Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 960 | Phil Fields a Complaint About the Podcast & the Guys Get Feisty About It

Episode Date: September 19, 2024

Jase’s use of the “crickets” button leads to a debate over the use of excessively simplified or complicated rhetoric when studying the Bible, and Phil becomes the referee. The guys point out all the instances of simplicity in the message of Jesus, as well as examples of deeper philosophical arguments within the text. Jase and Zach agree that Jesus belongs to everyone, whether they’re intelligent or illiterate. In this episode: Ephesians 6, verses 1-12; 1 Corinthians 1, verses 17-30; 1 Corinthians 2, verses 4-16; 1 Corinthians 4, verses 18-20; Mark 9, verses 38-39; Galatians 3, verses 26-27 — Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? I prayed for these kind of waters to come about this. A little early. A little early. Something saving you about 30, 30 grand, 25 or 30 grand. I said, huh? I feel like I'm listening then on some kind of strange conversation. Welcome to Unashamed, by the way.

Yeah. A small argument. Well, we had a hurricane. What was the name of this hurricane? Francine. Francine. Francine. And up in North Louisiana, it turned into a nothing burger, but a lot of rain.

Same with Gulf Shores. Yeah, we went from no water to full capacity. Oh, it had a little more water the early in the year. It had water out there inches deep. This here made it a little up to about your knee. Well, it had dried up. But that's a lot of ground that it doesn't flood. So it feels like close enough, you know, we're two and a half months from duck season.

But teal season actually opens up. We'll do well with the teal, by the way. It was a two-shadow, so I had a starting at the lake. I've got the blind brush and all this. Yeah, we moved. Now we're going to hunt the lane and the floater in the dog, which are names of. So, Jace, your problem is that dad is attributing the rain event to the Almighty to save money to have to pump up the hole. So he sees us as divine.

I've been making sure we had the water in the hole and all that. The water regime. No matter of the expense and all that. And most years, it costs you a lot. But this year, it happened to rain too much before duck season. And you said, what are you going to do? He said, just be thankful we got this. And that thing will build up in the all the kind of ducks because the food supplies there,

all down the pipeline, all out from the lake down there. This was a good plan until I told him we had opened up the pipes on one of the holes. And he was like, don't do that. But I was like, well, we just planted it. So, yeah, we're getting the water. It takes about 30,000 to get it there. So what we have here is the torch was passed to us and then, but Phil's hand is still on the torch.

Oh, yes, he was remember one thing. It's like a track. He's like a chancellor. Remember one thing that's always there. Look for the gray and the whiskers. And the ones with the gray and the whiskers, you say, do you listen to them? Because they're here with that, that gray.

gray right there. That right there comes from knowing. The problem with that philosophy fails, now we all have gray in the whiskers. I think it's called, like in the church, you call that Pastor Emeritus. I see lines that are not, hadn't been brushed. I'm thinking, hmm. He's turned it over, but he hadn't really turned it over is what I'm saying. Zach called it. He's taking it back. What did you call it, Zach? Pastor Emeritus. It's like when the pastor hands the church over to the new pastor, but he still kind of got he still calls a shot. So dad, that was another big word by Zach.

And so you told me that whoever you're talking to, which I can't imagine what it is beyond A-N-Anne and mom and Dan. No, he got a letter. He got a letter. Okay. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I missed that book. Yeah.

That Zach uses too big a word, the complaint to, that got through to dad was that Zach uses too many big words. So Zach, that's what dad now has. That was the charge. And I said, uh, you got a point. Well, you know, let's see children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. She had no big words there. Honor your father and mother, no big words.

Yeah, no big words. No. I think it's exactly right. But you have the word propitiation in the Bible. That's a big word. Well, you had it in the. I mean, look, it takes all kind of people. You know, that's the, it's the, one of the.

guys I do read, William Lane Craig said there's people who diminish or dismiss philosophy. And he said those are actually the people that are the most susceptible to be taken by it. So you got to have guys that are in there. I'm not saying everybody needs to go in that route, but somebody needs to. And so like, I'm, you know, what book did? Your arguments with the Apostle Paul of whatever that other guy's name was. What book did he write in the New Testament? Yeah, that's right.

According to him, I'm like, well, I'm just saying, we take out all the words you don't understand out of the New Testament. And then you're kind of left with, you would remove a lot of the New Testament. So, like, for example, you take out one of appreciation. Yeah. It sounded like, is it one guy or three? It sounded like a law firm. What did you say, Phillips Grang and he? He's a Christian apologist.

What you got to do? Here's the thing. You got to, like, not everybody thinks the same way. What verse is that Western apologists found in? Christian apologist. Apologist. Yeah. Nope.

I couldn't find it. Is he apologizing or is he preaching the gospel? I don't even like that word. What are we doing? We're pontificating on the scripture, right? Who are we? I'm not the Apostle Paul and either are you guys, but yet we're still pontificating on it. So if you take that road and you say, well, we can only listen to the apostles or what's

written in the Bible, then all we would do is just read scripture directly and you can never pontificate. You'd like to argue with God about how. my, how he does that. He's the one that said, Paul, write this. Well, I think as humans who have the spirit, you either try to simplify it or you try to complexify. I don't know.

I'm trying to invent a word for that. Complexify. Complexify. It doesn't do one. Well, is that a word? Well, part of my testimony is that I grew up in a church that told me, just that. Like, don't ask questions. Don't think too deeply about this. Just have faith. And I was intellectually dissatisfied in who God was. I mean, I didn't even know if this was true. So for me,

I'm not saying it's true for everybody, but I had to have those lifelines. And I had to study it in a very deep and meaningful way for me. Now, I'm not saying everybody thinks that way, but like, that's the diversity of the kingdom. So if we tell people, no, that's too deep. That's too deep. a lot there is a danger i'm not saying there's not a danger of intellectualizing the gospel but there's also a danger of being anti-intellectual and i think that's harmed the church tremendously through what you know through kind of fundamentalism which would say i just don't think about these things and then we've abdicated all of that and just hand that over to the culture and said you guys run with that and we're just going to sit here in our corner and we're not

going to think about these things no you have to have both well you have to have one some verse to cover this. Fathers do not exasperate. There's a big word. That is a big word there. There's a big word. Exasperate. I'm saying there's big ones there.

Yeah. Phil found one. So I'm going to say I'm going to agree with Zach because the guys like Lee Stroble and a lot of fantastic people that have helped my faith. They were brought in by just what Zach's describing. So the kingdom takes all kinds. I don't think that's really my argument. I agree with what Zach is saying.

and I think you can look at all scriptures, points in between, deep things. I think it's the way, you know, to me, if you're using words that only less than 0.01% of the population are familiar with, why use that? Or if you're coming in, like, quoting other people, I'm not a big fan of that. I'm like, you got 66 books. Children obey your parents in the Lord. He keeps it simple. You said, we look at the Bible verses. We read what God has to say through the Apostle Paul and others,

but I don't think you need to reach any higher. The information is there. My point was saying, though, I don't think you should categorize. We tend to, you know, it's like you start talking about Jesus, and then somebody says, well, let's call that Christology. Yeah. I mean, the first time I heard that, I was like, what is that? I mean, I was looking in the Bible for it.

No, it's not in there. It's just like we're like, well, when we're talking about Jesus, let's make a word that has all of that, which I just thought I invented a word that complexify, but it's actually already a word. Oh, yeah. And so. Well, but you got to think about this.

So if we're made the image of God, and one of the ways that we're made as image is that we are being, so you have the ability to communicate, communicate and we have the ability to have language to diminish our language and say that, we're only going to use this amount of words when God's actually given us creative ability to tell stories in lots of different ways. So I think that you're actually arguing for that? Oh, a hundred percent think that's like what?

Meaning words. Yeah, I think that people should. I think there's a lot of different ways to tell the story of Jesus. And some of those ways are going to be very simple. Some of those ways are going to be very artful. some of those ways are going to be very intellectual, but to diminish any part of our ability to communicate and say you can only do it this way, I actually think that's caused a lot of damage in the church.

Well, I don't disagree with that. You're taking an argument and going off on something we all agree on and saying that's what I'm saying. That's a totally different thing. If you start limiting, if you're saying you could only use certain words that this percentage of the population understands, I mean, I don't know. No, my point was, let me clarify what I'm saying. So it's like somebody came up, let's just go ahead and go there, with the rapture.

I've never read that word in the Bible, which people are shocked at that. But then people took that word and made all sorts of, what would you call it, philosophies and theologies based on that. So then when you get down to what it actually means, it's like, well, it's when we're called up in the air, the First Thessalonians,

four, which is the only place I think that is mentioned, that we're gathered in the air where this transformation of bodies happen. But it just launched a lot of doctrines out there. some, I would say, on the edges are somewhat kind of out there. Yeah.

That was my point. And it got so far away, I think, from the other 66 books in some places that I would call that a little dangerous. I think it can be for sure. I mean, I will say that you can't intellectualize and systematize the gospel and the kingdom to where it's almost a void of its actual personal connection of what God's calling you to. And that is the danger on the other side of kind of the where I'm at. That's my, that's my basement. Like, I have to have the deep study. But, but if I'm in my

basement on that, and when that gets out of whack, then I'm, I'm intellectualizing it too much. And so, but you can also oversimplify it as well. And you could, um, you can just, how would you over simplify it? Well, I'll give an example. You can reduce it to, for example, I hear like someone, like I grew up hearing a lot about the gospel, but the death, the death, burial resurrection is Jesus. And the gospel was reduced to just that, those three things as if it didn't encompass, you know, the totality of Christ's life and gospel of the kingdom. And so that's a, that's a bigger discussion.

So we reduce it to a formula that someone submits to. And then you say a prayer. Maybe you say the sinner's prayer or you get dunked in the water. And I'm good now. And we've just simplified the whole thing, this, to this one moment that we've left out the whole totality of what the gospel of the kingdom is actually bringing us into, which is life in Christ and transformation. Yeah, I don't either.

But I do. I'm saying I see those, I've seen what people do, but I wouldn't really call that they were simplifying it. To me, they're doing the same thing I was kind of pushing back against. It's like you're making it in that case a formula rather than a person. But you can reduce it to the point where. you can reduce everything to the point where you're not getting, I mean, there,

I mean, when we say God is simple, that doesn't mean that God is shallow. And I think that's what I'm trying to say. God is God, we will never exhaust the depths of God's glory and his goodness and his wonder and his beauty and his majesty. So simplicity doesn't necessarily mean that,

oh, it's just surface level. Here it is. It's packaged up here, take it, eat it, good go. We're never going to get to the bottom of that.

So if you ever get to a place in your, in your walk with God where you're like, oh, we've finally hit the bottom of that. And I would say you're probably not in your walk with God. So, God is a deep, deep, deep, endless, infinite well to be explored for eternity. Yeah, complex. Here's the final read. This is the end of chapter 6, the Apostle Paul doing the talking. God's got him writing.

Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. That's covering a lot of ground. Our struggle is not against flesh and blood. And we need to remember that. But against his who we're struggling against. Against the rulers, there's rulers there, against the authorities, a lot of them, against the powers of this dark world

and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. These things are all covered, and the Apostle Paul's got it right there. It's the evil one that we're struggling against, and he's lying out. He said, therefore, put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes, it's not like, will it come?

It's coming. You may be able to stand your ground, and after you've done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the Belt of Truth buckle around your race. So I just don't see learning to go by that. It's all there. You don't need big words to identify it. You also got to read what Paul said in 2nd Corinthians 10.

He says, we are human, but we don't wage war. Speaking of the armor of God. We don't wage wars, humans do. We use God's mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and destroy false arguments. We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture the rebellious thoughts, and we teach them to obey Christ. And after you have become fully obedient, we will punish everyone who remains disobedient. And the idea there is that we are to be prepared.

That's what Peter says. We're to be prepared. The argument is not about being prepared. The argument is not. It's about how you go about doing that. I'm not just saying if you marginalize the people who are using the big words, like eschatology, for example, I mean, if you just, we're just going to get rid of all that. I don't think that's a good thing.

We're just going to take that whole part of the kingdom and say, nope, you guys aren't welcome to participate in the discussion. I think that's a very, very dangerous thing. and I would strongly push against. Now, I would also push against someone that would say we can only use this language and we can't have simple language either. I think the kingdom is diverse. The difference is I'm actually very appreciative of what you're saying,

but I am appreciative of communicating the gospel in a very simple way. But just because that's appreciated, it doesn't mean that we have to dismiss those who have spent a lot of their lives. Like Bill Smith, the guy who brought Phil to Christ, he used a lot of big words, a lot of big words. And I said it. It's not the big words. We're just saying some people make big words when they don't like something the Bible says. And then they create a word and then have their take on a passage.

Not good. That's not good. I agree with that. Well, that is the argument. Some people are really trying to figure out a way to communicate the. gospel in a more meaningful way to search the deep things of God, which Paul also says in 1st Corinthians, I think chapter 2. He talks about the spirit searches the deep things of God and makes that known to us. So we are to search the deep things. We are to fearlessly make known

the mystery of the gospel, Jase, for which I am an ambassador of the Apostle Paul is talking in chains, have got him chained up, pray that I may declare it fearlessly as I should. I say, that's, that's you, that's how you go about it. The Apostle Paul was the one that recommended it. They got him in jail, but he says, I'm still here and I'm still. He didn't need big words. Yeah, well, I was, I'm yet to give my side of the argument, but here's what I'm going to give.

I'm saying, so in Acts 4, because we launched into Ephesians from the Book of Acts. Remember that time when we did that? Yeah, a long time ago, yeah. Yeah, we were in like Acts 19. They went to Ephesus. Acts 18. So did we. 19. Yeah, so, well, hey, let's take a trip to Ephesus. Oh, there's a book here. There's a letter that he wrote to the Ephesians. And so in Acts 4, of course, this is in the early days of the church. There's a sermon being given here. Peter filled with the Holy Spirit. I would assume the same Holy Spirit that we have. Yep. And he starts sharing about Jesus in verse 8, 9, and 10. It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, but whom God raised from the dead that this man stands before you healed.

They had healed somebody, but they used that as a way to share Jesus and validate what they were claiming. salvation is found in no one else there's no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved well who's you talking about jesus well here's this next verse i really like because in verse 11 it says when they saw the courage of peter and john and realized that they were unschooled ordinary men they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with jesus So I was only going to make the point, not that we shouldn't be school and we shouldn't learn and we shouldn't use big words. I think we should read the New Testament in the vein of like Ephesians three dozen times. It has a reference in six chapters of in Christ.

This is what in Christ people look like. And so even in Ephesion 6 where we're at, it says, children obey your parents. but then there's a little phrase right after that, in the Lord. Yep. Well, does that make a difference? All the difference in the world. That's what I would say.

So I'm just saying that Jesus makes you smart, smarter than you ever thought you were. You can have a guy come in who doesn't have a very high IQ, and all of a sudden he hears who Jesus is and what he did. and starts looking at Jesus' character, and all of a sudden he becomes way smarter than he just was. Yep. And by declaring that, it would actually, who Jesus is,

demolish these strongholds, the weapons that you fight with. Because, look, it wasn't just their 6'1. If you look at the other places, I mean, I'm sure we won't have to go very far. Yeah, look, 6'4. fathers don't exasperate your children instead bring them up in the training and instruction well there's a little phrase there of the lord yeah but it keeps leading back to a person that is the way you should view it so look when people get to the armor of god but jace jays your passage proves zack's point about the kingdom being bigger because you're right about the unschooled ordinary

men, but that same guy, Peter, wrote in one of his epistles that our brother Paul writes things that are hard to understand, meaning that Paul was educated and Paul was schooled. And yet the kingdom was big enough for everybody in Christ. So one was highly educated, wrote most of the books in the New Testament, the other was unschooled and ordinary, also powerfully led the church into, you know, and the kingdom into existence. That's correct. So it is, you can't have both. I mean, it's both and.

That's not either. That's a great point, Al. And I actually witnessed this this week. I was in San Quentin prison yesterday. And it was, I had a conversation, well, actually the day before yesterday, I had a conversation with one of the inmates. He was not a believer in Jesus. And we were having this conversation.

And one of the things that he said, that he actually thought that the words of the Apostle Paul were too complicated. He said every, and not just his, the entire Bible. It was not simple enough for him. He said, every time I read it, I don't understand what it's talking about. And so what would the advice be? Well, yes, too complicated. Go to something more simple.

No, my advice to him was, I said, when I first started reading the scriptures, I didn't know what it was talking about. I didn't know the words that they were using. I didn't know what the word propitiation meant. I didn't know what the word exacerbate meant. I didn't know what any of these words meant. I didn't know any of the history of it. And this is all written with this whole idea of first century Judaism in mind.

I didn't know what any of that meant. But I said, you know what I did know is I knew that God was calling me to know him. And so all I did, I was sitting in the yard, I said, all God's calling you to do, he's not calling you to master this text in one day. What he's calling you do is take one step closer to him, one step. One step. And you start reading, you start getting around people who have read and who have studied, who do know the history of it that can teach you and mentor you. Like, I had guys that taught me.

I sat underneath guys like Bill Smith and learn more depths of the God's word than I could ever imagine. I said underneath, Bill, your teaching on the kingdom. Where did I learn theology of the kingdom was from you? And so, you know, and many, many more, reading guys like William Lane Craig, reading N.T. Wright, reading all these people that spoke into me, you know, like Dallas Willard and Francis Schaefer. And a lot of times, I didn't understand half of what they were talking about. But over time, God started to minister not just to my heart, but also to my mind.

And that's why the Lord says to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And so it's all of it. And so I think it's just walking closer to him. And I would say the thing that Jay said that I totally agree with. So, well, what's the, what's like the big, what's the one thing you can't compromise on? Here's the thing. Is your study or your words, is your communication, is it pointing to the person of Jesus or to a system of doctrine?

And that's the difference. If it's pointing to a system that you think is going to save you, then I agree. We've got to run from that. But if it's pointing to the person of Jesus, that I think we're good. And that body of knowledge that's pointing to him is going to be super diverse. That's the whole point of the book of Ephesians. the body of Christ is diverse. There's a lot of different giftings and things that we're going to bring into the church body.

All I know is the Apostle Paul ends this book that he wrote to these people. Pray also for me that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given to me so that I will fearlessly make known. And look, this is what he says. the gospel is, the mystery of the gospel. That's enough to say. Good verse, Phil. That's saying.

Yeah, that applies there well. It does. Well, and the danger, we experienced the danger years ago. We had a guy that, he's a pretty sharp guy and, you know, love to study the Bible. But he came to the conclusion, he and some other people, that the only way you were spiritual-minded was, when you were reading the word or quoting the word of God. In other words, everything came from God only through the written word of the scripture and the Holy Spirit really didn't indwell people.

And I remember thinking when I first heard that, I thought, well, wait a minute, what about this guy that was sitting next to me who was illiterate? But a very godly man and raised a godly family, he couldn't even read. But I can guarantee he had the spirit of God. because you just be around the guy for five seconds. And his heart was open. He listened. So that's what happens sometimes when you overdo it.

And we experienced that, that you could just carve that right out. That's a good point. It becomes an intellectual matter. It's more than that. It's a spiritual matter, which, you know, like I said, I think it's about them. Yeah, that's where I was going. I agree. Because he gets to power.

He starts talking about powder. I mean, he starts talking about power when he says, finally be strong, well, here's this phrase again, in the Lord and in his mighty power. You know, what kind of power are we talking about here? What kind of power is that? The Holy Spirit. I mean, his power is our power. Yep.

So I wrote down some verses somewhere about that. Yeah, in 1st Corinthians, 117, because it goes into what we're talking about. for Christ did not send me to baptize, this is 117, but to preach the gospel, not with words of human wisdom. That's kind of where I was getting launching into my argument. It's like what you said, when Paul was praying, he said, give me the words. He said, I'm an ambassador in chains. Yeah. I mean, that's pretty tough.

Which is, I think, a good point. fail because it is it's like you know when we were talking about marriage these and it in first peter where it mentions these a wife would have an unbelieving husband and he was encouraging her to stay with him to win him over by her life it more than words is the is the point there i mean Obviously, our lives are the way that God uses people to make Jesus known because he's given us the Holy Spirit. So I guess my point is, I don't want to have a philosophical discussion with somebody about the deep things of the Bible, which I have studied a lot like Zach. If his life is not characterized by the Holy Spirit of God, what good is that going to do? That's right.

You know, so I'm saying there's no, there's no way to have a philosophical argument with someone about the Bible. Yeah, Paul said, if their life is led by power, that's not God. He said, pray for me. He said that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given to me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel. Yeah, but he's in change to your point. Yeah.

Well, how is his faith? I mean, you remember it's like when the storm came up, I think it's Luke 8. And that was right after Jesus had just said, here's my real family or those who deal the will of God. It wasn't a slam against his earthly family. He was just saying, this is a bigger picture than you would think. And you remember that then, and they're with Jesus as unschooled ordinary men. And a storm comes up. And I think it's one of the few times where he didn't say little faith.

or have that little saying he usually has when they woke him up because they were terrified over the storm and he asked a question he said where is your faith yeah it was a really good question it is now all of a sudden i mean you you think i'm the son of god you i've showed you everything i've shown you've seen miracles and now it's almost like he's like and you're scared of a little storm? I mean, have you not made the connection that I created the storm, the earth? If you're with me, you're good. But I'm saying he didn't give them, you know, he didn't start saying, well, the atmosphere, here's what's happening right now, guy. You know what I mean? He's just like, where's your faith in me? You don't really have to understand

all the details of said storm that is terrifying you, if you realize I am the creator of everything that you see. You're in the boat with me. You're good. That's my only point is what I was getting at. It's a good point. So then in First Corinthians, well, let me just read these couple of verses that I have.

We got side tracks. So then he says the same thing in two, four, and five when he says of Corinthians, one, my message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power. I mean, that's where I was going with it.

I mean, he says it once, then he says it again, and then he starts talking about we get wisdom from the Spirit. I'm just being consistent with what the context of Ephesians is. We have God's spirit in us. So he gets to 418 and he runs across a bunch of people, much like we have in Ephesians, where people were coming in with different philosophies trying to sway the new Christians into something different than Jesus' Lord.

and he says in verse chapter 4, 18, 1 Corinthians, some of you have become arrogant as if I were not coming to you, but I will come to you very soon if the Lord is willing. And then I will find out not only how these arrogant people are talking, but what power they have. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk, but of power. and so that's where I was headed. I mean, that argument just happened organically.

There's as that word. But to me, there's something in here about the power of the spirit in declaring Jesus' Lord that doesn't go any further than that as far as the earth is a battlefield. I mean, he basically gives the illustration here that. yes, it's a nice earth, but it's a battlefield. And that's going to be his illustration. So put on the full armor of God in Christ. Yeah.

I mean, Paul's argument in Second Corinthians, I mean, First Corinthians too, is very, very helpful for me in explaining what I was saying. Because he does say that. I didn't come with plausible words of wisdom, but a demonstration of the spirit and a power so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom amendment on the power of God. So, I mean, two questions I would have there is. One, is Paul against wisdom. And two, what is the, what does it mean, the spirit and of power? And he answers both of those in the text. Because the very next verse, when he says, don't, like, we didn't come with wisdom of men.

He caveats it with this. Yet among the mature, we do impart wisdom. So he's not diminishing wisdom at all. He's just qualifying it of a particular type of wisdom, although it's not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age who are doomed to pass away. Verse 7. But, meaning to say, he's caveating this with, but we impart a secret and a hidden wisdom,

which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they have had, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory. And then he starts to get into what this means, a demonstration of the Spirit's power when he says, but as it is written what no eye has seen nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagine what God has prepared for those who love him. So what is the demonstration of the Spirit's power?

Yes, it's Lordship, but it's also life in Christ, which is what we've heard about. And that's not something you're going to get with a one-time revelation from God. You're not going to get baptized and fully understand and fully imagine what God is prepared for those who love him. You're not going to fully get that. It's a progressive understanding as we walk in him and search the deep things of God. That's what he says here in verse 10. These things, what things? The things that no ear has heard and no eye has seen and no heart of man imagined that God is prepared for him.

He said, no one's understood this, but these things that God has prepared for us, God has revealed to us through his spirit. for the spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person which is in him? So also, no one comprehends the thoughts of God except for the spirit of God. Well, why? Well, you can say, well, they're super simple, right? Well, yeah, they're simple, but they're not at this age.

So I'm not going to fully comprehend this. I'm not, but I can in great measure as God reveals this to me. submit to a spirit. Now that we have received not the spirit of the world, verse 12, but the spirit who is from God, what's the purpose of the spirit? That we might understand the things freely given to us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the spirit interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. So the point is, is that God's not saying you have to use this type of language. in terms of like, can't use these words, can use these words.

What he is saying is the words you use, there have to be words that are brought to us by the Holy Spirit to understand the things that God has freely given us. The natural person cannot accept these things that are of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him. And he is unable to understand them. So you want to talk about complexity. They don't, the natural man cannot understand the words that are given by the Spirit. because they're spiritually discern. The spiritual person judges all things, everything, but he himself is not judged by anyone. For who has understood the mind of the Lord?

We're talking about a mind so deep that no one can understand him. Who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instructs him? But we have the mind of Christ. To me, that's the pursuit. It is a pursuit into the, I mean, the endless, well. of God's goodness and what he is prepared for those who love him. And any way we can get there, any way we can explain it through the simplest of languages, through the most complex and artistic forms, all of it.

Bring it all in there because I'm only scratching the surface, and you're only scratching the surface of what God's prepared for us. And I will say this, because I know Jason is to say something, Zach, what you just described is another picture of unity is the guy that's the PhD, sitting right next to the guy who's illiterate, but both have the spirit of Christ. Yep. And so the idea is, is one better than the other? No, in Christ, we're all one.

And that's the beauty of. That's why I say it's both things. Go ahead, Jason, I know you're itching. I'm not itching. I was just saying in that First Corinthians dissertation, I'm trying to think of all the big words I know. The last verse read was we have the mind of Christ. because he earlier had said, not unlike Ephesians when he said, what was his prayer in chapter one?

He's like, I'm praying that you will know Christ better. And he brought that up several times, and I brought that up at nauseam. But in 1st Corinthians 1.30, it says, so this is before the dissertation on the Spirit of Christ, which we have, which makes Jesus known to the world. It says, and this is right after he said, remember when he said he chose the lowly things and the foolish things of the world, to shame the wise?

So in verse 30, it says, it is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become, for us, wisdom from God. That is our righteousness, holiness, and redemption. That's all I'm saying. He is the wisdom of God. He is the wisdom of God.

So it's like, do I understand everything fully about my wife? No, it's a process, which is you grow in your relationship, not unlike with Jesus, because we are the bride of Christ. And it's called a birth, you know, just like when you're born, then you grow. And it takes a while before you can understand things that, you know, when you're a baby, you don't get it. But, you know, when you're a teenager, you get a little more. And when you're old toots like us, you get it even more. So it's the exact same process, the spiritual side. Yes, the process.

But what I'm saying at the end of the day, I know I'm married to my wife, and I know her better than everybody else because I'm with her all the time. And so when you look at that from a really point of view, if someone doesn't know Jesus, and you know him, you introduce Jesus. You're introducing a person. that's where I think that this gets tricky. When you get off that, going through that foundation, that's where I was saying that it gets wonky. And you can get off on that with the intellectual language, but you can also get off on that with very simplistic language too.

I think that's the hard part is that I don't care how you talk. You can be the most simple guy on the planet, and you can get off on this. can be the most intellectual person on the planet and not connect this to the person of who Jesus is. There you go. If we left it there, I would be fine with it. The wisdom comes from Christ is what I'm saying. And if you want to use words, okay, but you use it. It's more of a power that's behind that. And you can do it by your lifestyle. I mean, you cannot say a word where most people, if something bad happens, they get mad, rip the door off the hinges, say a bunch of four little words.

But then a person in Christ could just go, huh, and do nothing. Well, which is the more powerful display? Yeah. Where most people would get angry. So that's what my only point is when you get to the armor of God, instead of taking, because if you go look, which I did, at all the ways people to, describe this.

You know, there was lots of different interpretations of what this means. Given on what there are six different attributes of the armor here. And I would guess you could say five or more defensive and one is more on the offense with the sword. You know, the rest of them is like a protection. Would you agree? Yeah. Yeah.

But I'm saying. it's not unlike. The first thing you have to do is Galatians 3, 26, and 27 is a good one, is that for all of us who are baptized in Christ, have put on Christ. You know, you put on an armor, and you don't go, you don't wait to the war starts, and then you're out there trying to put on your, you know, your armor as the battle starts. you put the armor on, then you go out there because the guy trying to still put his belt around, you know, during the fight, he probably not going to last long, you know. So I'm saying the armor of God is Christ. Yeah.

This is where, and you have his spirit in you. So every point that you read of the six things has to be taken with that. That way, when you get to the sword of the spirit, which it says, which is the word of God, then most philosophers immediately then go to the whole Bible. They're like, well, okay, you got to read your Bible. And, well, but the Bible is about Jesus. This whole thing has been about being in Christ. So that's all I'm saying is,

and it looks like I'm trying to simplify, but I'm just saying you can't detach those two things. Because then if you turn the entire understanding of the Bible into a prerequisite to become a Christian. Outside of it, looking through it all being about Jesus, well, you could have thousands of different groups saying thousands of different things and not be unified in Jesus, which was the whole point that launched this discussion in Ephesians 4.

It's one Lord, there's one faith, there's one, remember all that part? You know, it's interesting. I was a priest's a sermon a few weeks ago on Mark, I didn't point this out in the sermon, but when you were talking about the centrality of Christ, I just thought about this, this kind of obscure verse in Mark 939, actually 38. The teacher said, John, we saw someone driving out demons in your name. And we told him to stop because he was not one of us. And I love what Jesus says here because it's to the point of,

we're talking about. He says, well, don't stop him, Jesus said. For the one who does a miracle in my name, can in the next moment, for no one in my who does a miracle in my name, can in the next moment say anything bad about me for whoever is not against us is for us. And I was thinking about that, like, you know, if you like said, like, if someone talks about the person of Jesus, like, you can't do that and remain. unchanged. Because I've always thought about like, you know, you can, you can spot like false teachers and people who have unhealthy lust for controversy and quarrels about the law and genealogies. Like, you can always spot that kind of person by just looking, are they talking about the person of Jesus who he is? And the question is, no, that's how you spot him. They're not talking about who he is. And I thought, man, we probably shouldn't tell them that that's the answer because then they may start doing that and then they can hide better. But you know what's funny?

I don't think you can make Jesus the focal point of your preaching and teaching and not be changed by that. I think his person is so powerful that as we talk about him and we talk about the infinite well of goodness that he is, we can't do that in one minute and then in the next minute abuse that truth and who he is. You can't. We found something we agree on. Part of what you're describing is. Zach is being mission oriented to make sure Jesus gets out there. And it tends to take away the tearing down of other people and writing people off,

which I think is good. All right, we're out of time. Man, what started is an argument wound up an interesting discussion. So we'll get back to this text next time on Unashamed. Thanks for listening to the Unashamed podcast. Help us out by rating us on iTunes. And don't miss an episode by subscribing on YouTube. And be sure to click that little bell to get notified.

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