Live from the Pathway Studios in Johnston proper. You are live from the path. And you're listening to live from the Path. We're coming from the Pathway Studios here at Johnston Proper.

Dan, do you remember the lyrics to the song yet, by the way? No. No. Not at all. Not I've only spent twenty years here. Right. It's not at all. It's it's None of it. I am the working man. Took me five years to know they were saying that. Oh, working oh, working man. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I get that. That's great. Yeah. He's working for somebody's kid, I think. I'm not sure. Actually, so I I it it was weird. I was listening to this I I I don't actually listen to this song, like, as a normal course. I used to, and then they come the the theme song to the show, and then I just don't I don't ever go back and listen to it. Yeah. But I picked up this song, and I was listening to that. That whole album's good. Yeah. Mike, that was well, I don't remember what that one was called. I think it was the self titled. Because, yeah, the self titled New World Son album.

The whole thing's pretty good. Oh, Commanders on there. There's good tunes on that album. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Was gonna ask you. So it's New World Son is who sings it? Yeah. Oh, alright. If you want Alexa to to play it, you have to say New World Son. Interesting. If you say New World Son, she won't get it. If you Speaking of Alexa, by the way, one of the funniest things ever was Mike broke out into singing Chinging's Chingy's Holiday Inn right after we got done eating dinner tonight. It was one of the funniest things I've ever seen because you wouldn't expect Mike to break out into that song. But then I asked Alexa to play a clean version of that song from Chingy and she responded with, I can't find any clean songs by Chingy. Oh, that's real. Absolutely true. I Dan and I do have no idea what you're talking about. Yeah. Yeah. You've never It sounds like Chinese food or something. I don't get those I don't get those channels.

Well, Chingy did a song with Snoop Dogg and it's called Holiday Inn. Holiday Inn. Yeah. Move and give me a few bars. I I can't on this show. I did it. That that was That's pretty much all you can say. Yeah. Exactly. Okay. Nothing chilling at the Holiday Inn. Okay. Okay. Well, good. Here we go. I could hear your new theme song. What we got going on the show tonight? Hey, man. I got all kinds of really cool articles. Not hard to do. So

the fastest the fastest growing church has no buildings, no central leadership, and is mostly led by women. Uh-oh. We're we're gonna read that. We're gonna read that article. Uh-oh. It's a good sign that Mike's immediate reaction is, uh-oh. Uh-oh. You know me and Franklin Graham are not gonna like this. Here we go. There was an article on the Christian Post that said, Jesus, I love this story, Jesus appeared to Middle Eastern Muslim every night, recited entire Gospel of John. Hold on. I'm gonna tell you this story because it's awesome. Yeah. So a church planner working in The Middle East to share the miraculous ways the Gospel is moving across the persecuted region.

As part of the gospel coalition, something needs to change. And you know the gospel coalition. I mean, these aren't miracle people. But there was an event held Wednesday night. What? They're

they're reformers. Okay. Understand They tend to be cessationists. Like These aren't miracle people. They're not miracle people. They're not the types of guys who are gonna go out and be like, there's miracles happening all over the place. They're not super charismatic. Is that what you're getting? They're not selling the blessed tanker chips. That's right. They're pretty they're pretty straight laced. Anyway, author and pastor of McLean Bible Church held an interview David Platt held an interview with the missionary identified only as Yazim. Says he lives and works in a part of the Middle East where not only is it legal to share the gospel, it's life threatening to talk about how the gospel is advancing. So Yazim shares a story. He says of a man who lived about 50 kilometers outside of an unnamed Middle Eastern city known for vast opium use and he says this, this man said this to us when we visited him. A man wearing all white knocked at my door every night And I couldn't look at him because his face was so shiny and bright, Yazim recalled. When he would come inside, he asked me to write down what he said. As I wrote, I fell asleep. The next night, he would come again for the next month. Yazim asked the man, what did you write? May I see your notebook? The man showed Yazim his notebook and it was written, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. Same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made. The opening portion of the New Testament book of John. He had the whole book of John verbatim in his notebook, Yazim revealed. Jesus visited him every night until he finished the book.

This the amazing thing thing is the man actually asked us, who was this man that visited me? He said, learned a valuable lesson. God will do his part, but we still have to do ours. That revealed that Yazim's own conversion story is miraculous. His wife was a devout Muslim who profoundly depressed by the demands of Islam, decided to take her own life. However, that very night, she heard the gospel for the first time and dedicated her life to Jesus. Following that event, she and her husband decided to stay in their homeland and dedicate their lives to sharing the gospel despite the risks. Our focus is to make disciples who make disciples who then start new churches, Yazim said. We believe that what God commanded us to do is Matthew 28. We believe that if you make disciples, churches will grow. Tim and his wife revealed they hope to plant 10 more churches, but making disciples takes time and funding as new Christians must be taken to secret locations to be trained. This training, with supporting the leaders, will cost $25,000 for 10 churches to be developed. That's not bad for 10 churches. Plant, who earlier tonight announced the proceeds from his latest book will go to urgent needs in the world said, well Yazim, we praise God for what you're doing on the front lines of the Middle East. We want you to know from your brothers and sisters who are behind you on those lines that you're not alone. Count us in for that $25 to plant 10 churches in The Middle East. It says such stories of Jesus appearing in visions to Muslims throughout the Islamic world are not uncommon. I was gonna say that like, I've read quite a few Yeah. Like relatively consistently

in the Muslim world. Said according to Mission Frontiers Magazine, out of 600 Muslim converts, twenty five percent experienced a dream that led to their conversion. Last year, a former Muslim turned pastor who started hundreds of churches in Pakistan told the Christian Post that many Muslims are making decisions to convert after Jesus himself had visited them in dreams and visions. Anyway, I it's just a cool it's a cool story and not only is it kind of a cool thing anyway to to that that Jesus is appearing to folks in dreams but, like, the outcome of this story was super neat. Right? That like night overnight,

Jesus recites to him the gospel of John, which starts to speak to some of the the critiques that people will say was like, well, is a man gospel of John, a man wrote that. Right? How do we know that it's inspired? I mean, Jesus thinks it's working. He's he's sharing the Gospel of John, says this will work. Yeah. That's true. John's up there going, I knew I was the one he loved. Yeah. My version was the best. Oh. Anyway. I It is a cool story. Is it? That now hold on. See, this is what's happened to me. Right? Because the first thing I think of is, well, I wonder what translation that he was writing in.

Right? The the if if he says he got the gospel of John verbatim, I'm like, does that mean the lord loves the ESV? What bible did Platt have on it? What does your z muse? That's the one I want. Actually, we had the beginning. I should I tell you what. Here's what I'm gonna promise to do and not get around to. I'm a take that what he what he posted there on the first few lines, and I'll compare it to the modern translations and see who's close. Yeah. Then we'll switch to it. Yeah. I'll react disappointed. Definitely. Hey, actually We promised that for him, Mike. Yeah. Speaking of that, so like, keep an eye on the Gospel Coalition. They cycle through bible versions every year, it's like five five, six years. They're like, yeah, ESV, this is the one. And then they they switch pretty quickly to the CSB. The CSB? Yeah. What's the big The CSB. What's the big difference there?

It's a it it's a little bit more readable, if you wanna think of it that way, than the ESV. Oh. Anytime that it's a switch to to make it more readable drives me absolutely Yeah. You gotta be careful with that. ESV is attempting for readability too. And and so, like, everybody has to attempt readability because you're converting languages. Right. Right. Like That's the whole point. Right. It's not a it's not like a it's not an easy and it's not an unfaithful thing. It's like it's attempting to render proper context and language in in old things. Right? So like, I used to have that reaction.

I I still do in parts of the message but there's even parts of the message where actually the the context is actually better especially when it comes to The poetry. The poetry and stuff. Like, it just it happens to do it a little bit better. So it in in any way, I've, like, I've read the CSB. I don't know that I don't know that I care, to be honest. I've not run into it like, this is just as they can play better than something else. Now let me ask you this, fellas, that that I trust to be fallen after Jesus. Right? Like, is there any is there any merit to to attempting to, like, learn the the languages that, like, this was originally written in so that you can read it in that? Is it is it an unnecessary step? Is it You know the Greek Dan? Average guy. No. I would say, honestly. Because, like, I've I've

a real desire to do that, like, to literally learn the languages. And obviously, not everything, but, like Yeah. As much as I can. I'd love to be able to read some of the original well, as close to the original manuscripts as possible that are in the actual languages as originally written in. I mean, that's really cool, but I I just if you can get down first the stuff you can read in English True. Yeah. That point. Go ahead and start living that. That's a very valid point. That's fair. Then if you got that mastered, you go, oh, maybe I ought to figure out the Greek. Yeah. That's well, don't wanna spend sixty years mastering that and then find out that the grammar was wrong in some of the Matthew stuff. Wait a minute. I don't understand end times crap. Said eagle. Thought it was crow, not an eagle. Boy, that's true. You finally get all the Hebrew sorted out. Right? And then you go talk to a guy and he goes, I don't know Hebrew. So can you tell it to me in English? And you go, shucks. I forgot my English. Yeah.

It's last 15 in Israel. I think and and and then I I don't know if would you agree with this or not but I think natural course of study, you pick up understanding of how certain words work Yeah. Consistency of certain words that are using. And I and I think because of the art of translation, I think looking up and then tracing down language in

again, if you do it right, like there's ways to do word studies where this is valuable. I don't know that that translates to the same need to have to kinda know it and and read it yourself. Like at at some point now, because I've had similar things. Dan's got one leg up. He's already done it. But like, there's a point of which like, God has had faithful people who knew this. Mhmm. And I I there was a part of me that felt like, am I recreating this from my own personal something?

As opposed to like, can I just can I stand on the shoulders of faithful people who've studied this thing and trying to help me understand it? Can I just use that for like real crank work? And I yeah. I'm not giving up on it yet. I think I still might but like I think that's that's kind of where I'm at with it. Don't you feel like like I I I feel like if you if you can approach scripture knowing that it was translated. Right? There's different versions and and there's interpretations that happen and especially when you read verses that you feel aren't in line with the character of God that you've read in the rest of the Bible. Then I I think it's I think it's word study time. Right? It's it's time to check it out and and just double check and and if it still rings true, then you gotta let scripture change that out of you. Right? And then that's and that's okay. But like, there's a lot of things that that I used to read out of the bible and and then I'm like, man, this just does not feel like God's heart, only to figure out that they got translated a a funky way, you know, and and they they they made some caveats and they were trying to tie something back to something that that maybe wasn't originally there, you know. And it's it's okay to look that stuff up and go, hey, man, you know this got changed and here's what they were going for and maybe they missed it, maybe they didn't.

Yeah. Okay. Fair Hey, speaking of that, there was a so do you guys use the digital bible? You read it you read it you read the soft pack or you read the computer? Still do still do soft pack. K. Dan, what do you use? Logos. Okay. Yeah. So you're usually looking it up in the software. In digital. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I see what you're saying. Now do you now for for personal just personal reading, same thing? You use the software? Do you use like a

Yeah. Yeah. I heard I very rarely pick up a paper bible anymore. Okay. Move the same thing or do you do everything in blue letter or I usually do blue letter. Okay. Okay. Cool. So so the there was there was an interesting article in Christianity Day. It said digital bibles help men read more but retain less. Says men are more likely than women to finish bible reading plans on an app, but they don't glean as much when using a good old fashioned paper book according to a recent study in the Journal of Religion, Media, Digital Culture. Women retained the same amount of information and completed a similar amount of reading on either medium, though men finished more daily readings than women.

Those who use that actually makes more sense. I feel like men in general are more willing to try to line up with a set of Goals. Tasks or sort of goals. Women are more likely to commit to the broad principle of the thing and then be a little bit more flexible about how it gets done. And I think because men require that I know I I require that level of restraint. I need that level of kind of iterative daily goals and I have to force myself to hit it otherwise, like, I will not retain payment to the thing. But it says

let's see. Though men finished more daily readings than women, those who use the app completed on average almost two days more two more days of reading than print users. I mean, that's not very many. Two days? Well, I mean, are they saying that's a half hour per reading and they read a How total of long how much time? Yeah. Oh, I was thinking, like, hey, I wanna read daily. And Oh, so so, like, committed to it two days longer? Yeah. Like what like the the the digital guys read a hundred days and the print guys only read 98. But you think they might be talking about like Yeah. Two days total scripture Yeah. I don't know. I don't know either. John Dyer, a Christian coder conducting his PhD research on the bible software industry. Sounds like the fun most fun guy I've ever heard of. Yeah. I'm gonna we're gonna call him. We're gonna ask him about it, see if he can straighten this out. Alright, JD. He didn't expect differences between male and female readers to turn up in his data.

Were you yeah. Were you just born yesterday? How'd you get to be this far into I'm do gender studies, but I don't think there's gonna be any difference. I feel like it's gonna wash. Outliers. Which is now the first to compare print and screen reading comprehension by gender. Said by most science measures, women are more religious than men. What? The recent American Bible study survey relates that more women report desire to engage with the Bible compared to men. Another has shown that men and women view the Bible differently and once this is accounted for, tend to report the same feeling of being close with God. They view the Bible differently. Hold on. I was gonna say, these are interesting statements. Are you close to God? Oh.

Are you your answer affects how you read scripture. New studies suggest that both men and women who seek spiritual intimacy view the bible more literally. Nope. Nope. That's it. You gotta pay for that article. Forget that noise. Yeah. That's Wait. Never mind. Let's see. Dyers Dyers fighting echo broader social patterns. Boys tend to prefer digital formats more than girls and female readers consistently score better in comprehension. So it's not because it's the bible, it's just because That's the gender study there. Ladies Ladies are more comprehensive. Plus working men also work more than working women according US Bureau of Labor Statistics indicating that it may be easier to turn digital reading in this setting.

Okay. Well, I'd be interested to know how many fellows are picking it up at work. Mike, you read it at work? No. No. I I Don't ask me that question, Ben. No. No. No. Buva doesn't do it. He's a no on the other half. Dan's job doesn't count. He's he's exempted from survey.

Now his research actually doesn't narrowly focus on gender, Boob was in in the wrong he says, but seeks to understand the differences and habits between bible reading in print versus digitally. For the study, Dyer listed participants from two non denominational megachurches and one southern baptist church in the Dallas area. Oh, wait. This is focused specifically non denominationals and then a Southern Baptist church. I mean, it's probably hard to find a non Southern Baptist down there. He asked he asked participants to read the book of Jude in print or digitally and answer some questions. Then he asked them to participate in a ten day reading plan of the book of John using the same medium as they did in the church class. I don't know about the structure of this survey. Yeah.

Anyway, he says reading the northern baptism? Dyer conducted an assessment of their comprehension and asked how they after reading. The three most common answers were encouraged, discouraged, and confused. That's two negatives, And that's the entire bible. Well, that was Jude and John. I'm saying that's everyone's response. Rather encouraged, discouraged, or confused. I mean, because Jude doesn't tell me where this tussle over Moses' body happened, I am confused and discouraged and I wanna know what happened. Digital users were nearly twice as likely to report feeling confused with many indicating that they would like to read it again or study Jude more. For the now I would get that with John though.

Like, John, you kinda gotta take in. I don't I think the problem is with taking the stuff in digitally and, like, this might not be as true as, I guess, for you fellows, but because you use especially when you're gonna do it on your phone, you use your phone for so many other things, like, it Yeah. There is it loses its credibility. Right? Like, when you have to go when you have to go to the bank to actually withdraw money, like you like you'd say, I gotta set up a savings account and I'm not gonna get a debit card for I actually gotta go there, sign the paper and take out the $300. Right? You're like, I'll never go there because I'm lazy and that money will stay there solid. And it's true. Right? Because you have to be way more intentional about it, you gotta devote some time to it and all this jazz. And, like, the paper bible tends to require that. Right? You gotta get a place and you gotta get a lap to sit it on and, like, you got it's a thing. Right? But your phone, you you you'll be reading the bible and all of sudden you're like, ding. Your aunt Margaret likes likes your puppy photo on Instagram. You're like, well, aunt Margaret, what she up to? You're gone. That's it. You're gone. You know? I have trouble with the distraction. Absolutely. I do. I'll admit that. I I when it comes down to it, I will be reading my bible and then I'll get 15 notifications.

Like, come on. This is ridiculous. Like and I can't stop my brain. My brain immediately just goes, oh, someone's on Facebook. Yeah. Click on Facebook. I'm like, I was in the middle of a verse. Like, I didn't even finish the verse, let alone any part of what I was actually reading before I popped over and checked my Snapchat real quick and looked at my Facebook. And you gotta check your your religious heart. Right? Because parts of you will go, you know what? I can read and study this stuff or I can get out in the world and make disciples. Let's head to Instagram. What's that? I'm following that sweet new post. That's definitely me disciples. I eat. Those are sweet looking payback ribs. Nice job, Adamson barbecue. I think that goes to something we've talked about before, which is the very notion of notifications on your phone Uh-huh. Gives you like, it's wide open permission and says, hey, feel free to interrupt me at any time no matter how important the thing is that I'm doing. Mike and I were talking about that earlier. Oh, really? Yeah. That exact conversation, the the the concept of, like, allowing people

the opportunity to completely take away from anything else you're doing Yeah. Just simply because they're a part of your social media circle. And so it does not matter what you're doing. Your task at hand is not is not it is put aside when you see that Margaret said something about, you know, her her new cat. Yeah. Yeah. Like, sweet. Margaret, let me go check out this new cat. Wait. Wasn't I doing something? Right. Doesn't matter now. You just gave that person full ability to do whatever they needed to do and sat there and you gave them a soapbox. Right. If you were sitting in your living room and one of the neighbor kids came up to the open front window and goes, hey, man. Bargain's talking about our cat. I would not leave my living room. That's right. You go, go away if you're not shouting to my window. Timmy, Leave. That's but but, like, that's exactly what our notifications on the phone allow is Timmy to stick his face in the window. We should we should do something like that where we set up some kind of video experiment where instead of actually doing any kind of Facebooks or tweets or anything like that, we just show up to each other's houses and let them know that something else is happening and then see what their reaction is. Like, hey, just a heads up, Jim's doing some sweet stuff in his new job. Yeah. See, that would be even funnier with the passive aggressive posts. Right? So you get so you just go to somebody's house and go, I was once underappreciated. No one will treat me like that again. Fan booking at someone's living There he goes. And, hey, it's been a really stressful day. Don't need to talk about it, though.

Unknown prayer request. Yeah. Here's here's my lament about a a marital or a relationship issue that happened six years ago that I've definitely let go of. Yeah. Right. I'm not I'm not festering with it any longer. So here's the As weird as it sounds to allow someone that much influence on your life or that much ability to interrupt whatever you're doing, right, can you imagine the graves that it takes for someone to do that to you? Right? If you take it out of the social media realm and go, hey, everybody. Check this out right now. Hey, check it out right now. Look what I did. Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. Check it Check Check Check it out. Hey, you. Hey, you. Hey. You know what I'm saying? You're starting to sound a lot like me, like, two years ago. Check it out. So it has Look at me. It takes it takes some real stones, right, to be able to no matter what Dan is doing, waltz into the church, find him in a find him in his office and go, hey, Dan. Look at this pasta penne. Look at it. Look at it. Look at it. It. Look Look at it. I'm eating green beans. Look at this. Look at it. At it. Look at it. Did you see my meal yesterday?

If you didn't, here it is. Look. Taken out of the Facebook or Instagram whatever context, it seems absurd. Absurd that you would let someone do that or that you would do that to someone else. It's just over the top. I have uninstalled messenger

from my iPad because I was just getting too much. I just get messages. Yeah. Yo, yeah. Messages, messages, messages. It's just I have people leaving a global that they're twenty four hour Oh, man. They're four hours a day. Hey. How are you doing? Philippines messages too. Sleeping. Hey, dad. Hey, dad. Hey, dad. Making disciples. Hey, Hit in. Hit Hit disciples. That Hit is not a word. You didn't spell it right. I'm sorry. Hit me with it. G r a b e s.

Graves? Graves? Yeah. You say it you say it wrong. Yeah. It's vase in French. Okay. Let's see. It's how they say it. Here we go. Graves, French, a wine growing district in Grande Department in Southwest France. Yep. Right? Dry red or white table wine produced in this region. Yep. Some gravas. Yeah. Nailed it. Were you calling them? Nailed

it, Ben. Man, I tell you what. It is. You wanna find a sitcom I'd watch, it would be social media but portrayed in real life. Oh my god. Just people running by saying the same crap they'd say on the Internet but saying it in front of, like, their their neighborhood. It'd just be so ridiculous. Do you see how cute this cat is? Yes. Leave me alone. And then ten minutes Did you look at it? Do you like this cat? Like, do you really like it? Because it's right here. And Here's 14 other pictures of it. And then ten minutes later, some guy comes running from down the street, looks in your front window, gives a big thumbs up. Man, I love those cats. Yeah. And another person weeps. All their reactions.

Little boy does slow home run trot from third to home. Holy cow. This is great. You gotta turn them off, man. You gotta do your best to turn them off. You're not missing anything. That's the thing. The big worry is that things are passing you by or you're missing all kinds of stuff. Here's what I'm gonna say. It's gonna happen once. You're gonna get burned one time. The rest of the ninety nine years you alive, you're not getting burned. That's a valid point. Every time I think to myself, like, I wish I was the person, like, left my phone in my kitchen while I was sleeping and, like, like, just went away from it. I'm always terrified that something is gonna happen in the middle of the night that, like Yep. Someone was trying to call me and there was an emergency. I'm going on fifteen years of having a phone and there's been maybe three? Yeah. Three guys that are actual emergency. Slept in a different room than my phone for a long time. Phenomenal. And it's peaceful. Yeah, it is. And I've never missed a thing. Damn. I don't know how.

Yeah. I haven't. Like, I'm afraid, like, I'm gonna wake up and somebody be like, you weren't there and then uncle Randy died. It's like, oh, crap. Here's the thing. He still dead? You picking up your phone ain't gonna stop uncle Randy from dying. Right. Right. Maybe it was he was jumping off a bridge and I could have gone to the bridge. Yeah. You really think aloud of yourself. I don't think so. You've seen my phone go off after half an hour. We talked about this earlier, Mike. Yeah. People are yeah. But that's the thing. First of all, you agreed to all those things. And second Yeah. Of all That's fair. Yeah. And second of all, you know a bunch of needy people. Yeah. You gotta shut that down. You do a lot. It says that Sub it Up print and digital Bibles are usually framed in opposition to one another, but the data suggests the relationship is much more complex. No. He said, bible reading today is more of a multimedia experience with people just using a combination of sprint, screen, and audio depending on what form of bible you're So people used to say, hey, man, what are you gonna do? I'm gonna go do my devotional. And instead, they say, hey, man. What are you gonna do? I'm gonna go fire up a multimedia experience with the book of Job.

I mean, you're really you've you've overdramatized it, friend. Right? Everything is not so graves. Know what There's some there's some serious shout out to France red and white wines in this deal. I mean, for heaven's sakes. He says, that said, his observation revealed that people make these choices often based on convenience. Often grab oh, man. Often grabbing the capitalized nearest available bible, henceforth referred to as NAB.

See, you thought I was wrong when I made fun of this man. He's over the top. Oh, man. And unaware of the effect the medium has on the message and the reader. But one of Dyer's biggest takeaways is how men and women differ in bible reading preferences and comprehension suggesting that digital bible apps engage men more but may not provide deeper understanding. It's gonna be till my or till Ben makes the joke. Oh, I'm reaching for my NAB. Where's my NAB? Actually I could so my eyes were scanning and I thought he was gonna talk about a translation. I thought it was gonna be like the NASB or something. And sure enough, no. He's come up with some sort of stupid acronym. Yeah. What what translation do you read? The NAB? The NAB? What's that? Everest available bible. That's catfish.

See, look how far removed. If anyone would have made that joke in the second century, they would've been like, it's in a synagogue. You you gotta borrow it. We only got one. That's that's an incredibly valid point. Right. Wait. Wait. I I wanna take in the I wanna take in the book of Jonah. What do I do? Go to the Ask Yazim.

He's memorized it. He's memorized. Yeah. Exactly. Chapter two, Yazim. You go to him and come to your window. Him with a campfire. That's right. And then you listen to him tell the story. I don't know chapter. What you mean? See, I exactly know chapter. You mean the book? I tell the whole story. What's your favorite verse? I read the whole book. What are chapters? We call them bathroom breaks. Wait

a minute. Okay. It's an article. Here we go. The NAB. That guy's a nerd. I'm sorry. I I was gonna call him, but I've been I'm sure he's a great Told you from the beginning. Seemed like a cool dude. Alright. So for the oh, yeah. Fastest growing church. Here we go. For the last few years, researchers have credited the underground church in Iran as the fastest growing Christian church in the world. It has unique characteristics that defy comparison with churches in American Europe and in the opinion of some who know it well, the church in the West could learn by studying it. The fastest growing church in the world has taken root in one of the most unexpected and radicalized nations on earth according to the Sheep Among Wolves, the outstanding two hour documentary about the revival that's taking place inside Iran. The Iranian awakening is rapidly reproducing discipleship movement that owns no property or buildings, has no central leadership, and is predominantly led by women.

Documentary was produced by Frontier Alliance International, which supports disciple making teams targeting the unreached and unengaged within the 10:40 window. I don't know what that means. It says there's a mass exodus leaving Islam for Christianity within Iran according to FIA. And so there's a few quotes in here that I thought were really cool. First one is this, what if I told you Islam is dead? One identified Iranian church leader says on the film. What if I told you the mosques are empty inside Iran? What if I told you no one follows Islam inside of Iran? Would you believe me? This is exactly what is happening inside of Iran. God is moving powerfully inside of it. Many of the ruling class still follow Islam, in quotes, because that's where the high paying jobs are according to the film. But the majority of the ordinary people love God and recognize that Islam is the problem. What if I told you the best evangelist for Jesus was the Ayatollah Khomeini, an Iranian church leader asks. He maintains that the Ayatollah has brought the true face of Islam to light and people discovered it was a lie, a deception. After forty years that under Islamic law, a utopia according to them, they've had the worst devastation in the five thousand year history of It said efforts by the Ayatollah to destroy Christianity backfired, but have served to refine and purify the church. The quote was what persecution did was destroy the church that were not disciples and destroy the church that were about converts. The Iranian church leader noted, all these church planters found that the converts run away from persecution.

Disciples would die for the Lord. So our model inside Iran is that we don't convert to disciple. We disciple so we can convert. Often a disciple making movement begins the first moment someone comes into contact with an unbeliever. Everyone is is foundational. Everything is foundational on prayer. We find people of peace through prayer. We've even find locations through prayer. When we do disciple making, Jesus has gone faster than us. He has come in their dreams or he's come miraculous in their lives. When we hear this, we know that Jesus has gone ahead of us. Surprisingly, their emphasis is not planting churches, it's making disciples. He is letting unbelievers lead other unbelievers to himself in the kingdom of God. If you plant churches, you might make disciples. But if you make disciples, you will plant churches, the Iranian church. One thing powerful with them is is is obedience based discipleship. It is based on the authority of scripture and every time you read the scripture, you must obey it. This is how people become conformed to the image of Christ and sanctified. They're not just reading the Bible for information. They're reading the Bible to get transformed. About 55% of the disciple makers are women according to the Iranian leader.

There there's the difference between them and America. Their their purpose in reading Right. To be transformed and to obey, not to just, oh, I need more information. Yeah. How can I parse this out to make what I'm doing right now okay? Either to argue or to if I agree or whatever. Yeah. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Therefore, I can do whatever I need to do ever and Jesus will automatically make it. That's true. That phrase, obedience based discipleship

Love that. Is awesome. I'm sure it comes off offensive. Right? Like people like grace filled discipleship. Right?

Holy Spirit filled discipleship. Yeah. But they're like, obedience, do what it says. You read the scripture, you do what the scripture says. They're not discounting the Holy Spirit. They're not saying Jesus doesn't go ahead of us and make ways and pass straight. He doesn't say any of those things. Right? They're they're agreeing that all this stuff still happens. But but your end of it is, you read what God says then you obey that. That's how you keep from aggrieving the Holy Spirit. That's exactly right. That's yeah. That's the truth. Like, you read you read the Bible with with a a yes, sir mentality. And, like, even, like, I saw I family that I know that that kinda does this well that I love, they they they talk to me about it from the perspective of, like, the way that my faith has been growing within the last couple of months is is exactly that. It is striving towards obedience based relationship with God and it's it's been the whole concept of like they told me they we've risen our kids or we've raised our kids for years

with the concept of when they hear something that's right, their immediate reaction does not have to be something in which it's happiness or if it's something against what they want to do, they understand that they are going against what they're wanting to do, but it still is your responses. Yes, sir. Yes, ma'am. That's what you do. And it's the same concept of of of a relationship that I'm seeing with with with God that it's like, yeah, there's stuff in here that, like, it's hard. It it it's hard stuff, like, we're going against our general nature, our our sinful nature when we are are fighting to love God by obeying his commands. Right? And and it is a yes, sir kind of deal. It is I'm going to read this, I'm going to respond, I'm going to obey, I'm going to transform, and then through transformation, I'm gonna have peace and joy because I'm gonna be closer and likeness to you after I've I've implemented this and done this in my heart and work towards obedience in this scripture and obedience in this. And that's a beautiful way to look at it rather than just hall market it and go on what's the next little thing I can pick out of here, so I can live this day like that and then completely forget it in the actuality of it.

Obedience based discipleship. I like it. Like I I I felt that that combined with that kind of John one, I I think I think as I look around our culture and our country, I'm not saying that this stuff is not happening but it

I feel like we're not we wouldn't listen. Right? Like like I feel like that there are it is it is encouraging. It's edifying to the church to look out and say, the Lord ain't given up on his world.

But he is going to people who will listen to. Yep. We are not the moral high ground. And he had think of this. Think of this. This thing it's this I'll be I'll be honest and I'm sorry for the relatively crass language but it pisses me off when when their their Christianity the the powerful voices from American Christianity are not only so mixed up and mingled in often with political stuff, but listen to how they talk about Islam. Listen to how they talk about Muslims as a whole. Now you tell me that God is showing up to people who are looking for him.

That's why he's in Iran. That's why Jesus is knocking on the door in a dream to a to a Muslim guy because the guy's like, I want to follow God. Right. And because man has presented to him something that is false about God, God goes, I'll straighten that out directly. Right. Jesus shows up in a dream. And so before we you gotta be very careful of bucketing groups of people at another religion. They it's the same thing denominationally too. Like, we're like, oh, you know, those guys are just wrong. They believe the wrong types of things. God will find people who are looking for him in whatever structure they're at and he will help straighten out whatever's going on. And so I I just it it sometimes irritates me because we start sometimes people are gonna talk about

America and Christianity and and they they start to talk about other people who are looking for God and they just happen to be in another religion. Now, I don't think that you will not be saved by that other religion. I'm we'll just be clear on that. I'm not saying that. But what I'm saying is is that people who are faithfully looking to obey God, God will enter into your circumstances and make sure that you hear true things. Be careful.

Let's be like, if if if the lord Jesus goes, that is a whole groups of people who are an opportunity of which there are folks in there who are faithfully looking for me. Don't you dare write them off as people who aren't aren't listening to God. In fact, they might be actually seeping God harder than we are. We just assume that we get it. We're very privileged in that respect. It's the knowledge thing. Right. We've we've read the bible for knowledge and we know more than you. We're smarter than you. Right. Therefore, we're better than you. And yeah. You can read that book a 100 times and not and not I mean, there's plenty of people that have. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. It's it's throughout history. There are plenty of people who read all the scriptures and it's it's a knowledge seeking thing and they're not looking for the heart of God. And they're not looking for they're not trying to find Yahweh. They're trying to find what they can glean from it. And and there's plenty of place positions that they've they were looking for power through it, of how can I pacify my my people with this, and it worked? Has worked many times. Yeah. And so and but it's it's incredibly transformative. That obedience based discipleship and obedience based understanding of of what God is. I'm going to come to these scriptures with the thought process of God. You are correct. Your ways are right and your ways are good and mine aren't. And my heart is on on display for you. If there's a part of this that needs to be changed, I ask for your holy spirit to enter and fix it. Yeah.

Yeah. The the the seeking of the knowledge of scripture without the obedience is completely self serving. It is an attempt to either build yourself up, make yourself feel wise, or or gain power over and exert it over someone else using God's name as the means. Right. Yeah. There's there's no wrong there's no problem finding knowledge in there. I mean, there's plenty of scripture Yeah. About mean Yeah. Learning. Psalm one nineteen is literally about David being excited about the instruction of the Lord. It's the longest chapter of But why is he excited about it? Yeah. Exactly. It's a point. Yeah. Exactly. He knows who it's coming from. That's the important portion. He knows where the instruction of the Lord is coming from. He knows where the the knowledge is coming from. He knows where the the the learning is coming from. And it's important because the teaching is coming from Yahweh. It's coming from the divine creator and his knowledge is right and good and it's okay to have it. Right. Well, because of that, he intends to obey it. Like, that's the point. It's like, oh, the knowledge of the lord will come upon me and then I will have it to use at a cocktail party. Right. How great are your how great are your instructions, lord? He's saying that because he knows where it's coming from and he he is obedient to the king that it comes from. Yeah. Think I

somewhere along the line, intuitively backed off of a lot of people like to argue scripture, you know. Mhmm. And it's fine it's fun to have a good debate on on things once in a while, whatever. But there's people you know, their intent isn't to find out what do I need to obey Right. But they're trying to beat you in an argument. Yeah. And and I I just

have a tendency to just not engage in that because what what does it matter if I win, you're still not going to obey. Mhmm. Yeah. You know, mean, you're you're after the wrong thing. Yeah. This isn't meant to be I gotta process some of this because I think I've kinda figured some of that out along the line accidentally, you know. And

I don't know what that means even. I'm just talking. Well, I mean Anyway, good encouragement. The Lord's still still moving in the church and I think we've got things we can learn from it. Yeah. Yeah. Hey. So interesting interesting thing happened to me this week. I had to go to I had to go to Boston for work or whatever. I've never been know, Dan Cakes? So here's the thing. I'm thinking Baltimore.

Hey. Because know was weird? Same thing. I was looking for things I thought, hey, man. I should find stuff to do in Boston. And I made this that very mistake, but it wasn't around the crab cakes. I'm like, I'm gonna go check out the grave of Edgar Allan Poe. And it took me about thirty seconds and like To realize, nope. No. Wrong place. That's not the right city. A different B. That's Baltimore. Oh, darn it. That's not Boston. I was very upset. Did you go to the baked bean factory? No. I I didn't have a lot of time. I was there I was there I came in Thursday. Was supposed to leave Friday. Boston baked beans. But I did go to so I went to the Boston Commons, which is Uh-huh. Like a open park area. I think think like Central Park in New York. This is like this in Boston. It's where It's where Rocky was. Right? No. I'm I'm kidding. That's it. Philadelphia. Philadelphia. I get it. So That's a and then I went to see You're a liar. The old

the old knowledge church where the where they hung the lanterns two by two one by land, two by six. Oh, yeah yeah. Yeah. So I went to go see that but they wanted like $8 to go in. I'm like, well, mean, I can see the steeple from the outside. Seems like the lantern's still there? Probably not. No. They said one of the lanterns is in a museum in in Concord and then the other one is not around. Like, it's it's been lost to history. It's national treasure. Yeah. Yeah. To the rock. Anyway. Anyway. So it was it was an okay trip. But so but anyway, I I got the the flight homes were terrible. Like, I got delayed. I got had to stay. Was supposed to be home Friday. I didn't make it home till Saturday because couldn't get out of Boston or couldn't get out of Philadelphia between Boston and Philly. Didn't matter. So anyway, I come home. This is the weirdest thing. So I was tired. Was I've been on planes for, two days, I and I was coming home and I get off the plane in Des Moines and I just wanna go home.

And so I get up to you guys been to the Des Moines Airport recently? Yeah. Okay. So like when you come down, there's like two sets of escalators. Right? And so I come up and there's like a line at the escalator. I've come home many times through that Des Moines Airport. I've never seen like a line or whatever. And so I get up Sometimes it's half empty or mostly empty. Right. Right. It's a small airport. Yeah. So anyway, it's backed up. I'm like, what the heck is going on over here? And I assumed like maybe someone came home and there was a pig to do and people were hugging or whatever. And so I come off the line and, like, I'm kinda poking around or whatever and I finally inch my way forward and there's, a giant throng of people all, like, waiting down at the arrival area

after these escalators. And I couldn't figure out what was going. There was nobody hugging. There was no, like, balloons or whatever. And so I finally got down the escalator and you guys the guy who holds the the limousine, the limousine guy, it's the sign. And so I look at the sign and you'll never guess what it said. Pope. It said Pope right on it. Every time. Every I was hooked. Straight up hooked on that one. Limo man had had a sign that said Pope on it. And I'm like, well, I'll be doggone. It's the Every time.

Pope is coming. You know, Ben, I happen to be at the airport, actually, a couple days ago. You know what's funny? There there are actually celebrities coming into town for a couple things. Like, there's Politicians. Yeah. The guy from the guy Mark Cuban or whatever his name is from from Is he as famous as the pope though, Buba? That's why the escalators were backed up. Somehow, this man was under the impression the pope was coming. And I Cuban. So I asked him. I said, dude, is what is that is that like a I thought maybe it was a Spanish. And it just said pope. I yeah. That's what I thought. So I said, hey, man. Is that Is that pope? Is that like The pope. The pope? Or is it like maybe like there's a Spanish singer Pope a? Pope a.

So I said, hey, man. Is is that the he goes, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's a pope. Pope's coming to town. I said, well, I'll be doggone. And so anyway, I I said, well, you know, where's he gonna go after this? He's like, you know, I I can't tell you that. And so I waited. I waited for the I said I waited. And

long story short is I followed this guy. I followed this limousine and it goes to Mike's house. Yeah. Does. What? It goes to Mike's house and everyone else is apparently caught on that this was gonna happen. There's this long throne of people heading through through Pleasantville, Iowa hanging out at Mike's house and they They build a population. And nobody gets out of the limousine or whatever. And so they decide, like, I don't know what the ruse was, but ultimately, they get out and, like, they won't leave because they expected the pope to be there and and they won't go. And so Mike has to come out and they just assume Mike's the pope. And so the long and short of it was Mike has to give some sort of pope style advice like the pope would give to get these people off his lawn. Mike, what did you tell him?

So I got out of the limo and I said, listen. And then I let it I let it sit for a little while. Right? I gave him some space. And I said, here's the thing, you don't listen right. You're not listening well. And then they seemed upset, like, didn't think I was gonna give them some kind of, you know, hand wringing or a finger wagging and it had actually just had been something that I was I was listening to a guy talk on this a little bit and I'd been thinking about it and it really it it kinda tied into some of the the social media stuff we were talking about. But like,

I I thought about it in context of of I was I'm trying to just come up with something that I was gonna talk to our youth our youth group about this year. And I thought, we just we need to give them some life skills. Right? Like, skills that the Bible imparts on us. Right? But but, like, life just stuff to remember, stuff to do, stuff that everyday stuff, you know? And I was listening to a guy talk about listening today and it like, it couldn't it couldn't have reminded me more of of God's heart towards me and God's heart towards other people that like, it takes a large amount of humility to actually listen to somebody, right, when they're talking. Like, people act like it's a it's just a skill, right, like, where you you look at them and then you listen to what they're saying. But, like, actually actively listening to somebody is taking your agenda

and moving it completely off to the side and saying, my agenda is gone. My agenda is now whatever your agenda is. And I'm listening to that. I'm getting rid of every thought in my head, every plan that I had going on, I'm just moving it completely to the side and it takes a large amount of humility that says I'm gonna take everything that I'm doing and I'm I'm I'm getting rid of it and I'm giving it all to you and I wanna hear what you're saying. And I thought, boy, I never listen that way. I I don't I don't act I don't do that. Right? Like And people always accuse accuse you of saying, you know, you're just you're just listening enough you're waiting for your turn to talk. People say that a lot. And and I suppose that's that's true. That's how a conversation happens. Right? So, like, they used like to use that negatively.

I mean, if if people didn't do that I mean, there's some real slow thinkers in this world. Right? Like, when you get done on this twenty second spiel, right, and then you look at a guy and he sits there dumbfounded, waiting for his brain to fire back up and then kick out a retort, you're like, whatever. Obviously, what I said was not important enough for you to come up with a response. And so I don't know if that's the best tact either. But the truth of the matter is is is I think

the the part that's hard to grasp, it's the humility part. It's saying it's saying I'm gonna move everything that I have right now, I'm gonna move my agenda and I'm I'm gonna make my agenda you. And that goes for when you're sitting across the table from somebody, that goes for where your phone is, right, when you're having that conversation with somebody, where we're talking about giving people permission to interrupt anything that you have going on. First of all, you're allowing that? You're you're you're saying, look, I could be talking to my wife, my best friend, a grieving widow, a small child, any of the number of things of people that I could be talking to. And as long as that phone is in my hand, I'm giving everybody I've ever met the complete right to interrupt it. I'm saying, look, wife, I love you, but there is a million other things that I will allow to interrupt this conversation right now. I might not it might even be a a full of how many how many times in the last month have you seen a a scam caller come up on your phone from the town over and you're like, that's a scam. I don't know nobody in that town. And you pick it up anyway. Hello. Hello. It's a scam. Hello. It's Mike. I never pick that up, Mike. Oh, I always pick What? Them Really? Almost always. Now, frankly, maybe

it's because of my job that I get phone calls from all over The United States. Okay. Yeah. Right? So I I always pick up the phone. But even even with a 95% guarantee rate that I know if something's gonna be a scam or not, I will interrupt the conversation with my daughter to pick it up and just double check-in case this guy from Palo Alto really does wanna talk to me about some unknown business at 05:30 at night. That's stupid. That is stupid. California?

I mean, it's just it's just over the top dumb. Right? It's same with same with a ding and a text message and a and a and a work email on a Saturday when I'm not there. I'm not working. You're not paying me to work. And I'll see a little red line a little red number come up and go, 3. And I go, I wonder what those are. Well, I wanna see them. And then I'll see that it's an email from someone at work and I'll go, oh, this is important. No, it isn't. It's Saturday and you shouldn't be emailing me. I've given you more permission. Right? And all that being said is like, there's a there's humility in the way that you run your relationship. There's humility in the way that you listen to other people. And when you allow that many things to be between you and the other person that you're dealing with, even if you're supposed to be playing a board game or something silly or watching a movie, Right? The kids get so mad. Right? You can't be on your phone while you're watching a movie because I say that to them. And then they say it to me. And it makes perfect sense. Right? Like, we're doing this thing together. So anyway,

broad brush was, if you're gonna give people your attention, you actually have to give it to them, which means that you have to take your kingdom and move it off to the side and when you're gonna listen to somebody, you're gonna you're gonna humbly listen to them. Right? And you're gonna take all these distractions, and it means putting your phone in the other room, and it means taking all the thoughts out of your head. I I struggle BUVA was in the middle of talking about ten minutes ago, and this advice came to my head because I started I was looking at this Channer Knutson poster, and I'm like, what song did she sing when she was in here? And then I googled her, and she's been on The Voice, and now I'm gone. And I missed thirty seconds of what Boo Boo was saying because I looked at a poster, I was I was not I that was that's not humbly listening to what Troy's saying. Right? That's me just going, well, maybe Troy's real boring. I don't know. Actually, I missed it. I don't know. Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn't. I wasn't even listening to know whether that's true or not. That's horrible. I don't wanna live my life that way. That's that's no humility. That's no weight. That's no worth in the way that you're dealing with people. So pope style advice is, if you're gonna listen, if you're gonna interact, if you're gonna interact with God the way that he interacts with us and you're gonna take that heart and put it on other people, your kingdom has to decrease,

your humility has to go up, and you actually have to care about the people you're talking to or listening to. And to do that, you have to give them your space. The space that you've carved out for you and your thoughts and your whatever. You have to be able to put your stuff down and humbly take on theirs. And that's it. You know,

while you were saying that, Mike, the entire time I was thinking about what I was gonna respond with, so I wasn't really listening. But part of my part of the gifts that that that God's given me with my personalities, I I can I can connect with a lot of people, like, just have the ability to do so? You know, I can walk in the room and I can be good friends with a lot of the people in there and I make them feel very very cared for and I I just it's just something I'm good at.

But I really suck at it, like, from the perspective of, like, I have I have so many people in my life that contact me randomly for ever stuff, will call me, will wanna talk, stop me when they see me at a at a store or anything like that. And a lot of the times I look at it as such an inconvenience. It's like why why does it why do these people wanna wanna stop and talk to me? I haven't talked to you in a decade. Why we saw each other. We can leave it at that. Good to see you. Bye. But like it it literally not naturally leads to truthful in-depth conversations of like, what have you been doing the last ten years? What's been going on in your life? What are you up to now? All this different stuff. And most of the time, take that and just go, yeah. I mean, I'm more focused on why I'm actually here, and I'm not really worried about that. And I'm not super worried about the repercussions of that kind of stuff, but there are legitimate conversations that I could be missing. And serious people in serious need that I could be missing out on

in my day to day life because I'm constantly stuck in, well, I was doing something, and so this is kind of inconvenience for me. So I'll I'll I will I will entertain it as long as the social contract says that I need to, but no more than that. That stinks. Like, I really could be missing out on serious stuff with people that I love and that I care about, that I'm half heartedly listening to and half heartedly paying attention to. I'll be on the phone with my girlfriend sometimes and I'll be on my Facebook.

That's ridiculous. That's terrible. And I'll be sitting there and I'll laugh at something on Instagram and then she's like, what are you laughing about? Oh, man. There's nothing there's nothing to be laughing about because we'll talk on the phone. So she's in in Africa. So we'll that's our dates. That's our time together. And so we'll be on the phone for five and a half hours. And so four and a half hours in, we're just sitting there randomly just kinda chatting about stuff and my brain will go, well, I'm on my phone anyway. Pull up Facebook real quick. Or I'll get a notification on Facebook and I'll go look at it, but then that will lead me to, well, what's everybody else up up to? And I'm missing quality time with a with a woman that I care about and that I say that I love. And, man, I gotta get better at that. That's absolutely true. Like, there is some serious humility to that, that I need to check myself at the door and my needs at the door and just go, alright, this is a human being, this is a child of God regardless what the situation is. Let's let's take a little bit more more

time and let's take a little bit more of my my focus and my my attention and give it to this person in in an attempt to care for them, in an attempt to to love on them. And I need to do that better. Yeah. Well, like, think of those examples, right? Like, you're talking to someone and then something else pops up and like that shifted to your fear of missing out on whatever else is going on Right. That completely diminished honoring the fact that someone is otherwise talking and sharing with you. Yeah. Is this now, is this a a generational thing? Because like, I feel like they're

this is gonna sound bad. Old people get this better. Like and maybe it depends on on the types of folks but like like I'm thinking of of certain family members of mine and like some of them are just awesome. Like they look you they look you in the eye, they sit and listen, they remember things that you told them, they they so oftentimes, I I I think I took this in wrong, they used to like ask some of the kids questions

and like like what are these inane questions? Like, oh, how tall are you? And well, you know, are you having fun with your friends? And what is that little friend's name of yours? Blah blah blah. And I'm like, boy, look at this all. I don't really care about any of this because I don't. I literally don't care. I don't know how tall my kids are. They're shorter than me. That's the extent that I know. And then the next time, the same the same as his grandmother, what if his grandma could go, hey, how tall? You know, oh, you look like you're getting big now. How tall are you? And the kids would know. And they were like, oh, you've grown a couple inches over the last three months. And how's that friend of yours? You know, Louise or whatever. Like, what the heck ever, man? They actually cared about that conversation. They listened intently. They remembered stories that you told them. They they

they have no other focus in the world, actually. They're actually not thinking of anything else. They don't they don't care what's on the television. And, like and I thought, that's a good that's a good grandma right there. Like and I thought, as a dad, I actually stink at this. I I mean, I know the basic things but, like Yeah. Which one are you? Yeah. Which, you know actually, hey, so when I do the laundry, I actually don't know who belongs I I got I'm up to the clothes, most clothes but like socks

and even underwear. That's impossible. No. I just stick them all in a pile. I'm like, y'all come feed frenzy. I can't Yep. I can't keep track of this. Me too. Come to the sock trough. And now my oldest kid is the same is kind of the same height as my wife and now t shirts are starting to become a problem. I'm like, I'm gonna get my best but I I'm gonna fold, I'm gonna put in a pile and then you tell me where I get it wrong. But anyway, I just like it is so markedly different than the experience and that I have and like I know that it's better and I know that I am very shallow in how I listen to their stories Right. Or like other people and I thought this just doesn't what a what a waste of a moment. Like as we're like shuffling moments around like converts moving between churches. Just shuffling them around and be like, yay, we won some. I got to tell my story. Yay. We picked a couple up because they love the music. Like whatever it is. We're not actually investing in the very rare and precious moments that we have with each other. Shut your mouth and takes take some minute detail in because that frankly is what our lives are made up of. It's made up a series of minute details

of which we actually, like that's why that's why old people can talk about the weather. They they attach things to it. They actually care about it. They remember what the weather was like. They remember what years thing happened. I could barely give you a three to five year range in which something occurred. And I'm not I'm not quite 40. Yeah. Winter was rough last year. I don't remember. Yeah. I've been like, oh, I remember when I was 10 and it was it was negative 20. Right. Exactly. I remember the blizzard of blah blah blah blah blah. I'm like, I I got nothing. I was out of the country. I was in The Philippines.

Maybe I don't know. It's five years ago, six years. I don't know. I have no idea what year that happened. And it's and it's but it's these things when we don't pay attention, we don't listen to stories and because there's there's so much going on and, like, all we're doing is taking in we're fighting amongst shallow moments. Right? Hey, here's the potential to make a a good moment on a date with my wife or Buva talking to his lady and all of sudden we're like, oh, there's a shallow moment that can suck up what could be really great here. I wanna go after that. Just for the opportunity. It's not even a proven good thing. Right. Right? You're like, I'm willing to to to to push aside my time with you for the possibility of something being cool or terrible. I don't actually know. It's a gamble and I'm willing to take it. See you, woman. I'm going to Facebook. Right? Boo,

sir. You know? Interestingly, commenting on the on the generational statement you made, like, I think that that differences between forty years ago and now, like, information comes at us so quickly now, like, we we are constantly being fed all kinds of it, whether it's from our social media, whether it's from our Internet connected phones and all of the devices that we're on at all times, like, we know what is happening split second all around the world if we are tapped incorrectly and there's so much content we are constantly fed. And it's I I can tell you that it it destroyed my attention span. Like, going back to college

after seven years of being out in the world and having to focus on one thing, specifically one thing for a long period of time and not be distracted by a bunch of stuff and everything like that, it is incredibly difficult to go, okay. I understand that there's this giant feed of information that's literally in the palm of my hand. I can Google whatever I need to know. If I wanna figure out, you know, who the fourth highwayman is, I can really quick jump in there and figure it out and go into the entirety of that. But I have to focus on the fact that I have astronomy homework right now. And like, this is the most important thing. I have so I have such a a difficult time sitting down for more than a couple minutes at a time focusing on one thing. And then actually, it's messed up it's messed up the understanding that I have of of spending time with God as well. Like,

my girlfriend kinda mentioned the other day that that the the place that I'm in right now might be helped by spending a serious day with God And my employ unemployment instead of Netflix and instead of just randomly playing video games or whatever, like, just a day with God. And I'm like, I don't even know how to mean, if really what that looks like. Like, I have no clue. I'd make it to 09:30. I tried to plan it on a day that I was planning on sleeping in so that there was less time. And I actually Mike and Mike came and picked me up from my house at, like, 04:30 today because we were planning on taking care of something. And I planned it for today because I was like, yeah, well then it's not a full day. It's only a couple hours that I really need to fill, so that'll be the best way to do it. And I intentionally didn't do it today for that reason because I'm like, no. I need to spend some serious time. I don't know what it looks like to just sit down and worship and pray and read my bible and not be constantly jumping from place to place to place to place and spend some serious time with God. And it kills me, like, wish I could You know what? Forget this. I'm I'm I'm done with wishing. I'm going to do it because there's no reason I can't. I just need to intentionally invest the time to do so. I just wanna go on a walk with God. Like a legitimate just get out of my house, get out of the environment that I'm constantly comfortable in, and just go on a walk with Jesus and look what that looks like.

Like, imagine what how much better my life would be in a lot of different ways if I just decided for a healthy walk with God every single day. Physical walk is going. That would that would change that would change that potential there to change a lot of things. So So what's the role up here? Right? Like, I think this isn't an advocation for being a Luddite.

Like, you don't have to forego absolutely everything and you don't and it's it's not for an aestheticism that says, Mike, just so you know, I keep muting your microphone because you keep nose breathing into it. Well, I'm disappointed Okay. In you. Why? Because you've come at this conversation with such crevasse that I just I find it hard to take in.

Don't know what a luddite is, first of all, and I don't know what that second word you used. I think it was aestheticism, which I also found to to to curl my toenails in a way that made me feel dumb. The graves. Oh, man. Alright. You're an ox. How about that? You have to be a donut.

Okay. So I don't know that we're saying you have to completely, like, chuck your phone out the window. Mike unless Mike Mike, you might be saying that. Be a lunite. Yeah. I mean, I I find advantages to that, but we're looking for a medium here. I well, I think the the point is to say, we wanna invest in real things. Right. We wanna invest in true things. We wanna invest in important things. And at some point, you have to define that for yourself. Right. Don't let the world define what is important. Don't let your phone define what is important. Don't let the mechanisms of a program or somewhere define what is important. Right? Because, like, the only way that my my phone bosses me around is if I let it boss me around. It's a piece of machinery. It is not to blame for my decisions. It is a reflection of my decision. Right? The fact that I get distracted sitting in my house, and it's actually not the TV is rarely on, but I just got, like, stuff hanging around. All kinds of stuff that are waiting for my whim. Oh, I wanna pull a guitar off the wall. Oh, I got a stack of 75 books that I'm just gonna take a peek at. Or like whatever it is. Oh, I can't I can't maintain a focus on this thing because 10 other things are broken and I can't keep my mind off it. Like, those are reflections of my problem.

It's it's the my the stuff is not to blame. Now so take control of the stuff. If the stuff causes you a problem, then start like, turn all the notifications off. Just do it. Just do it. I I so I deleted Facebook off my phone, the the app. I I I did. I did. Now I cheat.

I cheat. I go to the browser and I just go to facebook.com on the browser and then I can pick it up. But I tell you what I don't get, I get no notifications on Facebook at all. You tag me or whatever, I'll never I won't know about it until I happen to go intentionally go to Facebook. Explains why Ben never responds to anything. That's right. That's exactly right. So, like, step one is to say Facebook doesn't boss me around. Step two is to say I need to reduce how often I go check it. But I I I'm still past step one is it's not allowed to boss me. And so, like, there's things like that where, like, I I I got room to to move but I'm making some progress on some of that stuff. And so what's important? Well, it's important to sit and listen to people. It's important to take in the the the minutiae. It's important to have a conversation, look people in the eye, pay attention to what they're saying, and recall it. And be able to talk about about it with them later. And it's more important than your ability to hop back to something else that ultimately you know is of no consequence. Like, we just don't take a this is true actually every corporate evaluation I've ever done of a of a business or something, like, everyone thinks that everything they do is valuable.

And then you look at it and you go, look, really? 10% of what you do is actually valuable. The rest, you're just spinning your wheels. You thought you had a good idea, you went and executed it and you realize and like, if you had to take the time to look at it, you'd like, this adds absolutely no value into my business. And everybody most people's lives are the same way. We see we pick up habits and we pick up new experiences and ways of doing things and new technology. And if you were to actually do some level of assessment every six months, go, you know what? 90% of this thing, this didn't do what I expected it do. It just soaked up time. It did not improve my life. I'm going to stop doing it. But we don't actually do that. We don't really reflect on it and so it persists because it becomes just part of what we do. Alright. Everybody get off Mike's Law. Yeah. Luddites, Popeye. The

the Luddites. So the Luddites were during the industrial revolution in Chocolate. Chocolate. What? Was what? Oh, buddy. Why are we saying chocolate? It's a social cue we get to use with Buva when he starts panhandling whatever story he wants to tell and you just shut him down, you say chocolate and then he shuts up and doesn't continue He's his phone right now when I was gonna tell Lunhead story. I'm turning all my notifications off of my apps because I can't delete Facebook or Instagram off my phone. It literally comes as a pre downloaded

app that does not it can't go away But I didn't ever think to turn off the notifications from the app. You could also sign out of it. Hey. Yeah. That's a good point. You should get a a phony Facebook account. Actually, that's what I did. I created one for a guy that didn't have one and then I manage it and I just send out funny Facebook things on his account all the time. I took a picture of a skunk and then put it out there and said, anybody know what kind of cat this is? I also took a picture of an empty an empty empty You can chocolate Mike if you'd like to.

I'll I'll I'll give you the address. It's It's really it's very funny. I don't need it because then I'm gonna go look for it. I don't need to look for it. It will add no value to my life. Yeah. But it'll make you laugh. Anyway, forty five second story. Luddites, during the industrial revolution, like, you were moving work from the farms, like agrarian work and it's moving into the cities and stuff. The Luddites were against this and the potential human abuses that came with it and so they came out and they, like, attacked factories and people. Try to keep to keep things from progressing.

Chocolate. Awesome. Alright. Chocolate. I think, Mike, I think we're it's time to hand out some advice. Just checked everything. Dear life from the path. A friend of mine is a very nice person.

He and his wife live in Pennsylvania. I live in New Jersey. He comes here and I go there where he lives. It's a great story so far. Wow. Every time it's his turn to pay, he comes to lunch alone. Every time it is my turn, he brings along his wife.

Nice. That's great. Yes. Don't feel He's right smarter than you. I don't feel right about it. He does offer extra money, which I'm really not comfortable accepting. But I love this one. This this we got no problems on so far. When it's his turn, he pays $25. But when it's mine, the tab is usually 40 to 50 because there's an extra person involved. What?

His wife eats devil sorry. Go ahead. Hey. Sometimes he takes care of the tip. Did I tell him I have things to do and can't go to lunch? That's a good You buffoon. How are you married with friends?

What? I don't get it. How'd you make it this far? Oh, dear. I mean, it's really cut to the quick of it. This is unresolvable. We're gonna I'm busy. You should just be passive aggressive and start bringing your wife along. Yeah. I could no longer go to lunch. When when are doing lunch? I don't know. I don't do lunch. I gave it up. Too busy. Because I'm a chicken. Wait. Was that it? Yeah. That's it. That's the question. Should I the only option is, should I tell them I have things to do and can't go to lunch? That's the only thing this person could come up with of a possibility that they should do. You were a dunderheaded buffoon. Seriously.

I've you said he offered to pay the difference and you turned it But I won't accept it. Yeah. Hey. I'm upset about the fact that he's offering me more money. Yeah. But I'm also upset that he's not paying that money. I'm curious that his wife eats for two men. Right. Two guys How does your meal eat for 25? When Bertha comes along. And she comes and it's 50. But she gets a couple drinks. I was gonna say, she's a lush. She likes Manhattan's. She loves the she loves the gravas from from the South Branch. Here's the thing It's expensive. The situation is even pretty reasonable. If if he travels to go visit his friend, he goes where did say New Jersey and what? Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania. Yeah. Yeah. So he travels from New Jersey to Pennsylvania to go visit his friend. His wife doesn't know his covalon. But when the dude shows up, drives to their place, his wife is around. Yeah. And so either they go I have to go out and leave his wife at home or she goes. Like, this is not even an unreasonable situation. Maybe the wife thought they were all friends. Yeah. He's mistaken. She's not some $25

like Nope. Anchor. Hey, can you not bring your wife along? I'll pay for you, but she's gotta pay for herself. Yeah. I mean, there's plenty of great options in here. Hey, man. Just Dutch treat You're able to just leave and travel from state to state. I mean, it may not be that actually far, but are you really gonna, like, bicker about the $25?

I don't know. The way that he phrase most of this question, he might be the Pennsylvania. He is from New Jersey. Yeah. I go to him and he comes to me from time to time. Kind of weird robot that's assumed a human identity is going on? We partake in lunch?

Okay. Hold on. I'm gonna assume Newark, New Jersey to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Okay. Two and a half hours. I was gonna say it's not that far. I mean, if you're going, like, Pittsburgh to New Jersey, it's a bit more because that's one side of the state to the other. Going to Philadelphia.

Philadelphia is not too far west into Pennsylvania. Hey. Hold on. Get it to yeah. Hour and a half. This is probably what's going on. Well, look, he if he lived in Trenton, New Jersey,

he would be within, like, twenty minutes. Right. Yeah. No. That yeah. It's not that far away from each other. Okay. Yeah. I I feel like he's exaggerated this. Anyway We go from one place, he's from the other. Okay. So Would you just scrap this? Reasonable advice. No. Giving up on lunch is not the proper way to handle this particular thing. You can you can call the sheep and just say, hey, look, man. I still wanna meet. Let's just let's just cover our own tabs. Yeah. Exactly. Let's simplify this matter. Gotcha. Yeah. And he's gonna say, hey, how come we're covering our own tabs? Because you bring your wife along and it cost me double. Yeah. You've been invited to into what's called a human conversation.

Yeah. In which you can state your case, your friend will state his. Hopefully, you can come up with a resolution. Or or again, advice, you come this next thing occurs and the wife comes and he says, hey, I'll pay the difference, you say, why thank you, I very much appreciate that. Yeah. But great. You know, what you could do is the next time you go there and they've gotta pay, order two entrees. Yeah. Yeah. How do you like that? What do you think of that? I'm taking this to my wife. Boy, I'd like two steaks today. Oh, man, that reminds me of a story I intended to share. I'll

pick it up next week. Secular says, Because you enjoy his company, tell him that although you like his wife, you would feel more comfortable if when you have lunch together, it's quotes just us guys. Oh. Come on. Oh, man. Either that or suggest that from now on, you each request separate checks. Okay. Fine.

Just stop it. Be more generous with your money. You wanna do one more? Yeah. Yeah. We can't we can't end on that. Yeah. That's Here we go. I won't sleep for a week. Dear dear life from the path, I never had sex unless I was in love Excellent. And knew there was a strong possibility of a solid future.

Well, I am 51 now and newly single. My divorce was final four months ago and I'm now living in a new state. I judged oh, boy. I joined one of those hookup sites No. Found someone and began having sex with him. Great. I nearly backed out and panicked because his profile said he lived thirty minutes away from me but he was at my house in ten minutes saying he was visiting a friend in my neighborhood. Oh, that's not creepy. Oh. He's well educated, gorgeous, adorable, and I'm having the most amazing mind blowing sex of my life. Oh. Mike, the problem is I fall in love and he's only 33. Oh, no. What? Okay. I never thought I could go through with a hookup, but I did. I need to end this, but I don't know how.

That's it. I'm with it. There's eighteen year difference. He's gorgeous. Adorable. Alright. Hey there, Fabio. Well educated. I've I've made a mistake. We're done. Yeah. Or you could just go, hey there, Fabio. We're done. Yeah. That's good enough. That that works. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You have the right to just go, nope. Yeah. She don't sound like she wants to be done. We're gonna go ahead and swipe the other way now. Yeah. That's a valid point. She doesn't sound like she wants to be done. That's right. Sweetheart, you need to be done. She's asking she's asking for the advice to be, oh, you're having fun. Enjoy your life. It is not going to continue. No. The 33 year old Casanova that's decided to be on on the on the hookup site that was ten minutes away from your house is not in a place where he wants to settle down with you

or does nor does he share your feelings most likely. You're 51 years old. You didn't see these I mean, you see no movies, read no books, have not had any relationships where a man says, hey, I'm a half hour away. I'm only ten minutes away. I'll be there. That's creepy. Her first fifty years was as a Luddite and it was just a difficult way. I mean, this is creepy. It's wrong. Things were agrarian. I can't I believe I lucked out that he was only ten minutes away. What's wrong with you? Visiting a friend. It's ridiculous. Check his ID, see if it's even real even his real name. You guys want secularist advice? Hold on. So what's so core advice is you first of all, our advice is you actually do need to break this off. Yes. If you're looking for justification to continue this, you're not getting it here. Yeah. No. This is a mistake. Walk away now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And get off the hookup side. Yeah.

Okay. Secular says, when people are newly divorced, because the process is often stressful and depressing, they can go on kind of a high when it's final. At some point, you will regain your equilibrium and when you do, you will know how to end it. In the meantime, keep having sex. In the meantime, yeah, keep keep going on with with No worries, friend. Everything is fine as is. Nothing. You will clean this up directly. Because it's gonna get easier as time goes on with you catching more feelings for this person that most likely doesn't have feelings for you. Yep. You know what shuts down relationships? Plamidia. That's what'll do it. Just keep right after it. Expecting that. Yeah. Most people aren't. That's a true point. Yep.

Part of the old standard, STD. Moses. Man. Yeah. Those are just some foundational things that I feel like I can't this here's the thing. This this is this can't be valuable for you. Like, you know this can't end well. I mean, basically, like, you're coming off a divorce. I would expect a little bit of hesitance to be like, you know, I thought this other thing was gonna work out. Right. Yeah. And that may I don't know what about your situation, may not have been your control. But, you know, obviously, your ability to evaluate the situation

shifts over time. Just like Casanova will, you're walking into a circumstance of which you were both were looking for something shallow and now you have this impression that something may not be as shallow as you were as you had originally intended. Uh-oh. And you have no view that his is gonna stay the same. Yep. So, like, this is like, you're you're ripe for causing yourself a problem and then continuing to try to fix it in these same ways that are destructive to you personally. Yeah. It's okay to love yourself better than this. Yeah. I mean, most people's reaction to getting into deeper waters is, I'm not prepared. Right? You show up with your trunks on and you start walking to three feet in, you're like, yeah, this is great. And all of a sudden, your head starts to go and you go, I don't have a boat, I don't have a floating device, I'm out of here. This is not the place for me. And that's what you're doing. You're trying to figure out a way to camp out in the deep end. You need to leave the deep end and get out completely. Right. Hey, I was real nervous about this and I had to force myself to do it. Yeah. Why don't you listen to your buddy and say, you know what? I'm not going Big mistake. Yeah. Exactly. You did not have to let them into your house. Yeah. I was only ten minutes away. Chris,

do you need to leave? Were you an Uber driver? Get out of here. Yeah. Even if if at any point in time that you wanted to stop, you have every right to go, okay. This this is done. We're gonna end on that one? Yeah. You wanted one more? Yeah. Okay. Let's do one more. I got one more. Oh, man. Man. Dan's not gonna sleep for a week. Yeah. It's late, Ben. Holy cow. We started the show late. Somebody was take it late. Man. Probably moving. Okay. Last one. Why is that No. Where I read that one? Oh, here we go. Dear life from the path. My wife of forty five years is an older sister who is a nasty narcissistic bully. I love this one. Oh, man. She has treated my wife and our family like dirt for years. Uh-huh. Yet my wife continues to tolerate it and refuses to hear any negative comments about her sister from me. Okay. Yeah. Because of the way she has behaved, I do not want any contact with my sister-in-law. I'm at a loss though as to how to keep the relationship from causing trouble in my marriage. Why do bullied people refuse to see their abusers for what they are?

Question. And that's the nature of being bullied. That's that's a valid point there. You gotta put up fences. Put up fences, exactly. Fences. You need to found a friend. You are you are married to this woman, yes. The absolute truth to that. You

should have her best interest in your heart, absolutely, 100%. But that does not necessarily mean you have to allow her family to wreck yours. It's gonna be difficult and especially if your wife is not on your side on that. You're gonna have to work through that. There's gonna be some conflict that has to happen. Hopefully you guys can come through but that doesn't mean you don't put up fences now and and invite your wife to your side of the fence. Yeah. There's there's a lot of there's a lot of pride and lack of humility. If you remain in relationships where you think, I am the only one that can reach them, I'm the only one that can save them, I'm the only one that can help them.

That is a a pride based thought process on your own, especially if you're coming at it from a Christ following angle, which I'm hoping that's where you're coming from. But these are gods to handle and there is no benefit to you or them to be a permanent punching bag. It just it just doesn't make any sense. It's not you're not helping them. Right? And they're not helping you. And so I if you need to set up some boundaries, you need to set them up. Put them up there. I don't think you have to stand on a hill and say and you take it day by day. Right? The boundaries go up and you say, today, boundary day. Tomorrow, maybe boundaries leave, maybe they don't. We'll see what tomorrow looks like. But today is boundary day and you stay over there because I'm telling you right now, it's not the day. Right? And that's okay. And I think you take it a day at a time. You don't make long speeches and big wins and put up big dramatic fights. You put up boundaries and you say these boundaries will stay in place until it's time to remove these boundaries. And I think that's just fine. And I think it's okay for the I think it's okay for the wife to be like, hey, I don't wanna sit and listen to you complain about my sister. Right. I think that's alright.

So I heard this correctly. Right? They're they've been married forty five years? Uh-huh. Yes. So they're in their seventies? Yes. So Their older 85 year old sister. Yeah. I'm like Oh, boy. You're right. Probably not getting together that often. And when you do, go out go out and work in the garage. Ethel got the Facebook. Just let her do yeah. Let you're not gonna change anything. You're not gonna change your sister. You're not gonna change his his wife's love of her sister Yeah. Or love of being abused. Just let her just to voice your concern Every time I post a then little do something a different. What kind of shows up with the comments and says, your interests are stupid. What kind of 80 year old woman is a narcissistic

bully? She's gonna be dead soon anyway. I doubt she's I bet that this is just residual in house. She probably doesn't have the energy to still be the narcissistic bully she used to be. Yeah. But this guy just harbored forty five years of this. Yeah. Do you suck, Edna? I tell you, my my my mom had had two sisters and I, you know and and like they just when they got together, it was like they were in grade school again. And they treated each other like they did when they were kids. And and like because my sometimes my mom would say things, oh, boy, my sisters are mean blah blah blah. I'm thinking, I don't know. They seem pretty nice to me. Right. You know, I don't know. They're human beings? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they just I liked them. But but yeah. Like, she would revert back into little sister. My mom was the youngest and she was like, of sudden, the little one is like, just exert yourself. You're you're you're an adult, you know? Yeah. And so so that's what's going on. She's the the the sister here is allowing herself to be abused by the abused and, like, you know, whatever. Yeah. The hierarchy doesn't exist anymore. Yeah. All adults. But but they're letting it continue. Yeah. Exactly. And he's not gonna stop that. You don't need to go tattle because you're the youngest. Yeah. So

let them do that dynamic and you go buff the look like for this guy in this marriage to let this happen, but then also to try and be right in his marriage with his with his wife, who's obviously gonna feel abandoned if she just Well, I mean, he doesn't have to say positive things about the sister, but he doesn't have to say negative things. Right. Right. I would just remain Let it be its thing. Yeah. It's what it is. Go build the birdhouse. My sister's being mean to me. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. That happens. Doing it for I am so sorry for Right. And she had eight plus years. He's not he's not abandoning her. She wants him to stop talking to her about it. Yeah. And so, you know He cares. That's nice. Yeah. He was the protector. Guys protectors. Say. Yeah. Alright. Just accept the fact you can't protect her from this. Question was, why do bullied people refuse to see their abusers for what they are? Regular says, it's lack of self esteem. Bullied people somehow think they deserve the ill treatment they are receiving. Your wife may come from a background where abuse was normal. If you prefer to avoid your sister-in-law,

that is your privilege. However, as long as your wife accepts the status quo, nothing will change. Yep. Yep. Alright. You've been listening to Life in the Past? We do appreciate you hang out with us on this crisp Monday evening. Hey. If you got anything that you wanna talk to us about, maybe you hate the show. I love that. Give us a call on the complaint line. (515) 517-0085.

That's (515) 517-0085. That's a live from the Pathway plate line. We also take texts. Maybe you got some new Fangled technology. I stay out of the notifications on the Google Voice. I only know when it happens there once a week. So Can we text out from that number? Yeah. Delicious. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Hey.

Hey. Send us your phone number, and we'll send you a text back. Yeah. That that sound impressive. We got an organization going on around here. Alright. Anyway, thanks for hanging out with us. We will see you yeah. Company next week, we'll see how the dice rolls. In the meantime, be faithful in the means. God will handle the ends. You've been listening to Live From The Past.