Live from the Pathway Studios in Johnston Proper, you are Live from the Path. And you're listening to Live from the Path? What happened? It's a real classic today. I don't know. We got all kinds of problems. Hey, you're listening to Live from the Path. My name is Ben Foose. It's good to see you here today. Thanks for joining us. It's a slick evening out. It was semi-treacherous coming in here. In fact, we've lost a couple of folks to the weather tonight. I'm not surprised. We were going to have friends, me and Dan. It was actually a pretty nice day. I mean, snow, but pretty nice. But warm enough, kind of melting. Now kind of freezing. And that can be a treacherous. I think it's going to be an awkward cart home, as a matter of fact. Good thing there's plenty of space here. I tell you what, it's totally worth it. Totally worth it to be here on Live from the Path.

I am Ben Foose. With me, as always, is Dan Hudson. Not as always, there's empty chairs around us. I think Spanglinger will be in here just a little bit. And we might hear from Mike on the Skype. Mike's out of town. Work has dragged him out. His pagan efforts have gotten him away from the life of the Path show. So we need to up his salary. Something's got to be done. This thing is a terrible shit. Hey, so here's the deal. Hopefully, I told you last week, Excel was going to be in here. And he could not make it in. So we're going to get him rescheduled and get him in here pretty soon. See, he's from the area. Kind of. Within an hour or so. Okay, yeah. Which is still far enough that you don't want to, you know. Yeah, yeah. The whole treacherous thing. We keep dragging people in from, here's the deal. There's a small radius of folks that we've had on the show.

And then we have to really expand our horizons and drag them in from farther out. And he is a result of my dragnet to try to rope some people to come into the show. The far-reaching power of life in the path. Yep, yep, exactly. So here's the deal. We kind of got a wide-open agenda here tonight. And for you guys on the chat, if you've got any wide-ranging questions, something you'd like to see us tackle, this is probably the night to do it. But it won't be the Bible answer, man. That's right. That's right. Just go ahead and throw it out there. Actually, I will answer dudes. I have one. Yeah, I have one. And the question surrounds, there's a lot of doctrinal things going on. There's a lot of questions about doctrines and what different denominations believe. And I think my question is, what's a deal-breaker? Because I've read some stuff on what are a deal-breaker for some people. And I'm not going to get into a lot of the discussion because, frankly, it's heavily theological. It's not necessary. But I'll give you an example of what I'm thinking, and you can tell me what you think. Like, is this a deal-breaker or is it not a deal-breaker? So we'll talk about that.

Also, there's been quite the hubbub around here, around the Des Moines metro area, about a sign on the south side saying gay is not okay. And, frankly, I think that discussion has probably played itself out pretty broadly in homes and businesses and churches. I've had a lot of discussions at work this week about it. Interesting, helpful discussions, by the way. There was – my initial reaction was not a positive one. And then one of the things that's encouraging is God will do something with this. He works all things for the good of his people. And I thought, you know, don't not let this be an opportunity. So I had a number of conversations at work this week with people who were reacting to that. And I could say, look, I know the guy. You know, I know where he's coming from. Here's where we can be, you know. And a lot of helpful conversations. That was actually – Well, good. It was a good opportunity to talk to people about what – how I think things should look. You know, I can – one of the things that I can say is, like, I know the guy. I know the guy who put it out there. I know it's hard. I know he loves Christ. So, you know, the first thing that I can make clear is, like, me and this guy don't disagree. We agree on pretty much everything, I'm sure. But we got into the conversation as to, you know, what is helpful and what is effective. And so, anyway, it was interesting.

It was an interesting conversation. Yeah, if it leads to a healthy adult conversation in a peaceful way, even if you disagree on opposite sides of the issue, it's healthy to sit down and listen and then have your chance to speak as well and have them listen, you know. Yeah. And if it led to – I bet that it led to that all over the place. Oh, I'm sure. And he – you know what? I mean, I know the guy. We went and prayed with him in his office the night before the sermon. Just, hey, just God be with you, you know. And, I mean, honestly, he was just sitting there thinking, hey, man, I'm going to talk about this. It's a big issue right now. That's the title of my sermon. I think I'll just put that on the sign. I mean, you know, he wasn't thinking we're going to make a statement, you know, which is another issue. Maybe he should have thought that through a little more. Maybe next time he will. I bet you he will. Because, yeah, it is not – that was not his intent at all. But, yeah, he is. He is a good guy.

He has a good heart. Yeah. And I think it brings up a wider discussion. I think we'll have this. It's like what does it mean – because some of the – I think you and I both have kind of read through some of the things, some of the people that supported what was on the sign, some of the people that were against it. And one thing that I know is true is that neither of the things became what they'd expected to be from the people that did it. From the guy that put out the sign and also the person that took the picture of the sign or the person that started, like, the thing on Facebook, didn't expect it to do what it did. Go national. Exactly. And not even, like, breadth of, like, how many people it touched, but, like, what people's reactions were and to what extreme. Because I will tell you this. I am – one of the things I'm pretty disappointed in is some of the reaction to people in support of that sign. I'm disappointed because they are not – for some of the reasons why I think the whole thing was taken in a certain direction is because people reacted not out of love and concern for the sin, right, or for the people that are sinning, right, but in a put up the walls, let's fight about this thing. It was an us versus them.

Yeah. We're going to prove – both sides. Yes. We're going to prove we're right. We're going to prove more – we're more enlightened than you are. Or both sides were saying things like that. We have truth. And it was interesting, both sides, as I was getting on – I got on to the Facebook event for the protest just to – I just want to know. Because I honestly want to know, well, where are they coming from? What's their heart? Yeah. Not just, oh, yeah, you know, I didn't say anything. And both sides were saying, we're just going to be – we're going to show love. You know, people are going to really see something from this. And it was interesting just to read through the comments that people – before and after. Yeah. Boy, we really accomplished something. I don't know that either side accomplished anything. It did much of anything. Other than, hey, some people talked about it. Yeah. And, hey, if God does something, cool. But it was a lot of hoopla, and now it's pretty much over.

Yeah. Which is why we're talking about it. Yeah. We're the second-run theater when it comes to national – We're the 99-cent theater. It comes to the news items. But I think there's a broader conversation, and we'll get to it on how people get to places like that. Probably some similarities on where we sit and where other people that are not following Christ sit. And what that means for, like, the – I don't know, an overall dialogue. And, you know, how do you move beyond that when people are so certain that they are the smarter person in the bunch? Yeah, yeah. Because you've already pretty much said you have nothing to add to the conversation. Yeah, right. Both sides kind of came from that point of view. Yeah. But if you just listen to me, you'll understand. Right. How it really is. Right. You're a caveman. You're a dirty pagan. Exactly. Those are the two sides of it. It's like, okay, yeah, we're going to make some progress here.

And I think one of the toughest things to do as following Christ is to know when there's ground that you simply cannot cede. I mean, there are things that are just true. And one of the conversations I had at work this week started with the phrase is, look, I can't – there are certain people who are – there's no way that I can have any part of this conversation without being a bigot. It just is. That's how they're going to see it. And there's nothing I can do with that regardless of how I treat them, regardless of our relationship at this point, regardless of how much they know about me and know that that's not the case. There's no way that we can have this conversation without me being a bigot. I'm like, I have to accept that because there's a truth. When God says it's true, I believe it's true, and that's a foundation. I won't part from that. How we have that conversation I think is important. And I think, frankly, we have a lot of – on the issue of homosexuality and, frankly, broad sin in general, we have a lot of unhealthy conversations, conversations that don't reflect love, conversations that don't reflect people understanding that they are way more alike than they are unlike, right? Some people wear their sin on their five-button coat. All right. Some people keep it hidden, right? But there's a lot more similarities between people, and I see a lot of pharisaical high horses that I think are detrimental to the conversation. Now, on the other side of it, I have less of a perspective because I'm not there. I'm not on the other side where someone is saying, well, I take that back. Sometimes the Christian lifestyle is that. See, I think we have some more similarities there too where, like, look, I'm automatically a bigot because I follow Jesus and I think the thing is wrong. Well, both sides were calling themselves martyrs, basically, in so many words. It's, you know, both sides, oh, we're really being mistreated here, you know. And even if you notice, even your terminology, oh, there's a broader issue of sin, you know, we're coming from the angle of it is sin. And it is.

Biblically, it is sin. But that's the rub. They're going, well, no, it's not. Right. You know. Right. And one of you to call me a sinner. And one of the reasons that I think the sign was so poorly received, if you say gay is not okay, you know, the implication is you and I may look at that and say it's a sin in somebody's life. It doesn't define them. People's sin doesn't define them as a person. However, a lot of folks on that perspective would say, no, no, this is me. This does define me. So it decided and say, hey, there's a part of you that is sinful. It said, you as a person are not okay. And that's how someone were to take it. That's it. He meant that as a verb, gay, the act of homosexual actions. People who are involved in that community interpret it as a noun. Yeah. Right. They're saying, me as a person, I am not okay. Well, in which they would. He's going, that's not what I said. Yeah.

Well, I don't know that the same, that I wouldn't have taken the same thing. Someone said, following Christ is not okay. That you could look at that as a verb. But I would think Christ follower, not okay. You're saying that I'm not okay. Not that I care. There's a difference. I don't care. Yeah. Right. I don't care what you think about me. But anyway. So there's a broader thing. And I think we'll get to that. And then we'll see. Well, Spangler gets here. Maybe there'll be time we'll turn it over, give some advice, see how things are going. Maybe check in with Mike, see what's happening. What you got? I was going to say, I think the important, no matter who you're talking to and what you're talking about, whatever your topic is. Yeah. One of the first rules of communication is know your audience. And you mentioned like there's people at work you can't talk to about that. Well, because you know their audience.

You know the audience. You know, what you say inside the walls of a church building of people who have come specifically to hear the word of God is going to be different than what you say, say on a sign. Yeah. To the public that may or may not. Not that you're going to change your story, but I mean, you're going to say it differently. And that was, you know, that was one of the questions, the conversations that we had at work is someone had asked, you know, like, Ben, would you ever have that out on a sign of a church that you ran? I'm like, no, no, I don't. I would not have done that. I said, well, you know, if someone was was gay, can they come to your church? I said, absolutely. And they said, well, yeah, there you go. Periodically. I mean, they're welcome. Absolutely. They don't always feel welcome after it depends on what the topic is. And that's what the question was, you know, well, what if they wanted to become a member? I'm like, well, I don't know. Membership, really. But like, but I go, I would find that hard to believe because, you know, I would find I would hope that they felt welcome there. But like the truth of the matter should also come out. So like a practicing, you know, wife beater, practicing adulterer, practicing homosexual, whatever, whatever, I would assume would not feel comfortable coming into a church who will point out that what they're doing is not. Maybe there's some change. Yeah. And our goal is going to be to love God and to love people, to serve both.

And in that process, our goal is to connect people to God. And our really part of our main philosophies, one of our core values is intimacy with God changes people. We're not going to, I mean, we will teach specific issues, you know, periodically. This is, you know, here's what the Bible says about this issue. Yeah. But we'll let God really point the fingers. We're not going to treat people differently. We're not going to say you can't come. We're not going to say you're not welcome. Or you only get the unfrosted donuts. You know, we're not going to do stuff like that. And if we hear people doing that, we're going to call the believers on the carpet. Yeah. You know, stop treating people that way. They're not second class people, you know. Yeah, right. So that's important, I think. Yeah, I would agree. I would agree. So we'll flesh that out. So here's the question, Dan. It was, there's been a, there was a hubbub kind of in the evangelical circles about a gathering of pastors that came and there was, there was a certain pastor that was invited who did not have the same vision, a view of the Trinity as the rest of the group.

Okay. You heard of the elephant room? No. So anyway, it's just a, it's a kind of elephant man. It's partially elephant man. All right. So the elephant room, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a collection of, of like, of pastors primarily in the rest, uh, Reformation movement. Okay. And they come together and they talk about just cultural stuff and church stuff. Big, uh, big thing. So they invited a pastor on there who, um, they were concerned that, uh, he didn't hold the same view of the Trinity, um, that he was a modalist, that, that, uh, God is a single being, um, who, you know, threw himself out there in three different ways, not three separate entities, but all a single God. Okay. Okay. So, so anyway, that, that was a big conversation and something, a guy quit and there's a big hubbub and there's a bunch of people writing up a bunch of crap about it. And it was like, uh, there was a lot of blog space wasted on this particular discussion. But my question is, is, is it a deal breaker to, to look at the, to misdefine the Trinity? I'm trying to kind of wrap my, my arms around the distinction, the distinction. I mean, because if you say there's not a Trinity and that there's not the three separate, you know, it could be, they're just saying the same thing just differently.

He's no, so the, the, the difference is, is, is, uh, the, the belief would be a father, son, Holy spirit, separate entities, all one God, Ben, Mike, Dan, all God. Oh yeah. Or, or the three separate. Yeah. Yeah. But, but, and the other guy believes God as son, God as father, God as Holy spirit, not separate, but equal. See, I wouldn't, I wouldn't call that a, um, I don't know if I'm smart enough to figure out the Trinity. I mean, I don't think anybody is, you know, um, and in that particular instance, like there are times I probably have tried to illustrate the Trinity incorrectly because I, I've in, in like to a new believer, you know, it's like, well, it's kind of like, you know, there's some illustration where it's like water, you know, sometimes it's ice. Sometimes it's water, sometimes it's vapor or, or I've even said, I know I've said this, um, I look at myself, uh, I'm, I'm Dan was sometimes I'm a husband and it's a different role than I am as a father and, and that's a different relationship. And then I'm also a friend and that would be kind of like the, you know, the one, the three. And see, I don't, I don't know that I have a true. And that was my question is because given the nature of the Trinity, um, and you could ask any Jehovah's witness and they'll tell you that the Bible doesn't say Trinity, but it's derived understanding that, uh, and the common example is when Jesus is baptized, you see within the same scene, a father, a son, a Holy Spirit descending.

So three separate beings, all God, right? So that's, that's, that's the generally the accepted view of, of the Trinity, but you have, uh, modalism, which is, I believe they're all the same and they actually can't really explain that particular portion. Well, that's it. That's why he's got them. We're not exactly. That's where I think there's a bit of mystery there. Now, if you're messing with who Jesus is, you're out. Yeah. You know, I'll draw a line there. You know, if you're like, well, Jesus isn't really the son of God. Well, then you're not a believer. Yeah. You know, you, you, you can't be a part of this club, you know, you'd be go to a different club. Right. You know, what's that? So, and that, that brings up the question because, um, there is a lot of time and effort spent and I, I, I think to a certain benefit on, uh, theological discernment, people going through and saying, look, what do we really believe? What are the implications of believing this versus this versus this? Um, but I, I wonder to, to a certain extent, if sometimes we don't obscure overall the message of God with, with things like that, because essentially what, what came out of this, I

mean, some fiery things that like, this is a, this is a deal breaker. You don't, you don't invite a guy to your, to your thing that, that, that believes this. Um, you, I've, I've, I've seen it from people. I know people with people that I know spiritually within, within congregation, like just that have got this vision that this is, uh, this is out. We don't talk with people like this. We don't associate. And I think more of it is like a theological setting. And we don't want to make it seem like we believe the same thing he believes. And I thought, you know, I get the protection. I get the wolves, right? I get it. Yeah. But, but I don't know that we're not losing the forest for the trees here. Yeah. I think the wolves are when they're trying to destroy the church, not, oh, they have a different view of things than me. Well, you know, but I mean, can't you, can't you destroy the church by perpetrating the, intentionally the wrong thing? Weakening the deity. I see, but here's the thing. Is it like, to me that the distinction here, um, and, and I'm a, I'm a three, uh, primarily because of the scene in Luke where father, son, Holy Spirit, three separate, all God, that's, that's me.

However, if a guy says, I think they're all God and they just be different versions of God, um, is that, does that ruin the core message of Christ? Yeah, I don't think so. I think, I think, I think it just says it's, it's, it's beyond our understanding. Cause we're trying to explain it in human terms that, that he isn't, you know, and that's, that's where, that's, that's where it goes wrong. Yeah. All the, all the illustrations we come up with, you know, Jesus says, Hey, I sit at the right hand of the father, you know, Jesus prayed to the father, praying to himself, you know, there's all kinds of questions and you try to split hairs. And I think that's maybe a little silly. That's where, I think that's where like when you're in seminary and you're starting to ask the questions, the people who are getting involved with that end up going into the theology degrees and the people like me are going, aren't there people just outside this room, not going to heaven, you know, shouldn't we be worried about them? They tend to go into more like pastoral ministry and things. And, and the theologians always are theologians and they sit there and talk and I love talking stuff like this, but still I'd much rather talk to the guy across the street who doesn't know Jesus. I'd much rather my energy and my focus, my effort and my prayers. And, and, and if I'm going to lose sleep over something, I'm going to lose sleep over the fact that someone I know doesn't know Jesus, they're going to spend eternity in hell. Yeah.

Whether you have a slightly different view of the Trinity than I have or not, you know, you know, I guess I look at it and I say, God was as clear as he wanted to be. Yeah. Right. If I look, if I look at the scriptures, uh, he's as clear as he intended to be. Anybody else's clarity outside of that is, is not anti-God, but it also is not God. So, you know, there's enough in there for me to work with without, without, I don't know, I think the splitting hairs over things that, um, that I don't know that are worth the time splitting hairs about. I think, I think it's, I think it's awesome to study that stuff. I think it's awesome to have discussions around that stuff. And frankly, and I think it's awesome to evaluate that against the other things you believe and think and pray on and whatever. Um, but, but I think we spend a lot of time excluding or kicking people out of conversations or like spend a lot of time with what we feel is righteous indignation on something that is not saving a soul. Right. Right. Now, if you, uh, there is a segment out there, a tiny little sliver of, I can't even think of the name of the church, but a guy wrote me once, uh, I used to do weekly newspaper things. Okay. And, um, they believe like there is, when they start saying there is no Trinity. Yeah.

You know, they're like, they're like a Jesus only thing. Like, like that, the God, the father is gone and God, the Holy Spirit, you know, it's just, it's Jesus. Yeah. It's like, okay, now you're messing again. You know, you're, you're that, that's crossing a different line. Yeah. It's like, no, it's very clear. Yeah. The father, the son, the Holy Spirit, there's all three and they're all active and, and she, you know, the father and I are one, you know, there's all these scriptures that come to mind, rushing to mind, how that happens, how you, you, you, you chart that out. I don't know. Yeah. Um, but it's, it's, that's pretty important stuff. If you change that, then you're messing. Yeah. I don't know. It's, it just, it sometimes frustrates me. I, it's like, I like that stuff. I like reading that stuff. I like seeing where, you know, what people are, uh, you know, are taken from the same scripture that I read. Maybe I didn't get the same thing.

I like that stuff, but like, it is sometimes very frustrating. And I would say 90% of the frustrations of my life come from reading people's comments on things. Oh, I can't avoid people's opinions, but just like looking at someone's reaction to something just, I get so disappointed because I look at, I look at people and they're just, they're just outrageous with the way they react to something. It's like, did you, did you calm down for a second? Like this, this is not about, it's not about you. Uh, it, not everything is, is your responsibility to try to set the world straight. I'm glad if you are. And like, I hope you're right. Yeah. But, but I mean, seriously, nobody crowned you. You didn't get a book. Uh, I don't go into the wall on this one. Yeah. Like that's actually, so here's, here's a good example. I was listening. I was, I was reading this today and it was, um, what I thought was a pretty, it was a good story. All right. Um, this is, uh, from Victoria's secret model to Proverbs 31 wife. Okay. Here's the story.

In 2009, 19 year old Kylie Basuti beat out 10,000 other young women to win the Victoria's secret model search. Now at 21, Basuti says she quit working for the company because modeling lingerie does not confirm, conform to her Christian beliefs. Uh, although working for Victoria's secret was her biggest goal in life, the young model began to have a change of heart. She said, I actually loved it while I was there. It was so much fun and I had a blast, but the more I was modeling lingerie and lingerie isn't clothing, I just started becoming more uncomfortable with it because of my faith. I'm Christian and I'm reading the Bible more and I was becoming more convicted about it. She said that her husband, whom she married soon after winning the modeling competition was also a factor. My body should only be for my husband and it's just a sacred thing. Basuti will continue with her modeling career. She'll do so with her clothes on. I didn't really want to be that kind of role model for younger girls because I had a lot of younger Christian girls that were looking up to me and then thinking that it was okay for them to walk around and show their bodies in lingerie to guys. On the website live31.com, a non-profit organization promoting healthy self-image through a biblical worldview, Basuti shares her story and explains how her local church played a role in her decision. In an essay titled, I Quit Being a Victoria's Secret Model to Become a Proverbs 31 Wife, she says, Christ also led my husband and I to a great church that has helped me so much. It's a lot easier to stay grounded when you are plugged into a church and fellowship with

other believers. As Basuti's story shows, young women can overcome our cultural idea of the model, in quotes, woman, when the biblical idea of womanhood is being modeled by the local church. So, here's the classic. Here's the response. As a wife, mom of four, including two teenage boys and a kidman leader, I don't know what that is, I give Kylie Basuti a one degree north of sideways on the thumbs up scale as her actions show movement in a generally good direction. However, it was a little disheartening to see her interview on ABC with exposed cleavage beyond what is generally considered modest by most Christians, as well as her reasons for leaving Victoria's Secret. Having a biblical worldview, wanting to be a good example for young girls, and honoring your husband, all fine and good reasoning, still falls short of the Proverbs 31 model also referenced. Unfortunately, Jesus was not mentioned as the author of this faith she follows, at least not in the spots and articles I viewed. The world is already crying hypocrite while Christians applaud the normal and customary disconnect. I am grateful for the spotlight turned on this issue by Mrs. Basuti. It's always good to get the conversation going so we can see and hear iron being sharpened among us. I will be eager to hear about her growth in the journey. Shirley is only beginning as it has for each of us at one point or the other. So, our reaction to someone who has stopped doing something, feels convicted about something, changed her life, is to say, you're still not the full Proverbs 31 wife that was supposed

to be there. That is so sad. That's like the crack addict that comes in and says, man, I have stopped crack. And the guy goes, I heard you swear. Get out of here. I mean, it's like, how about one step at a time? Let's take it easy here. She can put up one more button maybe next week. Right now, she's putting clothes. She has a shirt on. I mean, that's a victory. That's progress. She was making millions of dollars with the shirt off. You know, and she has taken in a very public way and claimed her faith. She said, I'm a Christian. Now, here's the deal. This woman seems to be upset because she didn't go through the full story of salvation through Jesus Christ as part of the APC interview. She may have done it. And they just didn't include it. Of course. Yeah. You know, and so I don't know. I don't know.

I'm disappointed that our first reaction is, you know, God, you can take a break. Let me sit up on the seat for a while. I'm not saying that it's not appropriate for a Christian to judge another Christian and provide spiritual direction. But for heaven's sakes, I mean, recognize, let God do his job. Yeah. Let the Holy Spirit work. A Christian who has a personal relationship that can pull them aside as someone who loves them, not someone who's making a judgment for the world to see on a blog. Yeah. You know, the church is really famous for you're just not good enough. You're never good enough. Is there anything you can ever do to be good enough? No. No. No. No. Because we can always find something. We will not be appeased. Troy is good enough. None of us are. Wow. I don't want to put that on me. Thanks for being good enough.

Yeah. I'm close. Hey, Troy. You read that story about the Victoria's Secret model? No, I didn't. Here's the deal. Here's the only problem is you have some very, I wonder what the temptation was for calling the Victoria's Secret model and then read, she shows up on a lot of Christian websites and you got a lot of dudes who were like checking it out. What do you think, Troy? She stopped doing her job because her body's for her husband. She said, I'm no longer going to be a lingerie model. I'm going to put clothes on. That's awesome. That's what I'm saying. That's awesome. No, because one gal was pretty upset. The zipper was down a little too much on her shirt. What? So she obviously hasn't really changed. Yeah. Things aren't the same. Seriously. That was their first reaction.

That was some gal on some blog. Not from, you know, that's awesome that you're taking the proactive steps. What a huge step. A huge step. A gigantic step from quitting your job that you make a ridiculous amount of money at to… Do you think I could make money doing that? No. Lingerie? No, I do not. This is me as a friend and a Christian brother. Absolutely not. Dude, you never do that. I mean… Good talk. Really modeling any clothes? No. Pretty much not. That's like the chances of me becoming a foot model. Let me ask you a question. Let me ask you a question. Great. They make a shirt for ladies, for Christian ladies, called Modest is Hottest. What are your thoughts on that? Modest is Hottest?

What do you think about that, Troy? That's awesome. You think that's awesome? Yeah, that's pretty cool. Dan, what do you think? Modest is Hottest. I think it's defeating its own point. I think that's funny. The whole point of modesty is… Don't look at me. Let me stand on who I am. But here I got this awesome shirt saying, I'm really awesome by who I am. But I don't… Yeah. That's a little funny. I think they're trying to downplay everyone else that's being… Yeah. I mean, yeah, I get it. It's cool to be modest. Much more open. Here's a… Hold on. Hold on. You know what the most attractive thing to me when I met Cheryl?

It was her modesty. You know? I mean, it was just like, she's a pretty modest gal. I can see that. I mean… I can see that as well. And she was a beautiful person. And I got to know her as a human being. And, you know… It says… So here was a comment on this thing. It says, making modesty sexy is not the solution we need. Exactly. And instead, the church needs to overhaul its theology of the female body. Women continue to be associated with their bodies in ways that men are not. And as a result of this unique association, women's identities are also uniquely tied to their bodies in a manner that men's identities are not. I think that's the thing we're trying to stray away from. Like, you're completely defeating your own point about defeating the point by saying that the church needs to revolutionize. No, the church doesn't need to revolutionize at all. We're not about changing the Bible to what is relevant today. That's not how it was made. It's in there for a reason.

It needs to stay that way. That's just… Maybe that's my naive opinion on that, but whatever. I like it. I mean, 1 Peter 3 talks about the modest woman, you know, not just being all worried about all the jewelry and the braiding of hair, not that that stuff's bad or anything, but… Or the clothing, you know, I've got to be hot and popular or anything. But your adorning should be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is, in God's sight, very precious. You know, it's like, be a woman of God. There's nothing more beautiful than a woman of God or a man of God. There's nothing more handsome. You know, it doesn't matter what you look like physically, but when your spirit shows through, your eternal spirit, who you really are, shows through, that's when you've got something, you know, this whole, that's what's so sad is our kids are raised in this culture where everything is, and we always have been, it's not like this were the first ones, but everything is about the physical, you know, appearance and about youth and all that, you know, men are going to be muscular and women are going to be tiny, you know, and… If you're not those things, you're not beautiful. Exactly. And guess what? You know, you hit 45 and you're none of… I mean, it's over.

That's done. It's done. And it's like, that's when you're just hitting your stride. You're really getting to know God even better because you've had a little more, you know, if you've been practicing the spiritual disciplines throughout the years, you're getting to know him and it's starting to really shine even more. And that's a special woman who can be a young woman and even someone who is physically beautiful and say, hey, you know what? I'm showing the wrong stuff and I need to let Jesus shine through me. Oh, man, that just… I heard that the other day and I thought, good for you. Yeah. I mean, that is so cool. I didn't say, wait a minute, you're not perfect. You've not gone far enough. You can't speak for me or my God. I'm like, people need to jump in and say, I know the Holy Spirit's working on this, but what does he need some help? Maybe I should get in there and tell people the what's what. This is what it is. It's embarrassing. Like, I don't know who thinks in their mind and says, you know what they need? Me. I need to be in there talking about this.

I can see their claws. I am extremely conceited. I will be honest, but I'm not to the point that you're like, you know what, God, I'm going to take care of this. You sit back. I mean, I feel like you're making some progress here, but I mean, not on the timetable that I would appreciate. The proficiency is not enough. We need to get this really moving on schedule. It's just disappointing. People have good hearts and they want to help, but for heaven's sakes, recognize that you are not as awesome as you think you are. And people are pretty good at that if you ask them point blank. Are you awesome? No, Jesus is awesome. They'll get the answer right. There's a correct answer and they'll get it. But then as soon as they get in front of a computer and someone says something that they don't agree with, suddenly it just goes away. It leaves their mind and they think, you know what they need? An awesome answer by me. And they're in there typing stuff up and they've got a clever handle and they're writing things on and they're keeping like two days worth of arguments. I saw a guy, I was reading some kind of, this is the thing, I'm such a sucker.

I'm in on it. I'm in on it because I don't comment on anything because I'm like, I don't, I don't. What do I have to say? But I'll read all of it because I'm like, well, what did that guy say? He's ridiculous. And so, but like I saw these people keep up a conversation and I swear they must have been up for 36 hours straight. Like you could see the timestamp and these people talking. He's like, no, no, no. And these two people argue before. And so like they know each other well. It's like this is the last time you brought this up snurdly. And then he's just talking like, ah, you know what? Like pull yourself together. Don't you have a family or a dog to pet or something? So you know what the big problem with the modest is honest? It's because it's, it's in the, it is the position that it is on the shirt. You can't, I feel bad for ladies. Like, honestly, I do because like you, you can't put it anywhere. Like there's just nowhere to put stuff without some guy Googling at you for some goofy reason. And, and to that extent, you can't do much about it. Like you can't keep guys, some guys from being creepy. You just can't. And like, you could put it anywhere.

I was going to say, not all guys are that creepy, but a lot of them are. All right. You're listening to Live from the Path. Hey, Troy. How's it going, Ben? It's good to see you. I'm doing good. How are you? Doing good. Good, good. How's the week treating you? Pretty good. Just started. Yeah. I know. I like to, I like to keep it optimistic. You should say, man, so far, so. So far, so good. I had an awesome day. So good. All right. I had an awesome day at work. It was a very enlightening day. Yeah.

Good. Excellent. I'm glad to hear it. All right. All right. Well, I tell you, well, okay, so what was our answer, Dan? Well, the answer was is that, well, so let me ask this. You've seen a lot more of this than I have. You've been around the pastoring circles. Do you think there's a healthy amount of dialogue about some of the more technical issues, or do you think it is true that at times it obscures overall the message, ultimately, like the hands and feet? Has that been your experience? Maybe not. I think that the average church becomes ingrown, and there's a lot of kicking and scratching and that kind of stuff that you're reading. The beauty and the freshness, I can't tell you how much I have thoroughly enjoyed the last 10 years of my life in a new church setting where mostly new believers come, and there's not a whole lot of people who can say, well, I've been a believer for 59 years, you know, because we just tell them, oh, by the way, don't do that. They go, oh. Oh, you know, and so we've tried to create a culture where it's not okay to throw rocks at each other. You know, I mean, if I can pull you aside personally and say, hey, Troy, man, your cleavage

is really showing, you know, that's, well, I guess it wouldn't be, that'd be awkward, but, you know. I get what you're saying. I'm going to tell you after Dan's talking about what the man cleavage is. Go ahead. You know, it's one thing for a believer out of love and concern to pull someone aside and say, hey, here's maybe a step you don't know yet, you know, going to help you out here. It's another thing to say, hey, you haven't gone far enough, and here's why you're a failure, and you don't, I don't even know if you are a Jesus person because, you know, it's not even in the article, and that's judgmental. There's a fine line between helping and judging, and it's not our job to judge. It's our job to inspect some fruit, you know, in people's lives and help them then become fruitful for their benefit, not to make us look better. Or to make us more comfortable. And if a church isn't careful, they can become a cesspool of that. And a lot of them become that way because there's no one standing up for the new believer. And to be honest, a lot of it's because they don't have any new believers. And when they do, they finally leave because they get chased out. And they wonder, where did they go? I don't understand it. They're just not committed like we are. Well, you chase them out. Yeah.

And so I love having a culture where, you know, don't chase them. Yeah. And I think you can be committed to truth without acting like you're God in the process. Because I think that's a lot of the things. It's like, you know, you read the Bible. And I'm not saying that people don't misinterpret the Bible and skew it. Like, we saw that this week. People will use it how they want to use it. God loves me, so all my choices are blessed by him. Yes. No. Of course. But, I mean, people do. Actually, that tends to be. It's not where the Bible is not clear in instances like that. It's just they've picked and chosen. Like, you're talking about the people who believe Jesus is it, right? God is gone. You can't read the Bible and get that. Like, the Jehovah's Witness position that Jesus, you know, was raised from the dead but only spiritually. When it talks about the tomb being empty, that doesn't fly. Feel my hands spiritually. Exactly. Eat fish with me.

Symbolically. I merely need to see. 40 days of just, like, intangible conversations. So, like, those are frankly, you've just ignored portions. I feel like I've had a conversation. I don't think that's what the apostles would do. It's just like, is he here? This is theoretically delicious. You know, like, those are people just ignoring things. I think people can read. I think people can read the Bible, and I think you can look at some things. I just, I hate this because what this puts, like, in conversations like that, this puts me on almost the heretical side. The side because I say, look, this doesn't seem like, like, it's just such a minor distinction to me. It doesn't change anything about what I believe or what I know about, you know, about the relationship between Father, Son, Holy Spirit. What that means to me. How that looks on my life. It just doesn't. If it doesn't. When it really first hit me that I don't want to be a, I don't want to follow the theology course, was in a class I was taking once back in seminary. And I can't even tell you what it was about. The professor's talking, blah, blah, blah, blah. And when a guy goes, you're a trichotomous or a dichotomous. I don't know. He was, one was a trichotomous, one was a dichotomous.

And they argued for half an hour. And the first time I'm going, I have no idea what a trichotomous or a dichotomous is. I only have two arms. That's it. That's all I have. What's a dichotomous key? And then they talked about, oh, yeah. And they're going back, oh, no, you're this, that, and that. And all the implications that meant. They were fighting, you know, about, under the resurrection and all this stuff. And I'm going, dudes, I don't even know what you're talking about. But I know right across the street there's someone who's going to hell. Whether they're a trichotomous or a dichotomous, they're still going to hell. We've got to go tell them. And, you know, the class all ended and everything was fine, except for the two who didn't like each other because one was a tri and one was a die. And what that is, I don't know if you know what a trichotomous or a dichotomous is. No clue. One is you have a body, a soul, and a mind. And the other thought is you have a body and a soul mind. Soul slash mind, okay? I'm voting soul slash mind. Where are you at, Troy? Go with the tri so we can be it on.

I was going to say, somehow that makes a big difference. But I still can't tell you why. There's no difference, but I'll go I believe we have a body, soul, and a mind. You dichotomous. It was a heated argument. You know what that means. You're a heretic. You're a professor here. That's ridiculous. And I'm going, could you tell me what verse two means? I was just like, yeah. You know, and we've had that, like there's a lot of the Bible teachers that I listen to from time to time are Calvinists. Like, God chose me, you didn't choose God. And I think to myself, it still doesn't matter. It doesn't change my life one bit, to be honest with you. Because, like, whether I'm in because God chose me or because God permitted me to say, Lord, save me. Otherwise, then I can really relax if I go tell anybody. Because if he wants to be, he'll find him somehow. He doesn't need me. Those things don't affect my decisions so much that I have no idea what 99% of the ists that we're going to talk about mean. I believe in the Bible. It's all in there. Like, literally, it's all in there. I mean, obviously, you can interpret whatever you want, but it's in there.

Even like, you know, the end times, I have a very specific view of the end times, which tends to be contrary to a lot of popular books and teaching and movies. And you know what? And I like to have discussions about it for a little while. But I'm not going to fight it. I'm not going to defend it. Because I still say, I could be wrong. And I don't care. It does not matter. I'm still going to heaven. What is it? Exactly. It's not. Let's get him. Don't spend the next 40 years of your life breaking down revelation. It's not there for you to just sit there and just ponder upon when it's going to happen, what's going to happen, what exactly this is going to happen to, when this is going to happen. No. Just – It's a movement. No, you need to be in the right place when it happens. It's a movement slightly to the right of the day planner as to what happens and what you're doing at the time that it happens. I mean – Now, at the same time, Scripture is very clear. We have to have sound doctrine. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, but that's where you have – that's what we're trying to – that's kind of where the discussion began was, well, what do you stand on? What were you going to go to the hill for? And for me, a lot of it goes back to Jesus. You mess with Jesus, then I'll fight because you're not a Christian. Yeah. I want you to come to heaven with me. We'll have an argument then. I think maybe the first – I think maybe the first stance is like, are you representing the full counsel of God or are you representing one thing that you read? Because like almost all the things that I would appropriately see as a heresy is because you've ignored parts of the Bible. You've read parts, you loved upon those, and then you left the rest. Or haven't even read it. You have no idea. Yeah, exactly. You think you do, but yeah. And I think that's where a lot of the – like the base things were like I simply cannot agree with you. You're not representing the full counsel of God here. And I think outside of that, I think you have to – I think you have to recognize where there's room and where God has not – he knows what's in there. It's not – he didn't leave an incomplete scripture. He didn't leave a scripture that was lacking certain things, right? He provided what he provided, and we are to do with that what we're to do. And I think sometimes we add a lot of time trying to improve upon his manuscript as if he should have or could have done it better. That's creepy. I was just – the chat was talking about my giant hand. My giant hand.

I was like, oh, wait. Sorry, I have no idea what you said. That's really creepy. You've got to move it over some more. I can still see it in the first shot. Like your hand was – all the way. You've got to stretch it out just a little bit more. There you go. Oh, that's some quality programming. You can always just put two cameras on me. I'm okay with that. This did make the Bible. There's people going to hell out there, and we're playing with hands. Hands out. 10-46. Do you know where the sinners are? Oh. We're in the room. We're right here. And, you know, there's got to be balance in the church as far as – well, let me put it this way. I think churches in general are soft on doctrine. I think there are a lot of churches that are preaching a pansy Jesus and not a firm salvation, a solid understanding of sin. Like I think that's happening. I think people have really deadened this down.

So like we're creating communities of people who like to think and talk about Jesus. Yeah. But don't do much else with it. So I think that's actually a legitimate problem. Yeah. I just – sometimes people spend a lot of time and energy focusing on things that like – I don't know that I'm going to have that discussion once I'm in heaven. Splitting hairs that isn't going to keep someone out of heaven. But I'm – you know, not knowing that Jesus for who he really is will keep you out of heaven. Yeah. Not being a follower of Jesus will keep you out of heaven. You know, if you're a dichotomous or a trichotomous, if you're a pre-mill or a post-mill or – I don't know if there's any post-mills out there. You know, I mean, you know, all those different variations of stuff, you know, you might be surprised in the end, but it's not going to keep you out of heaven. You're just wrong. Yeah, you're just going to walk past and be like, ah, Ben, you were right. You believe in eternal security or not, that's not going to keep you out of heaven. That might surprise you that there's some people who didn't make it because they didn't really follow Christ. Yeah. You know, hey, wait a minute. So anyway, yeah. You're a trichotomous and an atheist. That's wild. I did not see that coming. So you know you're spiritual, but – All right.

I don't know. I don't know. It's tough because you can end either – on the wrong side of that either way of like – you most certainly don't want to deaden and like – I don't know, make it lighter than it is. Right. And act like – I don't want to act like something's not important, right? If God chose to include it in there, I assume it's important. And it's good to have a discussion. Yeah, yeah. But the question is are you then being exclusive about the love of Christ because you are not quite certain whether he's three dudes in one or one dude in three? You know what I'm saying? Is that worth saying, you know, we can't get past the three-in-one, one-in-three stuff and talk about the love of Christ? You need this first. Otherwise, you can't be on our stage. You can't talk with us. I don't care that you're committing adultery right now, but man, you better get the Trinity – you know, the Trinity way I understand it, you know, or you better be a dichotomous. Ah, so you got the heroin thing. Whatever. Ah, you know. Yeah. As a matter of fact, I think you take a shot of that heroin. You might get this Trinity thing down. You can envision me. You can tell me. Better grasp on it.

Ah, we shouldn't talk like that. That's terrible. Oh, so bad, yes. That is horrible. All right, hey, you're listening to Life in the Past. Then we go to Ephesians, of course, just – oh, I'm going to hit that soon. I don't know that that's a coarse jest, is it? Well, probably not. That's more usually – I have to – I'll research that again when I get up there. Okay, we're going to take a look at it. I usually think that's generally in the sexual terms, but I'm awful at that. Yeah. Double meeting things. Yeah. Ever since high school, they just rolled off. I got to – oh. Here's the deal. It's hard. It's hard because they're so easily clever. Double entendres are so easily clever. You're like, ah. That's all you had to say. I was like, what? What are you talking about?

That's what – What are you talking about? We went from Ephesians to double entendres, and I'm just like, what? I'm working on it. I'm close to having read three-fourths of the Bible now. That's good. Yeah. We're in – Are you a trichotomous? I don't know. Well, if you read the Bible clearly, you would. Right. I know, right? Well, we – I've read all of the New Testament now, which I had not done before, and I'm reading the Old Testament backwards, not directly backwards. Is that because it sounds Hebrew that way? You're talking. You're talking. You're talking. I don't know. No. Yeah. People have asked me that question multiple times. They're like, wait.

You're reading it backwards? I'm like, no. You're – like, the last book, read it, and then the next – Malachi. Exactly. So, reading this week the first 26 chapters of Jeremiah. Oh, the weeping prophet. Like I said, never read it, so I don't know. It's kind of a downer. It is. He is the guy who's saying this is what God says, and all of the culture is like, no, he hasn't. We've got our own prophets. They're saying other things. It's very similar to our world today. All right. I like that. Someone who's really trying to preach – really is preaching truth, and they're being called bigots, or – and it's like, no, this is what the Bible says. Yeah. This is exactly what's the truth. So, we have our own version, and they even make him eat it once. The king does. He's like, I don't like that.

You're going to eat that. Eat what? The word. The word. Oh, wow. The scroll. You're going to like it. Does it taste bitter or sweet like it did for – So, to answer the question on the chat, the question was, is the discussion that God wouldn't tell different people different things about the Trinity, so someone has to be not listening to Jesus? No. No. As I said, Mac, we almost fit – I don't want to say exactly the opposite, but it is – the question isn't – I don't know that it's that distinct. Like I said, I think what God has provided in the Bible is as clear as he wanted it to be. Yeah. I think that we mess things up. He's very clear. Yeah. You know, as much as he wants us to know, as much as we can comprehend. I mean – And I'm not sure that someone who thinks differently on the Trinity than me, who reads

the same Bible and otherwise is, you know, following Christ and living a life that demonstrates his love – Acknowledging there is a Trinity. Yeah. Not that they're messing with the Trinity, but their understanding of how the Trinity works. Whether it's three dudes in one or one dude in three – like, the question is, is that a hill to die on where you start cutting friends and being exclusive? Like, is it stop the progress of Christ in the world by really standing on that thing and running with it? And I don't know. I don't know that that's healthy. I don't – like, healthy discussion of Scripture, I think, is awesome, but we may be overly preoccupied with distinctions that say nothing of the love of Christ. Yeah. I guess that's – I think – I guess that's what I'm getting at. Because obviously there's the Father, Son, the Holy Spirit – excuse me – and I just – when I refer to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, I say, well, God knows exactly what that looks like, and I just know it is, and I just have faith he's smarter than I am. Yeah. I mean, I don't know how – Yeah. The person you're worried about, their salvation. You don't go up to them without saying anything else before.

You'd be like, okay, so what do you think about the Trinity? It's not the first thing you open up your evangelism, speak to a person that does not know Jesus with. So I don't think it's the biggest thing. So the follow-up question is, how do you discern where interpretation is allowed, Dan? Troy? All right. That's an honestly good question. Like I say, it boils – I mean, gosh, it's one of those things – it's like they say with the obscenity to the river. I don't know how to define it, but I know it when I see it, I guess. I mean, like I say, if you mess with the Trinity in that you say there is no Trinity or that, well, there's only two or something, you've messed with it. You've messed with – you've crossed biblical lines. If you just confuse with how the Trinity works – see, I see it as three Father, Son, Holy Spirit who are – but yet they're one. Yeah, yeah. See, as I explain it, I'm like – you know. See, here's the thing is I think – and I would agree. I think some people do get their distrust because people can pervert the gospel. Most of the time, the greatest perversions though, again, I think are ignoring the full counsel of God. They're picking certain things and holding above other things in the gospel. I would say that discernment – like being – people's interpretation, as long as you

don't make God out to be a liar, as long as it is consistent with his entire counsel and otherwise doesn't degrade his instructions for your life, his love, his grace. You know what I'm saying? Like otherwise it's not in conflict with what else is in the Bible. A person that's really following Christ I don't think is going to totally fail on this. I think there are people honest – like people that love Jesus can disagree on things where the Bible simply does not speak because God doesn't care to. He didn't put it in there for a reason. You know, I think you have to be careful because people will twist. I think people will take things and say – make it sound like it is something that it isn't. I'm way more concerned about people twisting language a little bit here and there and showing up with something that I am about them, coming up with like a wild thing that somehow magically fits into everything else God said. You know what I'm saying? But I think that's where you have to be careful is we listen – think of how we take in information. We take in things in segments, right? We listen to sermons in little bottles. We listen to – we see Bible studies in little segments. We hear people talk and give lectures. Like you don't get this guy's reading of the entire Bible, right? All you get is somebody's discussion on the thing, whatever their cause is. The champion of their biblical cause. And so you're not getting a good view of what they think about everything else and

whether it fits in with everything else. So like one of the things we were talking about going through – going through the Ephesians thing and I was trying to think of things, you know, things that we probably could do to kind of prepare and get the most out of the – out of the sermon series. I thought, you know, we should make sure you're reading through it. It's a pretty short book. Try to read through it on a weekly basis. That would probably be helpful. Feel free to take in, you know, have – use other resources. But for heaven's sakes, be discerning. Like be careful. Recognize that you're just getting snippets from other people. You don't know the full breadth of what they believe or what they think. Don't assume that they are coming from a full counsel of God. So just be careful. And I think that's – I think that's where it falls. I think just keep an eye out. God's not going to send you down the wrong path if you're keeping an open heart. And you're – and like the Bereans, you're checking everything, right? I mean, Paul. Paul is with the Bereans, and he said – and he has them wait overnight and say, look, we're going to check this out, and we'll get back to you. That's awesome. You know, and that's Paul.

So I think we can take the same stance and say, look, that sounded pretty cool. Let me check it out. Like I don't even find it entertaining or apply it to my life until I check it out and make sure I – even if they read the scripture, I'm going to read the scripture and see that I come to the same spot because I don't think God's going to send me in a river where I can't figure that out on my own and be able to discern scripture relative to what someone else is saying. So there you go. Why am I at a yutz? Wait. Are you a yutz or am I a yutz? Who's that? Am I the yutz? You're a three-fingered yutz. I don't know what that means. Exactly. I'm kind of hurt right now. It's the – that's the tricotomy. All right. I don't know if I spelled that right. Tricotomy. All right. You're listening live from the past, so I don't know. Quit listening, everybody.

Stop that. And give it a rest. I don't care what it is. If you participate in online communications, take a break. Give it a rest. Don't type more than two responses in an hour period. And go hug your kids. I used to respond quite a bit to – there's a guy on Facebook that just throws lobs things out just to get things going. And sometimes I thought, okay, this is my opportunity to really show what Jesus says about stuff. And it was the same thing. It was like the same five guys that were, oh, yeah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they just would be an atheist, and I don't know what they all were. And I finally thought – it's a waste of time because that was their hobby or their thing. I don't know. Same thing. 24 hours a day. They were in there just throwing lob and stuff back. And I'm like, okay, they're not there to really think and learn. They're just there to cause and stir – cause problems and stir. And it's just not – you're not going to – I'd rather, again, go to the neighbor and have a barbecue with him and bring him over and talk to him about Jesus.

Yeah. Troy, do you spend any time on blogs, commenting on things? Not a second. It's not across your mind? Not a second. I can't say that. No, that's not true. Just a couple weeks ago, I had like a Facebook status about – it had nothing to do with faith and religion. It was just a school issue. That was the only thing in probably the last year I've blogged about. But it was just a Facebook status where I got in a very long argument – well, not argument – discussion with a couple people, and it turned into like 170 comments on my Facebook, and it lasted like six days. Wow. Eventually, about halfway – well, not halfway through, like a couple hours in, I just said, you know, we're going to have to call it an agree to disagree. Yeah. Because, I mean, this is – I don't want to fight with you. I don't want to get to a relationship-crippling discussion. I want me to have my opinion, you to have your opinion. And then if it ever comes to a situation where you want to talk about it again, where we're not heated up like we are right now, let me know. And then he kept going on with other people, and I was just like glad I got out of that.

I find that, like – you've got to be able to recognize what's going to bear fruit. I mean, you just got – I mean, there's some trees that don't want to grow, right? They want to stay there like, I'm the spooky old tree, and I want to be the spooky old tree, and I'm going to stay that way. And if they want to do that, I mean, you don't waste your time pruning, watering, feeding the spooky old tree. Yeah. If you fight everything, it lowers the importance of the battles you do engage in. Yeah. Like I say, there's very, very few things I'll fight for, but when I do, I will not – I won't back down. I mean, on – it's terrifying. Dan, if I recall, you – and this has been – how long has this been? It's been almost a year since you – we got in that discussion with a bunch of the atheists about the prayer room that we did. And you got in some long discussion with those folks about the appropriateness of our holding a prayer room at the atheist convention, if I recall that correctly. It was an interesting – That was – yeah. That sounds familiar. It should. You've forgotten that? You were up at like 3.30 in the morning. Yeah, it was quite intricate.

I remember looking at some of those threads and just laughing hysterically. And it was – yeah. The goal was to really show our heart, as I recall, of the thing that – you know, we weren't there to say they're inferior or judge them or blah, blah, blah. But – there you go. There you go. We even mingled and didn't cause any drama. At least I don't think we did. I think one of the most enlightening things when we did that was going down there like eating breakfast. And since we didn't – we weren't holding signs and protesting. We weren't calling them dummies. Yeah. They didn't know who we were. They assumed we were one of them. Yeah. So there was honest and open – not with us. They knew – but we could sit literally this close to someone and hear their conversation without them guarded like, oh, there's those Christians. Yeah. At this point in time, I was still smoking. So I was out at some point in time out in front of the hotel sitting outside in a bench smoking and listening to people's conversations. And people would come over to me and be like, well, what did you think about that?

I was like, oh, I wasn't there for that. I'm sorry. And they're like, oh, cool. And they wouldn't ask me why I was there. But I was just like, okay. I'm just hanging out. It was – you want something really awkward though? So we were there at that convention. We were praying and I was leaving. And I think the last day – yeah, it was right at the very end. We were closing up and I was heading out. And I passed someone that I work with who was like – and who had – I mean, he was there for the convention. He had on like the badge and everything. Oh, nice. Who? Well, hello. That's awkward. And like I wasn't wearing a badge or anything. He could assume that that's what I'm there for. But it's pretty well known where I work that I'm not – Jesus freak. I'm the other end. And so it was kind of weird.

Because now, I don't know, you run into that guy in the elevator. Hey, buddy. How's it going? I know what you don't believe. You spend a lot of time not believing it. If you did believe, would you be a trichotomist or a dichotomist? He did not give me a fist bump. He didn't. He didn't give you a fist bump? Ah, how dare you. You're listening to Live from the Path. Hey, we are on every Monday night from 10 to midnight here on livefromthepath.org. You can catch us during the week at that same website. You can get links to our YouTube channel. That is going to hit – I tell you what, it's going to hit 100,000. It's going to do it this week. No way. It's going to do it. Yes. It's going to be a big time. Also, second year anniversary show coming up either the third or fourth week of March. Stay tuned. We need to create some festivities. Something.

Are we going to do popcorn again and have a live audience? Yeah, I think that's a lot of fun. Let's do that. Let's do that. If nothing else, I like the popcorn. Yeah. I'll have Pants bring some gumbo in. Oh, nice. Pants, you put some gumbo together, buddy. What can we do? We've got to have prizes. Okay. Let's give away something. Yeah. What do we give away? Here's what I'll do. Here's what I'll give away. I will give you a compilation of some select cuts as performed live here in studio from some of the artists that have been here. I'll put that together for you. We'll sign it. Yeah. We're not signing it. I'm kidding.

Pants, why not? Pants, why won't you do some gumbo? Takes him like four days to make it. So? Literally, that's all I heard about during Super Bowl weekend. Last year's party was not a tanker. Oh, man. No, it was good. We had pizza here, didn't we? We had something. Tony was here. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, wait. Maybe that was just our first time in the studio. Pants, I can't believe you're not going to do that gumbo, man. We need to actually get people here. I was going to say, I can't remember if I was here or not. Beyond just say, come on out. I mean, you're going to have something. Hey, come on out. Did you do the ad for us? Yeah. I'm going to be.

I need a new ad. What part of the ad? I need a new ad, man. I have to drop Pants. He's refusing to participate. There's no gumbo. He's no spokesman for us. Oh, man. That's totally not. I'll do whatever you guys want me to do. We'll put something together. Something's got to go on. Okay. So coming back around to a conversation we started when the show fired up. Oh, Pants will buy a pizza. Okay. Gumbo pizza? All right, deal. Gumbo pizza. You're in. Bring the shrimp. I can't believe he's not making the gumbo. That's disappointing. All right.

So we started talking right when the show started about here in Des Moines, there has been a, or the Des Moines metro area, there was a pastor on the south side that put up a sign that said, gay is not okay. Caused a pretty quick backlash from the gay community. Within hours. Yeah, within hours. It was very quick. Vandalized three times within 12 hours. Yeah, see, now here's the deal. Here's the deal with the vandalized. It was a sticker. I know, but it sounds more sensational. That's what I'm saying. Vandalized. I thought vandalized, and I took a look at it, and some guy put a sticker on it. I thought, that is not vandalization. Yeah. Not their property. Shouldn't be putting stuff on people's property. I understand it. But vandalization, that's a little bit extreme of a description. So anyway, quite the reaction. Got on the news. The Register covered it.

It's on Channel 8. He changed his sign after about 12 hours, after receiving some threats against his family, him, and that kind of thing. And so they ended up, there were some people, I think like 300 people said they were going to show up to protest. They may have had. Like 80. Yeah. It wasn't quite the turnout. But they, I mean, they had signs and everything. It was kind of a good organized affair. Standing in the front, holding things up. And the pastor of the church went ahead with the sermon as planned, preached it. Put it on the Ustream. It was available live streaming. I watched it. Yeah. What you preaching on Sunday, Dan? In between services. Oh. They start at 10. We have from 10 to 10.30. And then after church, it's still there. So I went and watched it.

The sermon. Okay, brilliant. So anyway, I mean, there was a lot of discussion. Like I said earlier, I had a lot of interesting discussions at work this week. Kind of on that. I think my general, if I had to give a two-minute or less reaction, it would be I obviously agree with the premise. I don't know that there's anything effective about the initial communication. Nor does it sound like that was his intention. Right. But perhaps had not thought that in the reaction through correctly. But like I don't think it's – I don't think it accomplished anything positive necessarily for the congregation nor for the people outside of it. Like the message itself. Now, what God will do with it, who knows? He'll do what he wants. So anyway, but it brings up a broad question. After kind of looking at the reaction, a lot of it was that the Jesus-following side are unenlightened. We are – this is the civil rights issue of our time. It's portrayed that way. Frankly, I think that degrades kind of the civil rights issue. Yeah. But anyway, so how do you combat that, Dan?

How do you combat people who look at you and say, you're the Neanderthal? You're the social Neanderthal. You believe in a bigoted point of view. We are enlightened about this. We have progressed as a society, and you have not. What's the reaction? I really don't know. I mean, I think that's what I've been kind of trying to process the last, oh, 10 or 15 years, just looking at its culture as it has changed so much. Even since I was in high school, it's changed dramatically on every issue. And when – in 1976, my mom and dad were divorced, okay? So that was long before I was in high school. But she moved out of town because there was so much shame that she didn't – she didn't think anybody would talk to her. And I mean, it could have been just her putting shame on herself. But it was so unusual then that it was just like, oh, I'm like the divorced person. And so she just moved. And we moved back to Des Moines where we had lived earlier. And my dad stayed up north. And like now, it's – you're really weird if you haven't been. I mean, like you only had, what, one mom? One mother. That's really weird. My girls got that growing up when they were young.

And so the culture has changed a lot. And I don't know how to say this is truth in a generation that says there is no truth. You know, that if you say there's truth and you're intolerant, you're a bigot, you're – they come up with all kinds of names for you, closed-minded and, yeah, Neanderthal, all that stuff. I don't know. I honestly don't know. How do you talk to people in your generation that there is a God? It's extremely difficult. Like in all honesty, it really is. This is one of the big things that I have friends who are gay. I mean, I have friends that are gay. I'm completely okay with them. I don't discriminate against them. They firmly know that I am not a supporter of their actions. I'm not a supporter of what they do. I love them. Not what they do. And it's the same way that you react to anyone. It's any sin. I mean, you love the person. You love their soul. You love their heart. You love who they are, not what their works are. You have to – that's where it's hard for me to battle with someone and say,

I love you with all of my heart. I can walk up to a complete stranger. I have the heart of this. I can walk up to a complete stranger, say, I love you with all my heart, and mean it entirely. 100% of the way true. When it's my friends, I can walk up and say, I love you with all of my heart. I don't agree with what you're doing. Here's the situation. God's against it. So I'm against it. I'm not against you. I'm against your actions. And it's hard to say that because then they come back with, what do you do? What are your problems? I sometimes use foul language. Yeah, exactly. Just list them off and be like, yeah, I'm not perfect. I have a list. I'm not coming to you saying, hey, my name's Troy Engeldinger. I am perfect. Yeah. And here's what you're doing wrong. I come to them with open arms saying, I love you.

And I hope that you love me for all the stupid stuff that I do. Because I know God loves me for all the stupid stuff that I do on a daily basis that is rebelling entirely against him. But he still loves me. And my generation, they don't understand that when I say gay is not okay because it's not, I'm being truthful when I say that. I'm not saying that against the person. I'm saying that against the action. And most people that see a gay is not okay sign don't think that way. They think that that is a personal affront against the person, not the action. That's why I'm against putting up a sign that says gay is not okay just because that's not what you're trying to get across. You need to. Yeah, exactly. You don't go up to a non-believer and say, here are the rules, and then leave out the love entirely. What's our faith without God loving us entirely? Well, I mean, to be honest, they could give a crap about the rules. Yeah, exactly. If there's no love, why are you going to follow the rules? Why are you going to follow me and say, you know, I'm not going to do that, but what's the gain for me not doing that? It's so hard to get that point across because I've had that conversation before. I wonder if that's why so many churches are so wimpy, like we talked about earlier. They don't hit higher doctrine because, I don't want to offend anybody, and they'll walk away. It's like, well, guess what? Paul wasn't worried about not offending the people. Neither was Jesus. Yeah, Jesus did.

Crowds walked away from him. Yeah. Jesus didn't go just to be the nice guy. I mean, he – of course, obviously, Jesus was nice. I'm not saying that at all, but hopefully. I think that's the biggest problem is people think that it's an affront against them as a person. No, it's an affront against – Well, that's a – well, but I mean, from their perspective, though, that's a distinction that you make that they don't – right? Like they – this is – that's generally referred to it as a lifestyle. They're like, well, you're calling this a sin that I commit. A, I don't believe it's a sin, and B, it is who I am. I was born this way. That's how God created me. That's how God wants me to be. I can't stand that argument so much. I don't – because it's on false data. It makes absolutely no sense. Yeah, it was – Homosexuality is something that started – I think it was back in ancient Greece was when it started, or probably before then. It's probably been around a long time. But I mean, it was started – Satan always corrupts the purity of God. It wasn't a genetic thing that just came out as a mutation. Yeah.

You're not born that way. I'm probably going to get some Facebook threats for saying that, but – So, Chad, we're talking about Paul's letters were to churches. Paul's letters were, but I mean, Paul's document is preaching outside of his letters. I mean, when he preached on Mars Hill, there were people who were not – Book of Acts. Yeah, yeah. His whole story, him going to nonbelievers. Exactly. He's talking to nonbelievers. So, I mean, plenty of vindication that Paul spent a lot of time preaching in synagogues and in writing to churches agreed, but he also did spend time preaching to nonbelievers, and that – the last part of Acts is all about that. Maybe part of this is – we're talking about how do you reach this generation – is we have to go back to relying on the Holy Spirit. You know, back in the 50s, you just built a building, and they came, and they make a program, and they fill them, and the church got lazy, which is why they became inbred, you know, spiritually. And in this era, we don't have the luxury to be lazy. I mean – You have to fight. We've got to rely on the power of God. Just like in the book of Acts, people died for their faith, but also God did amazing things, and he moved, and people became believers. And they were in cultures where – I'm going to talk about this Sunday. In Ephesus, you know, part of worship was going to the temple, and whether it was heterosexual or homosexual, I mean, they were male and female prostitutes. You're worshipped there through the act. And to those people, you know, Paul said, hey, by the way, that doesn't work.

Yeah, that's not going to flow. That's how they were raised, you know. So it's not that much different today than it was then, but we've got – we can't assume a program or a music style or a cool preacher with, you know, blonde tips. Spiky hair. Spiky hair and blonde tips is going to bring him in. It's got to be the Holy Spirit. Are you blonde tips away from being that guy? I was going to say, I think I'm going blonde tips if that's what it takes. Oh, man, you're going to look like a boy band. I think a lot of that's true. I think a lot of times, you know, we think, well, what do we do? And it's like, well – We need cool coffee. We need awesome coffee mugs. And there's nothing wrong – actually, I was wanting a coffee mug this week. I was looking at the table, and there was a coffee mug with pens in it. I thought, man, I'd like to have that coffee mug. That's like the last one. Yeah. But I think you're absolutely right, though. I think sometimes we try to take too much of our hands and think, what are we going to do? How are we going to help? And a lot of it is, God, what do you want to do? And then we can be the hands and feet of making sure that happens.

Yeah, I agree. I think the problem – I mean, that can be two-sided. A lot of people are praying for a revelation and just going through a revival – excuse me, not a revelation – in the world and in our cities and in our homes and everything like that. But, yeah, you can pray for those things. But when you get an answer, go. Well, that does tend to be the issue. People are doing. I don't know about that. I'm praying for revival. You guys go do that. Yeah, exactly. What are you doing? I'll put it back here. I'll support the revival. That's a nice tint. I'll put a check in the chicken bucket when it came by. You know, and here's the deal. It's like, that's not even a – there's no direction to the word revival. We will revive. Revive what? Like, it's not resurrect. That's cool.

Yeah. It's not come to Jesus necessarily. It's just like, do differently than what you're doing with a little more – National repentance. You're saying the confrontation is the way to go or the love until they know God loves. I don't know that we said that. I think that's a false choice. It's with anyone. It's got to be – you've got to know your audience. Here are some people who can take – you know, you are messing this up. This is the down right of it. You are going to hell. You can say that to some people and they're like, oh, okay. And then some people are like getting offended and start crying. They're like, well, that doesn't help me at all. My natural reaction is to get offended. I mean, hey, how you're living – it's something that I thought was fine. And someone came up to me and said, Ben, the way that you drive your car, you will be punished eternally for it. My first reaction is, why would you say Jesus is saying I drive fine? You know what I'm saying? Like, again, from that perspective, I think it's – a natural reaction to me is not someone going, oh, you know what? I am terrible.

I'll change my ways. That would be awesome. And God can do that. But like, I mean – That would be way too convenient for us. Someone confronts your lifestyle. I think your initial reaction is to be defensive about it. I don't know. I mean, there's – people follow Christ and they're sitting or there's something about their life that is not Christ productive and you point it out. People are going to get offended. I mean, it's a natural reaction. Here's what I – I had a – so I had a discussion with somebody at work this week. This had come up and I said, look – and they're trying to get me to describe – it was actually kind of a weird conversation because we'd talked before and I'm an all-or-nothing guy. Like, the Bible's true or it ain't. If it ain't true, I'm wasting my life. Yeah. If it is true, then we're heading in the right direction. Things are going fine. But he was like, well, if it's all-or-nothing, he goes, I just – I don't – on this gay thing, I just don't feel like there's a thing here. I don't care. I don't – they should be able to do it.

It's fine with me. And he goes, so maybe I'm a nothing. And I said – and so we kind of talked through that a little bit. And I said, you know, here's the thing. It's like I'm going to have to tell you the truth. Like, the truth is that this is not okay. That's the truth. And I would be doing you a disservice. I would be, A, lying to you, and, B, saying I don't care about your eternal place in – your eternal existence to not say that this is what I think is true. And I wouldn't believe it if I didn't think it was true. So there you go. That's where we're starting. From there, I can understand that you're not there. And I can – as much as you're willing to talk about it, I can talk to you about why I am and why we're there and why sitting and, like, explaining that truth and making sure that it's – that you know that that's what it is is important enough for me to talk about. That's where I'm at right now. And, like, I'm not upset about it. I'm not overjazzed about it. I know where this guy is coming from. I know why he thinks the way he does or I have an idea. And I'm certainly not going to couch truth. But it's not a – one of the things where people's reactions – sometimes we make a mistake.

And, frankly, this is life we make this mistake, not just, like, evangelists and stuff. But it's assuming that people's actions, thoughts, and words come from a reasoned response, that they thought about it, that they came from a good background with solid teaching, solid understanding, solid knowledge, solid view of the world, healthy parenting, all that stuff. Put it all together. We assume that people came to this decision intentionally and did X with their life, said X with their mouth, thought X with their mind. And then we hold them accountable for that very thing. And people are responsible for their actions and their words and their thoughts. I get that. But the thing is, is, like, they don't always get to those actions, to those words, and to those thoughts through a healthy place. And reacting as if someone has made a reasoned decision to do something, say something, think something, is generally misguided. A lot of people's lives don't reflect a healthy backing to that. They don't reflect a healthy home life. People make weird decisions with their kids. And I'm hard on people about that. Like, a guy who doesn't treat his kids well, who doesn't spend time with them, who doesn't show affection for me. Like, what does it matter with you? Like, seriously, what does it matter with you? Pull it together. Raise your kids.

But my reaction comes from a position where I say, you know better. He should, but maybe he doesn't. That doesn't mean he doesn't need to change. And the truth is he does. And he has responsibility to change. However, treating him as if he came to that decision from a healthy background as a kid, through reasoned thought, the reasoned biblical guidance, is almost definitely a lie. Right? And I think sometimes when we approach people, you always have to approach people with truth because you are doing a disservice if you're not. You're lying to people. You're giving them a false impression. I don't think you lead with that. Hi, are you gay? Because I want to make sure that if I tell you that's a sin before we go anywhere. Like, wrong. Right? But I would never do someone the disservice of lying to them. Yeah. Because, so the what? So that I could be in a good relationship and tell them the truth later? Like, that's a bad premise to be friends with somebody, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. And so I think you just need to be discerning, but also recognize that you're not always dealing

with someone who has, like, come to a conclusion based upon reasoned thought, healthy background, healthy mind. It's just not always the truth. That goes back to, like we've been saying all along, is knowing your audience. You've got to listen. And sometimes we're so intent on telling our message, we don't stop and listen to know what to say. Yeah. You know what to say by where they are, where they're coming from. You know, engaging your mind, engaging yourself into their life. And if you're just, you know, blankly saying you're not okay, whatever you are. Plumbers are not okay. Well, why? You know, whatever it is. And so that's very key to look at the individual and know them, listen to them, find out where they are, and take them to the next step. And sometimes it's, you know, if you don't know how people got there, I had the conversation with the same guy, and I said, look, you know, it's important, I need to know how people got to where they're at. Like, it doesn't do many, there's a truth about where they're at and whether, you know, whether they're on the right path or not. But a lot of times it's important to know how they got there, because people got there under false pretenses, right? Anybody that's not following Christ came to that decision under false pretenses.

Because if God is truth, and they're not following Christ, then there's a false in somewhere, right? And it doesn't do me any good to proclaim truth directly and let it roll and figure out where's the lie. At what point did you exchange the truth of God for a lie? Where? You know, and then we can work on that, on why that thing is not true. And, you know, a lot of those lies come from perversions of the Bible, perversions of Jesus, you know, whatever it is. But if you don't know that, it's hard to just say, you know, well, here's what I think is true. Because people are so relative when it comes to truth. There's not a moral, there's not a specific. And here's, I know a broad range of conversations. I shouldn't send a thank you note to this man, because he at least did bring in a conversation to Southside Pastor, got me in some conversations that I thought were helpful. But one of the, we talked about is, you know, like, how do I know, how do I know what is true? You know, and if I believe certain things, you know, take a little bit from here and there, you know, what's the harm? And, and I said, well, here's the thing is if you can read, you read a bunch of different religions or something and you, you say, well, that looks pretty good. I'm going to, I think that makes sense. I'm going to take this.

I think that makes sense. I said, ultimately, what you're saying is that you have the ability to say ultimately what is right and what is wrong. That makes you God. The question is, do you trust your own self as God? And at the same time, can there be you God and me God? Because I think differently than you do. There's things that I think are correct and things that you don't think are correct. We both can't be right there, right? Because if there's a straight truth, if there's a, if there is a truth, one of us has got to be wrong if we don't agree. And so that means both of us are God. But boy, that seems difficult. And so, A, I'm not willing to worship myself as God because I'm, I've seen it. I'm a fallible deity. And secondly, I'm not the same as you, which means one of us has to be a false God. So ultimately, we can't agree that, that people picking and choosing, you have to get on board with the fact that then that makes you God. And the question is, does that sound right to you? Does it sound right to you that you're God? You're the arbiter of what is true and what is not true. And most people would say, yeah, maybe I'm not that dependable as the guy that says what is ultimately true and what is ultimately not true. And the only way out of that is to say, uh, there is no ultimate truth and that's real

trippy. Yeah. That's trippy. Yeah. You can get there, but it's trippy. So anyway, lots of, lots of, lots of conversations this week about that particular item. So in some ways that's been a healthy little thing. It's, it's an excursion. What do you think, Troy? What do we learn from this? Where do we go? Where do we go from here? Let me be honest. I'm just sitting here processing. Okay. That was a extremely valid. I mean, that was a series of extremely valid points that I, are you trying to decide whether you're God or not? No, I'm definitely not. If I am God, we are all in a lot of trouble. That's what I'm saying. Thankfully, thank you for not putting that responsibility on me and giving me that power. I'm not Bruce almighty. I couldn't do it.

There's no, it's, that's ridiculous. You are not the arbiter of good and evil. I can't decide what to do on a daily basis, let alone with existence. So, and I don't remember anything past 1991 personally. So I don't think I'm God. I know I'm not. I'm certain I'm not. I'm certain. It's been recently. I've come to that conclusion, but I'm certain of it. If there was existence prior to 1991, that immediately eliminates me. What is it about us that makes us think we must be that right? Is it just the whole, we need to justify our life, therefore what I think has got to be right? That's almost always true, right? Like people try to make their lives look as if they made, right? It feels good to make right decisions. It feels good to be a good example for people. It feels good to be the person that relieves people's pain by saying what you're doing is just fine. It's because it's easier. I mean, there is an easy quality to saying, to not saying there's things wrong about my life. I need to change it instead of saying, well, why don't I just call the things that I'm

doing wrong and say that they're right? And boy, that's way easier, isn't it? I don't have to do anything differently. That's true. That's true. And there's no guilt. There's no anything. It's just easy. You know, and the thing is, is like, that's not universally true. There are people that make decisions that are socially unacceptable that are also sin and leads to a very harsh life, a life that is difficult, that is social ostracization. That's not right. Ostracizing? How do I say that without saying anything like I'm saying they're an ostrich, like a bird? I think it sounded good to me. Put the thing on it. Anyway. Okay. So, I mean, some of these decisions don't result in, like, better lives but give people peace or reconcile things that they feel or think or whatever with a reality that they embrace. And so, I mean, ultimately, there is an ease there, even if it doesn't society look like an ease.

It's a Christ-following thing. It is easier for me to follow God because that's what I know to be true. And a life not following God is very difficult to do for someone that believes that. And whether that is, in this stage, is not all that socially acceptable when you're doing it fully, you know, it's still, there's no choice there, right? There's not a choice to make. And there are people that, on the other end, that I think, you know, think that and whose lives don't reflect a peace that surrounds that. But, you know, it's a consistency with what they're feeling. But, I don't know. I think it's difficult. I think we just, and to kind of reinforce, I think, if I'm summarizing the chat correctly, is make sure, and some of the stuff we've talked about, is make sure you're listening to people. Don't be so, it doesn't make sense to think that people will automatically feel convicted and repent based upon the rules or the thoughts of a God that they don't believe in. Just like I wouldn't. If you, you know, if someone said, you know, here, here's my new God, the Lorax. So I've chosen the Lorax. Lorax God. And he says to me, Ben, you need to change your ways. And I would say, you're not even a real God. I don't have to do anything. I don't have any reason to change or feel bad about myself or alter my behavior because

some fake God has told me to do something. It's just like when you're a kid and you're crossing the street, like in a school area, unless that dude has a vest on with a big orange, I don't care what you say. What do you mean, stop? Who are you? Or what do you mean, you know, you don't have the vest. You don't have authority. And so, yeah, if you have decided whoever wrote the Bible does not have authority and the Bible is not your authority, then yeah, what do you care? You can tell me what you want. You believe what you want? The Bible says you're wrong. Well, I also wrote a fake book. So, like, I mean, notice where you're coming from. Their issue is not with a Bible they don't believe in, and that's not going to get them anywhere. I think the love of Christ can shine without you bringing it out and beating them on the head with it. Show people what Jesus looks like. Show them those actions in your life. And then they'll want to follow. They'll want to repent. They'll say, look, I want to do what God tells me to do. This forcing people into becomes a works thing, and it's a fail.

It's a godly fail. You're not living the life God asks you to do when you're forcing you to do something. It's when you say, I want to. And, yeah, you'll fail at times, and you will struggle to do the right thing. But, like, ultimately, I want to do what pleases God. I want my life to reflect God's will, and sometimes it reflects my will, and I know that, but I don't want it to. And that's the distinction in some of this. Change your way so that God will love you. That's ridiculous. And it's the wrong message, and it casts the wrong tone. And I know people don't, there's a lot of folks that don't mean to say it like that, but if you don't control your message well, it can easily come off as that. And that's the type of thing that, like, can scar somebody, and that you have the hardest time getting them to see the love of Christ through the words and actions of people that claim to love Christ. And it's difficult. You're listening to Life in the Path. My name is Ben Foost. Here we go. Dear Abby, dear Life in the Path. Mike usually does. I've been divorced for two years and am friendly with a man, Byron. Byron.

Why does it have to be in quotes? I'm sure. Whose friendship I value. A few weeks ago, we decided to explore a dating relationship. Unfortunately, the past couple of weeks have been busy for me. We haven't been able to spend as much time together as either of us would like. Last night, Byron texted me saying he knew where this was going and thought we should talk about it. He subsequently said he thinks I wasn't being honest about wanting to spend time together. When I reassured him, he explained that he has abandoned many issues. Sorry. Now I feel I must be careful not to do anything that might cause him to panic. Should I back off now and try to salvage the friendship, or should I give the romance a chance? His paranoid actions so early into this stage of our relationship have made me uncomfortable. It's as if he's asking for a guarantee already. Uneasy in South Dakota. Wow, there's a lot of places to go there. Number one, you're in South Dakota. There's only one other guy. Keep him. Number two, grab Byron before he runs. Number two, he overreacted, but she overreacted to his overreaction. If there's only two weeks old, have some communication.

Sit down, talk about it, and say, hey, guess what? Let's be mature adults. I'm busy. You're busy. Can we start over? He knows that. They've been friends. But give him one. You've got to give him that one warning. By the way, you kind of got me concerned. You're overreacting. Yeah. I was busy. Are we good? Or is this going to continue? Yeah. Because we can end this now, and we'll both be happier. Let's not go down the road if we don't have to. Troy, what do you think? That would freak me out. What do you mean? As the lady? As the lady, yeah. As Troy wearing the lady's shoes.

It freaks people out. Gigantic lady's shoes. Yeah, that would freak me out. That's two weeks in, already freaking out about, oh, you don't make time for me, and you're lying to me about time. And they were already hanging out before that. They've been friends for years, I think it said, two years. She's been divorced for two years, and I'm friendly with a man, Byron, so let's give her the benefit of doubt and say it's two years or less. Two years or less. So she's been flirting with him. Is that what friendly means? I try to read between the lines. Yeah, we're like, hey, Troy, whose friendship I value. Hey, Dan, can I go to the Super Bowl party? Okay, let's not do that anymore. That's really creeping me out, too. I think it's okay. That's going to make the highlight reel. I know, right? Great. I made it. He thinks I wasn't being honest about wanting to spend time together. That's a little concerning to me.

Yeah, you've been friendly, whatever connotation you want to play with that, for two years. You know her schedule. Like, you know what she does, unless they just recently got a job change, and now she's going from, I was working five hours a week part-time just messing around, to I'm working 80 hours a week overtime, which still, if you're friendly enough and in a relationship, dating relationship, you should know. It does not imply that he has any money, chat people. Maybe he takes tickets at Mount Rushmore. Maybe. It's a busy time. Maybe he actually owns Mount Rushmore. Maybe. Maybe. Anyway. Yeah. I just… You know what? Chuck him. Chuck him. Yeah, that's ridiculous. He's supposed to be leading this thing. Chuck him. Yeah, I don't think she wants to. That's why she's writing.

Oh, she doesn't. I really think I should, but I don't want to. She wants to give him the chance. Oh, I think she should. Which I think, if this is any indication of what's going to happen in 10 years, two weeks in, I mean, if he's already freaking out about this, what's going to happen? You're going to get more and more serious. I'd put a four-week time limit and not tell him. He has a right to be cautious? Why? What about this story has indicated that he has any reason to be concerned? No. No. No. I think he's ridiculous. I think he's overreacting. I think he's after her money. He's working. He texted it. I know where this is going. That's creepy. That's creepy. I've been through this before. Where is this going?

Let's talk about it. I thought we'd talk about it, but me starting it by sending a text. I'm not going to call you and be a dude. He's lame. Here we go. I don't like the guy. Secular advice. I don't blame you for having second thoughts. Byron appears to be someone who also has trust issues. Yeah, he said that. I have fierce. Hey, I have abandonment issues. Seriously? Abandonment issues after two weeks? He self-diagnosed himself as having an abandonment problem. That's an excuse to abandon people. This guy's terrible. That makes you want to out. Yeah, you've got to chuck him. You don't open with that. Hi, I'm Ben. I have abandonment issues. Want to get together? I'd like to make you feel guilty so that you'd have to always be around me.

Yeah, so you treat me with kid gloves and otherwise. If you don't text me back within two minutes after I text you, we're going to have issues. Yeah. Why are we talking in such a deep, weird voice? I'm going to eat this whole potato. Because Byron obviously talks this way. Every one of us has to pantomime. Here we go. All right. You've been friendly for some time. Therefore, he should have assessed your character before this. Back off because the only person who can resolve his insecurities is Byron. Your instincts are correct. Byron. All right. My mother-in-law recently moved. Dear Life in the Path. My mother-in-law recently moved into our home to escape a bad relationship. Boy, that's weird. Wait. Your mother-in-law. So is the bad relationship with your father? Or is this like a few other marriages down the line? We don't know.

Let's try the piece. I don't know. I assume it would have been clearer than that. Okay. But this is a weird situation already. All right. All right. Was it Byron? Maybe it is. Where did you figure in the one in the back? I abandoned my last guy. She's from Goo Goo Going Crazy in Connecticut. It's not the same place. Here we go. While I'm happy to have her, increasingly, I want to send her packing. She constantly baby talks, whether in the house or, God forbid, out in public. It drives me nuts. I sometimes wonder if she needs a knock upside the head for a reboot. My wife agrees it's annoying and needs to stop. But how do you tell a well-educated, mature adult that she sounds like an idiot and it's embarrassing to be with her in public? Sometimes her mannerisms even resemble those of a toddler. Goo Goo Going Crazy in Connecticut. What? Like she baby talks them?

It sounds like just in general she talks like that. Can't you just say, seriously, knock it off? Yeah. I mean, if it's a well-educated, mature adult. Her mother. I think she can take mom seriously. I think she needs psychoanalyzed. Stop with the baby talk. Like, okay, geez, what is it? No. No more. None of that. Thank you. Does Byron want some soupy? Does Byron want some soupy? Does Byron want some soupy? Who has a better minute of soupy? Pretty Byron. Does Byron feel alone? Seriously, the daughter should be taking care of this. If your mom has moved in and she's acting ridiculous and embarrassing everybody, can't you just pull her aside and say, mom, stop? Yeah, I would be able to just sit down with my parents and be like, dad. Yeah. Dad, seriously.

No, this isn't working. This is not. No. We're going to ground you. Love having you here. No more of that. I mean. If you're not comfortable enough saying that to your parents. Yeah. Is it wrong to think that perhaps. Why are you comfortable living with that? Her bad relationship has come from her weird behavior. Here's the deal. You know, you can't always trust people's evaluation of the relationship they're coming out of. It's like, man, I got out of a bad one. Well, like, maybe you were the bad part of it. Yeah, maybe you were the rotten apple. My husband treated me like a child. Did you go, ooze, ooze. My husband treated me like a child. I have nothing to say. No. I can't. I have no advice.

This is something that should not have been written in. This is ridiculous. You've gone to the extent of writing Dear Live from the Past about this. Now, hold on, she's in a real, the man's in a real conundrum here. Because I can't imagine the conversation is not at the least embarrassing, right? Yeah. And we always had a rule. If it's an in-law, the child has to be able to parent. Yeah. You know, it's just because I can't talk, you know, to your mom. That'd be, like, that just causes issues. Yeah. Because I'm the new guy. I didn't raise you. You don't know. Yeah. No matter how you look at it, I'm the new guy. Yeah. And you're not. So, and same with me. I had to talk to my parents. So, all right. All right. I don't, but seriously, this person comes up to you at work, Spankin' Leaser, and they

say, and they give you this story. How do you respond? Besides laughing and saying. I would try, with all of my being, to not laugh hysterically at this person. I would tell them, this is ridiculous. You're all adults. First time, I get some really awesome YouTube clips, though. Just something to write a book about. Exactly. Life with mom would be my channel. Oh, man. Here we go. So, here's the answer. Dear Crazy, has your mother-in-law always been like this? If the answer is yes, then she thinks her behavior is cute because she's gotten away with it for so many years and now does it unconsciously. If the answer is no, then perhaps it's time to have her evaluated. It could be dementia. Or Alzheimer's. I mean, she could be reverting. Which is, you know. Now, that's sad and not funny. Very sad. Now, I feel really bad.

You should. I am hoping so. How could you be so heartless? Here we go. My mom had that, you know. Thanks. You're really something else. You want to know the saddest thing that I remember? Just to completely change the subject. Speaking of Alzheimer's, remember what I remember? The saddest thing, my grandma, my grandma Kearns had Alzheimer's and to the extent that she didn't recognize people and stuff. I mean, her family and her husband died. And when he died, he had an open casket and like she was bawling her eyes out but didn't recognize him at all. It was as if she walked into a stranger's funeral. And I thought, and the reason that was sad to me was I thought, one, she doesn't recognize her husband. But two, think of the heart of that woman who is at a funeral for someone who she at this point does not know or recognize and is just upset. I should be sad because I know you're sad at funerals. Yeah. Yeah. But I think she was legitimately sad.

And it could be that connection thing that goes beyond. Byron's on the chat, by the way. Byron's on the chat? Hi, Byron. Byron says, how dare you? Hi, Byron. Is Byron feeling a little upset? Is Byron okay? Are you going to leave the chat, Byron? I apologize, Byron, if this is truly offensive. No harm. Oh, man. Yeah, it… All right. Yeah, because my great-grandma had Alzheimer's as well and she only remembered Trey because of red hair. Like, that was the only reason. And then Anne, her great-grandma right now, is actually at the last stages. Both of Cheryl's grandmothers and then my mom. Yeah. Yeah, so it's pretty… It's a sad… Although I kind of hope I get it because that way, you know, I'm happy. I don't care.

Yeah. Why do I care? And I make new friends every day. I was going to say, you meet new people every day and that's so terrible. Oh, look at this. Oh, they brought me presents. Oh, man. I just… Is it bad that I hope I don't get to that? Yeah. I mean, nobody really wants that. And like I can tell you with my mom… I'm not saying I don't want to live a long and fulfilling life, but I'm going to do brain teasers. Well, especially in… Yeah. I'm doing a lot of words with friends now just because it makes me think, you know, what's it doing? Yeah, Dan. Dan tells me about it. I saw one of the words… You played a lame word. It was like three letters. I'm not very smart.

The conjunction should not be used in words with friends. It gives me points. But my mom was extremely frustrated in the beginning because she knew she was forgetful. Yeah. You know, and she's just like… I was driving me insane. And then she'd get mad at other people thinking they forgot. No. She used to get so mad at her bank and I thought, well, I don't get it. You know, before we knew what she had. It was like, they keep changing how they do this. And I'm like, it's a statement. I don't know. It's a bank statement. Anyway, yeah. That would be frustrating. That would be extremely frustrating. Because she was always very proud of her mind. You know, she's always reading. Your mom was a teacher, wasn't she? Well, like, just for a little… I mean, she's done a lot of stuff. A lot of stuff. She was always educating herself, reading stuff.

Just what she did, you know. So, yeah. All right, here we go. Dear Life in the Bath, my boss, Ms. M, knows her stuff. She's supportive, flexible, and communicates well about what's happening within the organization. However, she spends most of her time in my cubicle. She'll start out in her office and 15 minutes later slide into my cubicle to show me her kids' latest photos or insist my colleagues and I watch YouTube videos of her favorite entertainers. Boy, that's weird. This happens continually throughout the day. I have to work from home in the evenings to get anything done. I've actually used vacation time so I can finish a project without Ms. M's constant interruptions. I thought it was just me until I got sick last year and was out for several days. I got hate mail from my colleagues because the boss was spending all her time in their cubicles. Meanwhile, contracts don't get finalized. Deadlines are missed. Phone calls go unanswered. A complaints pile up. When she gets heat from higher-ups, she'll work on the weekend to make things right. Then on Monday morning, she'll call a staff meeting that lasts over an hour, and we must listen to her sour complaints and more YouTube videos from the weekend. It's maddening. Ms. M is like a female Nero fiddling while the department burns. I want to do my job during working hours. Any suggestions?

Turn her in. That's ridiculous. If you're a manager, you manage. Are you kidding me? You've got to manage your time. You've got to manage your associates. You don't have time to have that personal of a relationship where you're sitting next to them at all points time to the day. But let's say the company's happy with her. The higher-ups either like her or they're just not involved. It just said the higher-ups are pressuring her. Contracts are being late. What company? But listen, she still works there. It has to be good enough that they haven't fired her. Yeah, as an associate, if you were conscious enough to realize that your manager is messing that much stuff up, their higher-ups should be able to manage a manager well enough for that. That's ridiculous. The chat has targeted you as a snitch. That's fine. You can target me as a snitch if you'd like to. That's completely understandable. I agree with you on some extent. But if it's to the point where you have to take your vacation time to get things done, you have to work from home to get things done,

that's an inconvenience to you that you are allowing by not saying anything. That's pretty sad. It's not a high school. It's a professional environment your manager should know professionally. Here's the deal. You can solve this, though, by creating awkward situations. If someone is coming to your desk and saying, watch this YouTube, I would pull it up and let it run and then pull up a spreadsheet or whatever and keep working on it. And they would say, oh, hey, how come you're not watching that YouTube video? You weren't watching that YouTube video. I say, I got work to do. I got to get this report you want. Yeah. And they say, oh, let's just watch it for a second. Yeah, I suppose. Okay, I suppose I will agree. I'm jumping to the conclusion that they've already tried to talk to the manager about it. You know, what I'm saying is, is like, I don't know that it's going to do much good to go to higher-ups who have not fired this woman already. Right? Like, if she's otherwise producing something, I think that's fine. But I'm saying, there's ways to make it awkward for her to come to your cubicle. I think Byron would really like that because otherwise he'd feel abandoned if she wasn't around much. Yeah, I think Byron would feel abandoned if she wasn't there at all points in time. Byron, do you have anything to say about the manager? It's probably Byron's mom.

She's the one who created all that abandonment issue. Whenever his managers were not right next to him. Byron, how am I doing today? Mommy will never leave you. Who's my little Byron? Oh, man. No, that's true. I kind of agree with making the awkward situation. I'm just saying there's creative ways around this. Like, that's what I would just make it so this person – maybe I'd start passing gas or something. I was just about to say that. I felt so bad. I was like, this is not – I would do whatever it would take to, like, allow me to do my job and have these people stop coming over. I think it's the extent that your coworkers are like, man, that Ben guy. People do come and talk to me all the time and I can't get stuff done. So, like, I'm at least at some points slightly rude. Yeah. Like, I just – I'm just – I'm busy. I'll pick up the phone while they're talking and dial the number on somebody else. I am a hypocrite. I'm just saying. There are ways around it, though, because I don't know that going to their boss is going to do any good. Yeah.

I don't do it to that extent, but I know that I do talk a lot. I'm a social butterfly. But you're irritating other people. You're this woman. I know. And that's why I have, within the last year and a half of actually working in a corporate world, I have toned it down a lot. I'm not in study hall anymore. I'm at work making money. So, to all my coworkers out there, if you're listening, I apologize. Making money chatting it up. Byron, how's your mom? Welcome to YouTube. Byron, what's going on with that relationship? Oh, you haven't hung out in two weeks. I'm the reason Byron is that way. I apologize. He got so used to me talking to him every single day. She didn't. It's Byron's mom. It's Byron. How's my little baby doing? Did he have lunch? He has the worst cowlick. Oh, man.

What a secular thing. All right. Here we go. Let's see. Any suggestions? I do have one because there are safety numbers. Everyone in the department who is affected by this problem should discuss it as a group with Miss M, supervisor, or boss. Lame. It appears Miss M is confusing her working relationship with those that are personal. How about be an adult and just say, hey, you know what? I got stuff to do. I got my friends and we're here to talk to you. Yeah, that just doesn't work. That's not going to work. I hate that. I totally. There's nothing. Somebody had some kind of problem. I supervise people, right? Someone came up and said, hey, I don't need to talk to you about so-and-so. They've done something. And I said, okay, fine. So they talked to me about it.

I said, well, did you tell them? I said, no, I'm telling you. I said, well, why do I have to tell them? I'm not part of this problem, too. I'm not being directly affected by this. I feel like, I mean, you're old enough to drink and go to the army and stuff. Can't you just walk over to that person and say, hey, what you said was kind of offensive to me? So that means I don't have to do that because I'm not old enough to drink? No, the point was is that you're an adult. Pull yourself together. It's like if you could walk over and talk to me, why can't you just go walk over and talk to that person? I had the problem. It's like, what happens if that person's not the adult? Because I feel like someone came over and said to me, hey, man, I want to bring you a problem for you to deal with. I was like, well, it seems like you have the problem. Why don't you deal with it? Why are you bringing me in to mediate? Obviously, you're comfortable talking about it. That's why you're here. So just change your direction, walk another 15 feet over and talk to that person. And then we've resolved this thing.

It's like, grow up. But here's the problem. It's like as a corporate environment, they facilitate this type. They feed into it because they say stuff like, we want you to feel open. Like, you can talk to us about anything. So if you're not comfortable talking to the person, you can go talk to their manager or somebody because we want you to feel like you can talk to anybody. It's like, I want you to feel like you can talk to anybody, like the person that caused you the problem, and then go talk to them about it, just like you would in a normal situation. Like, why do I create hierarchies of people that come and tell other people? It's the worst form of gossip. It's because it's… Structured gossip. It is. It is. Like, well, we encourage you to… Did you hear that this person did this? What are you going to do about it? Because here's the worst part, and this happens outside of the office too. Like, I actually, I would be surprised to find out that you don't get this, like even in the church, right? Yeah. And where people come up and say, St. Stephen's like, what am I supposed to do? Well, so-and-so said that this was true.

What is it? And they say, you know it wasn't. He said, oh, well, I totally wasted my time and embarrassed myself. Yeah. And like, or you're lying. He's like, and I have no way to tell whether you're lying, except for calling the guy in. It's like, now you're the mediator between two people that are trying to gossip. It's like, man, that's the worst spot to be in ever. Every once in a while, I'll get a message from, you know, just somebody saying, oh, so-and-so is doing whatever, whatever, you know. And I'm thinking, I just don't even respond. I think… I don't know why you told me that. Yeah. Why I need to know. And I just kind of erase it out of my memory. Do you get messages from pants saying, you know, Dan, Troy was in a church again on Sunday? I don't understand if you got that. I haven't. I have not. We don't need to call Dan. There's a chart inside this closet over here. How many times? We know.

We actually have been able to use the same chart for like three years. Because, like, you don't ever fill up the spaces. So, you know, you love the earth. Mother, Mother Gaia. Gaia? I heard… Here's the deal. Here's another thing that angered me this week. People writing about stuff. Some guy's talking about false… They've got some kind of tangent about false doctrine. And they're like, all these people that believe such and such, such and such, and that are all about sustainable living in the green movement. I thought, the green movement is not anti-God. What does it matter with you? And, like, here's the deal. I get it that people can sometimes worship the earth above God. People have idols all over the place. Granted, right? But, like, this is their big theological problem for the weak, the sustainable living movement. The guy who wants to, like, zero himself out and try to put the same stuff back. I can't do it because it's hard for me. I'm accustomed to a certain lifestyle. I wish I could. It's one of the things I wish I did better is taking care of something that God has provided.

I'm not, like, a green hippie, but, like, I think you should take care of stuff God gives you. Yeah, sure, sure. So, but these people going on, like, some kind of tangent about the green movement as if it's of the devil. Well, probably some of the, you know, leadership people are wacky. Usually when I go on a tangent, it's really the leadership. It's not, like, the people. The average Joe who's on board, that's probably what they were going after. I'm just saying, like, pull yourselves together, all right? Like, let's call a spade a spade and say the guy that is for sustainable living may not be you, but he's not, you know, he's not anti-God either. Exactly. Let's not group them in the same category of people that are sacrificing, you know, people. Yeah, yeah. It's not the same dude. All right, here we go. Dear Life of the Path, five years ago, while substitute teaching, I met a man who was also, oh, boy, also a substitute teacher. We would often have lunch together in the school cafeteria. Lou is his name. He told me he had been living with a woman, Meg, for 12 years, but she had begun developing Alzheimer's disease. Her sons plan on moving them into an assisted living facility. Several months ago, Lou called and asked to take me to lunch. At lunch, he said he's still living with Meg, but plans to move into a place of his own soon. He said he'd like to start seeing me on a regular basis. He gave me his home phone number, but said that if Meg answers, I should tell her that it's a school calling him about a job. I told him I'm not interested in seeing him until he's actually living on his own, but he keeps calling to get me to change my mind.

My children and my friends tell me it would not be wrong to start seeing Lou because he's no longer actively involved with the woman. What's the right thing to do? Dan? This is ridiculous. Is this seriously? Is this really a moral conundrum for somebody? Somebody needs to take Lou out and smack him down and say, dude, you have a responsibility and a commitment. Stand by your woman. He didn't actually make a commitment, Dan. He's just been living with her. And now that she has a disease, he's going to go all Pat Robertson and head out. Which tells you where he's at anyway. I mean. Exactly. What happens when she gets sick? Why would you jump into a relationship with anyone who's in that setting? Well, I'm not going to get married. I'm just living with her. And hey, I see you over here. You already know who he is. Yeah. Run. Don't walk. Run.

Get away from this man directly. Hey, baby. I'll stick with you, but I won't actually commit to you through marriage. And if you come down with a disease, I'm gone. I'm gone. You're on your own. That's a top notch dude. I was going to say, that sounds like Prince Charming. And I have a lucrative career as a substitute teacher. I'm just saying like, there's not a lot of prospects in this man. What promise are you giving this woman as a decision? I'm not going to commit? Now, maybe he's in the. First side of trouble, I'm gone. Not really financially stable. And I might get a place on my own like I'm a 20-year-old bachelor sometime. If she answers the phone, tell her you're the school calling about a job. So not only am I a liar, I want you to be a liar. Exactly. I'm going to drag you down with me. Hey, baby. You want to be immoral? I'd like to meet Lou in a dark alley. Lou and Byron.

Let me introduce you to Jesus. We should live together in a bachelor pad. Tell them to stay away from that house entirely. As much as I agree that Lou is an idiot, a complete failure of a man, it makes me sad that a woman would even be in this conundrum, that would have to even think twice about saying, and is getting direction from family and friends that it's not a big deal. Like, seriously. Seriously. He's with another woman. He's trying to put her in assisted living so he can move out on his own. But if she answers the phone, tell her you're the school. This is not a top quality man. He's not even a medium grade man. He's pretty much bottom of the barrel. You don't get a worse man than this. I think we need to introduce her to Byron. Yeah. At least he'll stick around. Exactly. Distant or really, really close? Actually, I suppose in a perfect world, Byron starts dating the woman in the assisted living. She's not going anywhere. Hey, we can set up the connection. We've seen it.

I need a commitment. I've got the lady for you. I've got the lady for you. She's not going to know the difference. Oh, man. That's so good. Oh. I can't believe I just said that. I said it. You laughed. You enjoyed it. What's the matter with you? I know. I'm a horrible person. See, the problem is there are people like Lou because there are people like, his Alzheimer's live in who put up with it. Yeah. She's been putting out for however long. That's true. She had just begun developing Alzheimer's. She is on board with Lou for the last 12 years. 12 years. And no commitment. Or used to be.

You know, it's like. Can you live exclusively for 12 years with someone and not commit to a relationship? And obviously he's not committed. Right. I mean. Yeah. And he's dense. What is that? That's just conveniently made. That's like a roommate. Yeah. With free sex. Yeah. Maybe that's how they. I mean. Maybe he should go with his Alzheimer's saying, oh, it's been a while, honey. Oh, really? Oh, my God. Troy. What's the matter with you? Indeed. That's the question. Why is that the question with that comment? What?

I have been up front and honest with Cheryl. If she gets Alzheimer's, I'm going to have a lot of fun. Okay. That's fair. Because you're married to her. Oh. Just. Lou is. It's not Dan. That does put you on the level playing field with Lou. Yeah, exactly. You were the same guy. I'm hanging out. You are committed, but still, it's like, it's Lou without the commitment. I'm going to say, Cheryl, you haven't baked cookies for a long time. Yeah. Yeah. What are those over there? Oh, no. Those are. Those have been a decoration for months. Exactly. Those are plastic. We need fresh ones.

Oh. All right. So, that's a straight out lie. You're going to have to approach this differently. You're going to say, do you remember the last time you made cookies? That you could do. That wouldn't be directly offensive to someone. Cruel, but is at least not a lie. As long as you're not lying, cruelty is entirely understandable. Just don't lie about it. Just be as cruel and mean as possible. Well, do you remember the last time you baked me cookies? No? Well, then it's been too long. I guess so. All right. So, here, hold on. We better get the answer before we head out of there. No, that's good. We should wipe this off the tape, by the way. I guess I could say, since my mother had this, and so did Cheryl's both of her grandmothers, I'm not being totally insensitive. I mean, it's. Right.

I mean, it's. I am, but it's like, you have to laugh or you'll cry. Yeah, you can't. Here we go. Dear looking for answers. That you would have second thoughts about becoming involved with a man who asked you to lie to the woman he's been living with for 17 years shows a lot about your character. Eh. I would imply that it doesn't show all that much. Any reasonable person should have the same reservations. That he would ask you to do otherwise speaks not very flatteringly about his, a little soft, on Lou's part. You appear to be someone with high standards and dignity. Eh. I don't know about that. Don't butter her up. You're prone to making poor decisions. If you prefer to wait until Meg and Lou are no longer living together, I respect that. And if his interest in you is serious, he will respect it, too. You're listening to Live from the Path. Hey, thanks for hanging out with this week. That's why it's called Secular. We're going to see you next week. Have a wonderful week.