how we did you think we you watched us have we just totally butchered your work have you thought these guys have like

no I was worried though I just thought a bunch of rednex they're gonna they're gonna say certain things about my corset

I don't know that I intended but no I think it's I think it's been great. Like I said, I've seen two of your, two of them now. We really butcher it the last four. Did you? I think we did, I think we did a good job with it.

I think it's great. I think that's exactly how you, that's how you have to do it. We've been watching your face on our computers. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. No, I've got to tell you right now that the thing that logged me into you was we watched the preview with Larry Arnd. and the last thing he said was

he said the only thing I would change about this man he said britt and he's wonderful he said all these great things about you I would do something about that beard and he says that on the thing and I was like ooh that's our guy that's our guy that's our brand he would never do it because then he couldn't call me

respute him anymore because you kind of look like a young uncle sigh here it hit me when you came in because you got the glasses you got the beard you got the hair back in the skullet Yeah. I can go with the young, are you? You're young, he's the young uncle's laugh.

He's up smart. Yeah. Not as loud. We can hear them yelling next door every time they record next to us. But yeah, so if you're not part of this, we just finished up Genesis. Yeah. And a lot of these, I was surprised at how many people have actually subscribed to the course and are taking it with us, which you can get it at unashamedry hillsdale.com.

We just finished up Genesis. we've decided that we're going to do Exodus next. Oh, back to back. Back to back. So we're going to do Genesis. So just so you know, this is fantastic, and here's why, because I can go mock all of my colleagues in the politics department. Yes, yeah.

They're not ready for your federalist papers. They're going to get Exodus down. That's great. We want the Bible. Yeah, good, good. Well, I mean, the scripture's organized in this way, so we thought, why are we trying to go outside the will of God? you and I, we're just going to keep it.

Or the will of the people. Or the will of people. Yeah. Yeah, we heard you speak at Exodus. Actually, we just decided. Well, we were pushing it hard before we ever asked people. We did. It wasn't really asking.

We were just, that was just totally a fake ass. We were like, oh, yeah, tell us what you went. I meant it, John Luke. You meant it, yeah. What's like what people on social media? You're like, let me know in the comments below what I should do. And then you always do probably the opposite. Whatever it is.

Yeah. What should I wear? It's like, I'm going to wear the opposite of whatever from tell us me. Yeah, but the Genesis course was that. I mean, it was great. I mean, it was great for the audience. Our whole kind of community came into this. So if you're listening, we do want you to take the course with it.

Because I think that's how you get the most out of it. And for us, it's like really sticky because we hear your lecture, and then we come in here and we talk. And then now we get to talk to you in person. So one of the questions we want to ask you is when you think about Western readers, reading the book of Genesis, what do you think is most often missed? The poetry. and not just poetry, Hebrew prose reads very poetically.

I think sometimes, you know, if you take the story of Isaac, for example, and here it's not just poetry, but they can create an entire narrative off of a single word or image. So Isaac's name Yitzhak means laughter. Okay, go back and read Isaac's story. It begins with Abraham doing what? Laughing. Laughing. and then the angels come and they're going to tell Abraham, hey, the time's coming, you're going to have a boy and Sarah hears. And what does she do? She laughs. She laughs. She laughs. There it is. Finally, whenever they conceive and they have Isaac, speaking of poetry, what does she say? Right? The Lord has made me laughter. Whoever will see, whoever sees me will laugh at me. And there's a question as to, is this, positive laughter? Is this a laughter of joy? Is it a laughter of disbelief? I mean, when God goes to

Abraham and he says, why did she laugh Abraham? It's not because God doesn't know. I think, and this goes against the rabbinic and Christian tradition, so let me just say that. But I think Abraham may have some questions about how this is going to be possible, because his whole point is, is I've got Ishmael. What do we even messing around anymore? I asked for an error. I've got an error. Let's call it, let's call it a day. So when he asked him, why did she laugh? I think what he means is, you laughed. Why do you think she's laughing? Then he asks, is anything beyond God? So even there, I don't think we can pick up oftentimes the way in which scripture tells its story. And it uses just manifold techniques. I'll say this. I think everyone who takes the course knows,

I use Robert Alter's translation. He's translated the entirety of the Hebrew Bible. But he also has a book called the art of biblical narrative. I recommend it to everybody. It will show you these various techniques that are being employed in scripture. And not just for the sake of the literary, I do think it's for the sake of the theological and the ethical and the moral and everything else that goes into scripture. Yeah. One of the things that came up on the pocket, when you said that about Abraham, it made me think about it. Because I always thought it's almost like a cynical laugh too. Like the idea is like, how would this possibly, ha, like we would say like that. Yeah, I like a scoff.

Do you think, so we talked about their ages. Yeah. And is like a hundred, if you live to be 150, is a hundred years old middle age? It's like our age or was he already? Tell me about what you think. Because we talked about on the podcast, you know, because we have a lot of testosterone in this room and a lot of young man and an old man. No, because, oh, well, for Abraham, I mean, look, even after Sarah, he has another child with another. All right.

So he's okay. but look at what Sarah says. When she laughs, she says, shall a woman, shall a 90-year-old give to a birth, and I've lost my woman's flow, is my husband going to give me pleasure? I think we have a good idea as to what her laugh. But there is actually a word when Ishmael laughs and she kicks him out,

that Hebrew word is actually negative laughter. It's a mocking laughter. All the rest of it, it's using, it's actually using a verb that's positive. Until you get to Ishmael, And then it's negative, and she says, I want him out. Like, get him out of, get him out of here immediately. Yeah.

Speaking of ages, because you talked about this, and I've never thought about it, just because everything you see depicted as Isaac as a boy, but you kind of talked about it as potentially Isaac being more 30s or 40s or older. Yeah, 36 or 37, and we can figure it out, because from the shift of chapter 22 to chapter 23, it says, and Sarah was 136 when she died. and it happens immediately afterwards. So if that happens immediately afterwards,

which I don't know that it has to, because in scripture, at least in the Hebrew Bible, when you see things where it says, and after these things, it's just a transition. It's like, oh, we have a new story to tell. Here's how we do it. In fact, I have some students in my classes. They like to mock me and irritate me.

That's their transitional sentence. And after these things happened. They do an intention. They do an intention, just to, irritate me. So if that's the case, then that means he would have been 36 or 37, which then I think alters things immediately. It turns out that we need not be influenced by Carvaggio and Brant with the 12-year-old Isaac. In some ways, I think it would be far more Christological if there's a willfulness on the part of the son to participate with the father. Yeah, because what was the thing

that he didn't mention when they were walking up? Was it the knife? No, no, no. He says, I see the wood, I see the flame. Where's the sacrifice? What's the answer is? What's the issue? Oh, the joke's on you, buddy.

You know, he leaves out the knife because many of us think he knows what's up. Yeah, right. At some point, he knows what's up. I mean, at some point, if he's sitting on the altar. But that's the point, right? I don't think you have to have the Caravaggio where he's looking up. Those paintings make no sense. It's just an absolute horror and terror.

And there's maniacal Abraham like this. But if it's just he needs to prepare him as an offering. Because you had mentioned in Genesis the four relationships of God and man, and then man back to God and then man, man, the creation. And you see that same pattern here even in this. You see Abraham and his heavenly father. and then that back to him, but then you also see a pattern of now Isaac trusting his earthly father. And so it's that cascading down.

But in the Kane and Abel story, God comes to Kane and he says, right, why is your face fallen? Like, why are you downtrodden? Sin crouches at your tent flap and for you as its longing, but you'll rule over it. I always like to ask students, like, why didn't God accept his sacrifice? And, you know, they'll give me the anthropological reasons. this is still an old God who needs blood, or, oh, it wasn't the choice of his, of his, of his, of his, of his, of his, of his, uh, of his, uh, uh, uh, Isaac. But God's poem there makes it very clear that I didn't accept it because you have sin. And I don't want to do that. And of course,

we know what his sin is. What's his sin? He hates his brother. Yeah. Jealousy. He's not jealous of his brother because God accepts, uh, his sacrifice and not his. This is something that's just simmering. This is pushing him over the top. God reads for him where he is at that moment. Then it's beautiful. Where is your brother? He's trying to remind him of that relationship. It's really quite stunning.

So I thought about it. You don't deal with it in the course that we took. So my wife and I do a lot of marriage talks and marriage seminars. And there's a picture in, I think it's Genesis 39, with Joseph when he's in Potipher's house. and I was talking about this human to human and human to God. And it's really interesting because we only see him so far as the dreamer and the situation with the brothers. And he winds up in this place.

And he doesn't say that much about up to this point about God. And then all of a sudden he's faced with a human-to-human situation where Mrs. Potipar, I call her, Mrs. P is, you know, he's well-built and handsome. He looks like Christian. And so she's like wanting to sleep with him. And he gives her the speech. well, you know, your husband's put me in charge of everything and, you know, all this. But then he says something really interesting. How could I do such a thing and send against God?

Oh, that's beautiful. And he just brings that relationship with God in. And it's like I had never seen it before this point that obviously this is a very godly person who has this relationship. And he says that's why I'm not going to do it, even beyond what I told you earlier. So I just thought that was really interesting. I'd not really thought about it. I certainly think about the so-called absence of God through. the whole Joseph.

Right. Which is the longest sustained narrative in Genesis. Yeah. There's 37 to 50. Right. It's brilliant. It's a twice told story, right? But I'd never thought about that.

And the course I have to skip over all of that. That's really beautiful. Yeah, yeah. It's a beautiful picture. And in the context that we talk about it, it's like if we have this relationship with the Almighty God, that's just going to enhance what we have with one another. If somehow we can see that first and then. Well, just go back.

to Cain and Abel, right? They're talking about sacrifice or offerings. And he says sin is crouching there. Well, Christ answers this in the New Testament. Like, there's a baseline you have to do before you go make your offering. And let's go reconcile yourself to your brother. Very basic, very simple. I think it's trying to kind of cure what the problem was with Cain. At the very least, you've got to go reconcile. To reconcile yourself to your brother is to reconcile yourself to God. I just had a question and go back. You said you think about the absence of God in the Joseph story. Just explain.

Yeah. I mean, God's there all throughout. Once you hit the Joseph narrative, he doesn't seem to be. Except you bring that up. I love that. But God is more absent there than he is anywhere else. Other than at the very end, the beauty of Joseph finally getting to read his dream for his brothers, I just find that to be one of the most just magical moments.

Right. Because remember, he starts, everything starts off with this disaster. And I ask my students all the time, like, how do you understand when Joseph says, hey, listen, I dreamed a dream. And I had a sheaf in all years, and they're like, oh, he's just this punk younger brother. And he's just needling them. He asked them to read. But do you know, he never gives his reading of that until the very end. And at the very end, what are they doing?

They're getting grain from him. And they're bowing down. And he says, and this is getting back to the presence of God, he says, am I? instead of God. Yeah. You meant it for ill, because you misread the whole thing. Right. And Joseph didn't know what was going on.

You misread it. But God foreknew and allows for all this to happen so I could take care of you. It was never you being my servants and I'm your overlord. It's I'm your provider. Right. Which as a parent, we often get called overlords. It's like, I'm just trying to provide for you. Just trying to give you a little guidance.

Yeah, exactly. I call that frontal lobe malformation. It's not quite formed yet. I'm not about malformation, but it's not quite. Now with your kids, it's malformation. Absolutely. It might be. Yeah.

Well, I love these stories. You mentioned that, like, even thinking about our role as priest. I mean, you really do see that in the very beginning of creation, that the role of man is a priestly role. You know, I think we miss that a lot. And the rest of our podcast, I think that's a theme that we hit on a lot, because when you get to the New Testament, you know, Peter says that we are a royal priesthood. And it's just interesting to me that, I think, in modern Western Christianity, that we tend to think, no, I'm a Christian, I go into the, to whatever, the gathering, to receive, whatever it is,

and leave. But you're not just a consumer. Like, really, it's not a consumption. Our role, and part of what it means to be human is you are a, if you're in Christ, you're a priest, for sure, but even in our nature, we were created to have this priestly role. How do you, how would you explain the role of a priest? Because if you said that we're priests, I can imagine our audience, they're thinking the guy with the robe and the white collar, but they're not really, what does that mean to be a priest?

Yeah, but a priest is one who offers to God, which is kind of what we're called to do. We also have to remember, you know, you and I were talking this morning, you know, to read typologically, who is the high priest? It's Christ. Define typologically. Define that. Oh, typologically just means we read things in the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament. We read things through the lens of Christ. So when you ask me, what does it mean to be a priest? Well, I actually have a model for what it means to be a priest. And so that means offering things. But it also means taking care of those. I mean, you have to go through these offerings very carefully, and you have to prepare them carefully. You have to do everything with utmost care.

Why? Because it's an offering to God. And you mentioned about them being, in essence, kicked out of the garden. And out of the many things I learned from you, Justin, one of the things that was eye-opening to me was that, that that was an act of mercy, more than an act of wrath. And, I mean, that totally flipped the way I've always viewed that passage, because I never thought about that idea. it was actually merciful to them and us, you know, as now the children of the children of the children. So that's very powerful. I never thought about the fact that you mentioned that one day, if they would have restrained that they possibly, or that they would have been able to have eaten from the tree.

Yeah. So just, and I don't know how often it happens in your life, but in academia you have to run into this all the time. You get the local village atheist idiot. Well, before you answer that question. Let's not there. We're all looking at each other like. No, no, no, no, no, just to be clear, not there. What?

I was just going to recap that story for the audience, because not everybody is, or if you reference these stories, so what's happening is, is their, the sin was, he said, did you eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that I told you not to eat of? Or if you eat of it, you will surely die. So they, they were, but he did say you can have any tree from any, all the trees in the garden, they're all yours to eat except one.

Don't eat at this tree because if you eat it, you will surely die. And you made the point that, that at some point, they would have gotten to eat of this tree, which I hadn't heard that either. So that was, explain with that, what you meant by. Sure. So it would be an ex. Village idiot. God, my timing is just impeccable, I guess.

If he gave them that command, and I asked my students, let's just pretend they would have been allowed. What would be the conditions for their being allowed to eat from that tree? What would that be? I don't know. And then finally a student will go, not eating up the tree? Yep. Obey. I desire obedience and not sacrifice.

I desire mercy and not sacrifice. That obedience would have been the very thing that prepared them. to be able to participate in the knowledge of good and evil. There are two ways of seeing Adam and Eve at their creation, either a perfection with the fall, or the other way of understanding it is that they were innocent, their childlike. They're growing in their relationship to God.

Well, what would have been one of those final moments of that relationship with God, knowing good and evil? God isn't afraid that they know good and evil. God's, I shouldn't say afraid, but he's not concerned with their knowledge of good and evil. It's now they'll eat of the tree of life and become gods and I make the point, not because he fears a rivalry.

You talk about that because he didn't feel threatened by them if they were eating. Of course not. I mean, to ask someone to ask someone to participate in your life, that's a gift. That's an act of love. That's what it means to be made in the image and likeness of God. It's a gift.

It's not. But isn't that what we do with our own children? Of course. I mean... Some of us do it badly. Exactly. And we, in other words, we know full well that they will have to make their own decisions. And we're trying to prepare them for that moment. And so as they're, I love what you says, like the innocence. And we see it when they're so small like y'all's are. And then you see them grow. Now they're grown. You know, and you're like, you've done your work to get them to this place. And what's what's one of, you know, this was very difficult for me as a father. What's the most difficult thing to watch? your child do and you can see it coming a mile away crashing and burning they're going to fail

yeah isn't that hard to let them do it yeah but you got to let him do it right okay okay I'm I'm dealing with that right now yeah I told my son bear I knew bear was gonna come under the bus because he wrecked my truck and so he can't drive any of my vehicles which is his it's he and his wife's fault because they named their child after bear brine this this is this This is what happens when you do this. You get you to pay for, right? Talking about a penitential verdict. It was a wreck.

It was an accident. Not with another car. No, yeah. He was doing donuts in a parking lot. My 17-year-old. Better in your front yard. Yeah. He didn't wreck the front yard.

So he flipped. He says he hit a rock. I'm like, it's a gravel parking lot. The biggest rock was that big. I'm like, so he hits a rock that big and it flips the truck? No, I don't think so. With 35-inch tires. Yeah.

Well, it happens. That's what I'm saying. It happens. Did you do that? You did that? I did that. Yeah. Okay.

So trash. You guys knew all about this. You got a little bit of feeling. We're burning ourselves. I got banned from driving driving all around. So your dad did the same thing to you. Oh, yeah.

Well, Bear went out. So then he goes and he's like, so you have to buy your own vehicle. And he saves up his money to buy his own vehicle. And he buys a $2,000. thousand one or like an old Lexus but it was like in really good shape and he paid like whatever four thousand dollars for it saved up his money but then he wants a truck because he's got to have a truck and so he's like well you need to be like you need that this which and I'm giving him the

advice on like be patient if you get a vehicle go take it to down to our local mechanic I said have him pressure tested still will take care of you make sure it doesn't have any leaks in it I leave town and come here so you give him one I get it The one thing to do. Don't eat. And I leave and he calls me and he bought, he ended up buying a truck that he found a marketplace. And I kid you not, he drives it 10 miles down the road and it's overheating. And he's, and the whole thing.

And I'm just like, and part of it, like, I was so mad because I was like, why didn't you listen to me? And yeah, but then Jill was like, she made the, my wife made the point that you made, made that like, no, we gave him enough rope to hang himself in the context of like we're so overseeing it somewhat. But I think God does that with us. And I think when we get in Exodus too, you're going to see that even in the Exodus story that you'll have that Mount Sinai moment and Exodus 19 where, but it's all going to be this like God just gives you enough to realize how inadequate that we are to dine alone without him, which I always thought that was that original, I've always saw the original sin as we're going to eat the fruit without you.

around without your presence. We want the fruit for the sake of the fruit. And we're just simply going to disobey. Yeah. But if he gave them one commandment, and we want that one commandment to bring them into relationship, know me so that you can eat of that tree of knowledge of good and evil. Let's become...

I mean, isn't it a beautiful thing? You know, I'm older. My kids are older. They're a couple of... One's married. I got grandkids. It's a beautiful thing whenever you see them actually learning from their mistakes. Yeah.

And if you have one thing to grow in that relationship, then after that, they now have 613 commandments to follow. Oftentimes we can see that as a burden. God is angry at them. You can't follow, well, heck, if they can't follow one, what luck do they have getting 613 down? But what if it's not that? Yeah. What if 613 commandments are the very stake at having that relationship?

relationship with the divine. So there's clearly a scriptural pattern. When God is asking questions, it's not that he doesn't know. Exactly. It's like you're going to have to answer for this. All right. Again, like a parent would do. But this is exactly right. So if that's the case and he asked them, then that's a chance for repentance. And so the Saint Simeon, the new theologian, he makes the argument that they, had they repented, they would have been more far along spiritually than had they not ever eaten. That repent. repentance for, and again, you can disagree with it all you like, but his point is, is that repentance actually would have outweighed their spiritual learning far more than just that obedience of that one command. Now think about it as parents. When have you been proudest of your kid when they own up to something, right?

They mess up and you can ask them a question. You know, I was like, all right, who, you know, who put the knife in the couch there? Yeah. Who did this? And, you know, it's like, that actually happened to me. And I literally, now Fred took a knife and put it in the couch. By the way, sign up to take this class with us for free and Unashamed for Hillsdale. This is all gone sideways.

You guys bring a professor in here. Now we're talking about stabbing couch. Well, I mean, at home, I was like, did you talk to them? No, it's just that every bad illustration we come up with applies to Zach's children. That's where we wind up. How Al coined the phrase, you've been dashered, which is like means that my kids have been When they come in a town, they stay at my house, and so I deal with this on a regular basis. Are you been John Luke?

John Luke's just sneaky. I'd stab a couch or two. Yeah, yeah. You look so innocent. You look so innocent. Your kids at camp, every time something would happen out in the boys' village, I didn't even have to ask. I knew who it was. I got to call.

Someone shot fireworks in the bathhouse. I'm like, ah, don't even just bring him to me. He got dashed. This is the part that they struggle with is the forgiveness part. So John Luke and Al, they don't know how to forget. They said the Robertson family is holding against you. And what they'll do, this is part of what they do. They'll give you a label.

Speaking of a given name to the animals, they'll give you a name, a label, and it's, and they, and it will be your burden to carry for the rest of your life. And he's half Robertson, by the way. And then every once in a while on a podcast, they sacrifice you. Oh, yeah. There's a lot of topological system. It takes a lot of work to do.

deflect from our own flaws. And that's what it takes. Which is what he did. I thought Adam did, right? It's like deflection. Like, I didn't do this, you know. The woman you made. Yeah.

Oh, Jesus. Yeah. But the interesting part about the, when you're going back to the, because I think the, you got the whole, like, set up for the entire Bible and our entire human story

right there in these first three chapters of Genesis. Because you have the creation, fall, redemption, and restoration, and then you have all of that, like, right there in the very beginning of this. And, but I think that we've gotten, I think that the way Western Christianity has often perceived the fall was that the tree was there simply as almost like a test. Like it was like a test that God was going to give us to see how loyal we would be to him. And we've kind of separated it honestly from.

just the design of God's plan for humanity, which was this is about communion with him, first and foremost, and then with each other. And it turns out, I mean, I think the two readings actually line up nicely, because I think if he wants us to obey, but then still would have let us eat, the whole point is, can you obey? But the obedience that we're called to is not a begrudging obedience. I think that's what it paints a picture. And I grew up thinking that God's obedience for me was like,

prove your loyalty don't do any of the fun stuff and do all the boring stuff do the prayers to go to church and don't drink and have sex to you get married and like and and it's like this it was this thing that was that was actually separated out

that I didn't understand that no actually the good life is in the presence of God and then with each other which is it is that that connection vertically with God but it's also horizontal with each other because when when it was just Adam and God, and you think, well, all you need is God. Well, he looks at that relation.

He says, it's not good for men to be alone. The only thing not good. Yeah. That's the only thing not good. Because we don't image him when we're alone. And so I think how much of, how much of, like now, I think it's so relevant to where we're at, like, right now in the world. Because when you look at all the statistics on mental illness, it's a mental health crisis. We were talking about having, we had Jonathan Haidt on the podcast a while back.

He's written a lot on the anxious generation. and how anxiety disorders and depression, but it all centers around isolation. And so to be isolated is to not image God, but to be in communion with each other and in community is to image him. And I think that's where the human flourishing comes from. So the obedience then becomes not, I'm obeying to earn favor with you, God.

I'm actually obeying because this is where the good life is at. Well, I think about it in terms of when Paul said, in Ephesians 6 in the NIV, it says, fathers do not exasperate your children. And so I've always taken that as a dad. When I was raising my children, I had to set boundaries. I was doing this so that they could flourish, knowing they would fall and make mistakes

and learn from those things. But I did that because I wanted to have an adult relationship with my children. I wanted to be able for that to carry on through my whole life. And I would have that, like you described it, my grandchildren. And so that was the ad, that was why that was there. And I love what you said about the law, because the law gets a bad rap. It's like, well, we can't keep it. So, you know, and then we look

at the cross and we think, you know, Jesus could. And so therefore, but the Paul said the law is good and holy and righteous. And that's a good point. It is nothing wrong with that. I mean, in opportunity. Yeah, exactly. I love that idea. The most powerful committee in Washington, D.C., you know what it is? In Congress? The Ways and Means Committee. and said, I've imagined the law is, it's the way. But it is the way, right? So if the problem is that, like when you get to the Exodus story, the problem is God's on the mountain, the problem is you can't come up.

We can't come up. So what's the way? Well, he gives the law. Here's the way up. Here's the way to me. The problem is, it's not that it's bad. It's just incomplete. It doesn't give the means.

And so the means becomes Christ, his sacrifice, becomes the means of how we enter into the presence of God. And I think that's so key because so many Christians will read the Bible and they'll think, Old Testament, that's mean God. Yeah. New Testament, that's nice guy. Yeah. It's the quid pro quo relationship, a business relationship.

If I do things for you, I get things. So the first one's negative. Yeah. I do these things. I get punished. The next one's positive. If I do these things, I get a reward. And any of us who have kids in school, we just call it Caritter the stick, right?

Yeah. And this is the point you were making about that presence of God. It's the third relationship that he says is the highest. And that's to see God as a friend. Because none of our friends do we treat as a master slave relationship. None of our friends do we do just only a business relationship. It is just being in their presence. It's the he-nani.

Here I am. It's really quite beautiful to think through those things in that way. Yeah. Again, guys, if you're tuning in it, you want to take these courses with us. We're finishing up Genesis. We start Exodus, and the very next week

will be in Exodus. Well, we're going to an overview of Exodus, and then we're going to get in Exodus. But you can sign up for the courses at Unashamefor Hillsdale.com and be a part of this with us. I love what you said there. Again, it points that picture back

to the relationship of a child and a parent, and so you do have a deepening of that. And I think the tendency is always to try to, like, pick one of the three, and that's, your camp when it's it's it's it's it's it's an evolution of a relationship and so yeah at first with my kids you guys have a bunch of young kids and right now they're not understanding no the intention of the relationship last night was a long night yeah did they understand sleep gritsa that's what i don't

understand sleep nor no or come here or don't go outside or so are you you got the quick quirk pro you guys are like you do this and then you get are you give them rewards and treats my oldest has got the like I do this, you do that. My daughter actually, she rules that. She understands fully. If I do this, I get this. And she'll offer. She'll be like, hey, I'll pick up my room

if I can get another sucker or another that's not how it works. Because now my kid, they're such good negotiators that, you know, I don't want to teach them to like only obey me if you get, you know, a lollipop or something. So there's, there's... That's a nice way of saying they're manipulators.

So they're good negotiators. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I got a few of those in my house, too. Be careful when they grow up. That's what I'm saying. I'm trying to kind of limit the negotiation now. Well, the beauty of it is when you have grown children like Justin and I do, you get to watch it happen back to them.

Because then they have to figure it out, right? You're just like, my daughter, she's got a two-year-old and Demetri's, what, eight, nine months. Oh, she had them so close. So she was at church yesterday, and I come walking in. I was like, hey, how's asleep going? She just looks at me. She's like, he gets up at seven. She's up at nine.

It's like, oh, inside I'm just laughing. Yeah, you're feeling a pleasure. I do find it asserted about a joy. Well, I do think it's interesting that we think about that relationship evolving, but I think the intention, I know my intention with my own children is that at first, I'm okay with a begrudging submission when they're 10 years old. I mean, I get it. I'm not like, I mean, it's part of it.

but I hope by the time I hope that I hope that grows into a trusting submission and even as a dad now I have one married and she's on her own

but she will call me for advice and she will call me and I have no real you know authority over her anymore but I know that she is she does see my counsel as for her good intention

with God it's interesting because I think we tend to, when we sin, it's almost like a sin could maybe be defined and either believing that God is not big enough to do what he said he's going to do or that he doesn't have my best interest at heart. We're going to question either his character or his power. And I think that's kind of the story that we're being invited into. And faith then becomes not, I'm stacking up my works or proving my loyalty. It's I'm actually trying to. trusting that, God, you have my best interest at heart. And that seems to be the narrative arc of Scripture that we will eventually not only be

priests, but we'll be actually temples. We are temples that house the Holy Spirit. Yeah. No, I mean, look, this kind of, call it the negative way, the master slave relationship. My favorite formula for it is it's not desirable, but sometimes it's necessary. Yeah. I really like that because it means sometimes we have to do it if we want to get to that desirability. You know, that kind of that highest realm of friendship.

Well, Jesus says that, doesn't it? He says no longer are you servants, but now you are, now I call you friends. Yeah. And that's the perfect segue, actually, for where we're heading the next podcast, because we get the family, in essence, now in Egypt, and we're going to see this slave relationship and what that looks like. So we're so glad you're here, Dr. Dachshad. Tell our audience how to get to your subject, because I think a lot of them find it very interesting. Oh, yeah. Oh, thank you. so much. So the substack is essentially an extension of all of all of the Hillsdale College online courses that I do. I can only do five lectures on Genesis. I mean, you can't do anything.

I thought that when we took it. I was like, oh, they're so sweeping, right? Which is why I have to have that four-fold paradigm that helps me out. Exodus, what do they give me on Exodus? Eight, eight. Wow, they were great on this. Yeah. And then David, I don't know, six or seven, but I mean, these are too much. Each one of them, I go a chapter, verse, verse. verse by verse through the entire book and just do these things and have some fun. It took a year to get through Genesis. A year to get through Genesis. About a year to get through Exodus.

I've just started the David's story now as well. It's called How Do You Read It? It's, I forget, Bible and Literature. Dotubstack.com. We'll put that. Oh, that would be great. Yeah, I love it. But I get lots of people coming from the online courses who, you know, they kind of became,

I created it because so many people would email me. Yeah. And then I became friends. In fact, I just got an email from a friend from the online course. You know, they reach out to me. They want resources and whatnot. And so just kind of a nice way to extend that friendship. I'd be able to keep having the conversations and whatnot.

It's wonderful. Yeah, we absolutely love the courses and I'm getting so much good feedback. So next time on the podcast, we're going to jump into Exodus and get a little over to you. 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 cause to you. That's unashamed for Hillsdale.com. And don't miss an episode of the Unashamed

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