SPEAKER_1: It is the 1st of January, 2026.
SPEAKER_1: I am Corey J.
SPEAKER_1: Mahler, and this is At Any Cost.
SPEAKER_1: This is a question and answer episode.
SPEAKER_1: And happy new year to all of you, and I think I will just get straight into the questions here.
SPEAKER_1: Unfortunately, ReStream is seemingly having some kind of problem with their OBS plug-in, so I have to check the comments in another window because it's not loading, having some cross origin issue.
SPEAKER_1: So, hopefully, they fix that by next week.
SPEAKER_1: At any rate, moving right into the questions.
SPEAKER_1: The first question is an exegetical one.
SPEAKER_1: It is a little bit longer.
SPEAKER_1: I may go through the fullness of the text just because it's a useful text to go through for a number of reasons.
SPEAKER_1: But the question is about Ezekiel 37 through 39, so obviously, not trivial, but not that substantial chunk of scripture, and how that plays into proper exegesis.
SPEAKER_1: So understanding what Israel is, what Israel isn't, and particularly how to respond to those who interpret that incorrectly and believe that it is dealing exclusively or even primarily with ethnic Israel, which is to say Old Testament Israel, the Jews in that sense.
SPEAKER_1: So more properly, the Hebrews and the Jews.
SPEAKER_1: But let me pull up Logos here so that we can get the scripture visible.
SPEAKER_1: Actually, I think I would just pull up the full Logos window for this one, because I'm going to want both the Old Testament and the New Testament, and you don't really need to see my face while I'm reading.
SPEAKER_1: It's not that important.
SPEAKER_1: So looking at Ezekiel, I think I probably will go through the fullness of this, just because it's going to come up again and again and again, and not just this, but similar sections of the Old Testament, because those who have been misinformed, have been falsely taught with regard to what Israel is and what Israel is not, are going to resort to passages like this in order to, well, try to defend false theology.
SPEAKER_1: So, let's just go through the fullness of it.
SPEAKER_1: Starting with 37, we'll read through 39.
SPEAKER_1: I'll probably comment along the way instead of waiting to the end, just because I think that's useful here.
SPEAKER_1: Eventually I will go through and do something more substantial on this and similar passages, but this is sort of the Cliff Notes version of it, the short version of it.
SPEAKER_1: And the hand of the Lord came upon me, and the Lord brought me out in his spirit, and set me in the midst of the plain.
SPEAKER_1: And this was full of human bones.
SPEAKER_1: And he brought me all around them in a circle, and behold, very many, very dry, upon the surface of the plain.
SPEAKER_1: And he said to me, Son of man, shall these bones live?
SPEAKER_1: And I said, O Lord, you know these things.
SPEAKER_1: And he said to me, Prophesy over these bones, and you shall say to them, O dry bones, hear a word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_1: This is what the Lord says to these bones.
SPEAKER_1: Behold, I am bringing into you a spirit of life, and I will give sinews on you, and bring flesh upon you, and draw out skin over you, and give my breath into you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.
SPEAKER_1: And I prophesied as he commanded me, and it happened when I prophesied, and behold a shaking, and he brought forth the bones, each to its joint.
SPEAKER_1: And I looked, and behold, sinews and flesh were growing upon them, and skin was coming up upon them, on top, but no breath was in them.
SPEAKER_1: And he said to me, prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, this is what the Lord says, come from the four winds, and blow into these corpses, and they shall live.
SPEAKER_1: And I prophesied just as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood upon their feet, a very great gathering.
SPEAKER_1: And the Lord spoke to me, saying, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel.
SPEAKER_1: And they say, our bones have become dry, our hope is perished, we are lost.
SPEAKER_1: Therefore prophesy and say, this is what the Lord says, behold I am opening your tombs, and will bring you up out of your tombs, and bring you into the land of Israel.
SPEAKER_1: And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, so that I might bring my people up out of their graves.
SPEAKER_1: And I will give my spirit into you, and you shall live, and I will place you upon your own land, and you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken, and I will act, says the Lord.
SPEAKER_1: And so here we have basically one of the first things that they are going to bring up when they're trying to tell you, no, it's promises for ethnic Israel, it's not promises for Christians.
SPEAKER_1: They're going to bring up that it mentions the house of Israel.
SPEAKER_1: But in order to understand these passages in the Old Testament, you have to understand what is meant by Israel.
SPEAKER_1: And this is the fundamental problem that you have with so many when it comes to exegesis of these passages, because they've been inculcated with this false belief from dispensationalism and related things.
SPEAKER_1: That's the problem.
SPEAKER_1: And so the issue here is that Israel is the church.
SPEAKER_1: I'm just going to go right up front and say that bluntly, Israel is the church.
SPEAKER_1: I guess I should pull it up in this other Logos window as well, so we're not looking at the preface to Emperor Charles here.
SPEAKER_1: But Israel is the church.
SPEAKER_1: And one of the ways you can understand this, of course, is when dealing with the promises, what does it speak of?
SPEAKER_1: And particularly, you should look at the New Testament, because we use the New Testament, which has a clarity to the Old Testament does not, when interpreting the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_1: And so, for instance, we can turn to Galatians 3.21, is a good place to start.
SPEAKER_1: And I will pull that up here.
SPEAKER_1: So, starting with Galatians 3, verse 21, Is the law then contrary to the promises of God?
SPEAKER_1: Certainly not, for if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law.
SPEAKER_1: But the scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
SPEAKER_1: Now, before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed.
SPEAKER_1: So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.
SPEAKER_1: But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.
SPEAKER_1: For in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God, through faith.
SPEAKER_1: For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
SPEAKER_1: There is neither Jew nor Greek.
SPEAKER_1: There is neither slave nor free.
SPEAKER_1: There is no male and female.
SPEAKER_1: For you are all one in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_1: And if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.
SPEAKER_1: And so, of course, what is the house of Israel, the actual house of Israel?
SPEAKER_1: The heirs to Abraham, Abraham's true offspring, his true offspring are those through the promise, not through the law.
SPEAKER_1: You have this in a number of places in scripture.
SPEAKER_1: It's very clear.
SPEAKER_1: So, for instance, we can also turn to the next chapter of Galatians, which is even more clear on this subject than perhaps Galatians 3.
SPEAKER_1: And, of course, we've dealt with, in Stone Choir, Galatians 3.28 and all those issues that people bring up, so I won't reiterate that here.
SPEAKER_1: Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law?
SPEAKER_1: For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman.
SPEAKER_1: But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise.
SPEAKER_1: Now, this may be interpreted allegorically.
SPEAKER_1: That's an important point.
SPEAKER_1: These women are two covenants.
SPEAKER_1: One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery.
SPEAKER_1: She is Hagar.
SPEAKER_1: Now, Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia.
SPEAKER_1: She corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children.
SPEAKER_1: But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.
SPEAKER_1: For it is written, Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear, break forth and cry aloud, you who are not in labor.
SPEAKER_1: For the children of the desolate one will be more than those of the one who has a husband.
SPEAKER_1: Now, you brothers like Isaac are children of promise.
SPEAKER_1: But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the spirit, so also it is now.
SPEAKER_1: But what does the scripture say?
SPEAKER_1: Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.
SPEAKER_1: So brothers, we are not children of the slave, but of the free woman.
SPEAKER_1: And of course, the Jews are the children of the slave woman, because they are not children of the promise because they are not in Christ.
SPEAKER_1: And so, they cannot be in view in these Old Testament passages that are dealing with Israel.
SPEAKER_1: One of the ways, of course, you can see this, it's very clear in this passage here.
SPEAKER_1: There are two different Jerusalems.
SPEAKER_1: This is one that is going to come up in a number of places, and you can think perhaps of Psalm 47 in the Septuagint numbering, Psalm 48 in the numbering with which we're more familiar, because those are the Bibles we have.
SPEAKER_1: And in that, it describes Jerusalem as being in, in the wording of the Masoretic text, the far north, or in the wording of the Septuagint text, the slopes of the north.
SPEAKER_1: In either case, it's talking about Jerusalem being in the north.
SPEAKER_1: Well, if you know anything about Old Testament Israel and even Israel today, so called, where is Jerusalem located?
SPEAKER_1: Jerusalem is located in Judah.
SPEAKER_1: Judah is the southern kingdom.
SPEAKER_1: Jerusalem is in the south.
SPEAKER_1: It's not in the north.
SPEAKER_1: And so, very clearly, it cannot be describing earthly Jerusalem, which is also obvious by the fact that it's described in Revelation and other places as coming down from heaven.
SPEAKER_1: This is the heavenly Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_1: It's speaking about the heavenly city.
SPEAKER_1: It's speaking about paradise.
SPEAKER_1: That's what it is.
SPEAKER_1: It's a way of speaking about paradise.
SPEAKER_1: And so, not to sort of jump ahead in the exegesis here, but this passage in Ezekiel in a number of places is speaking about the end times.
SPEAKER_1: It's speaking about the church, the fulfillment.
SPEAKER_1: It's speaking about the apocalypse.
SPEAKER_1: That's why you start to get imagery.
SPEAKER_1: I won't read through the whole thing, I don't think, but you start to get imagery of these countries from the north coming and attacking Israel.
SPEAKER_1: Well, the problem is they're riding on horses, and the weapons described are things like daggers.
SPEAKER_1: No one is going to attack modern day Israel, so called, with horses and daggers.
SPEAKER_1: This is imagery of the apocalypse.
SPEAKER_1: It is imagery of Satan's assault on the church.
SPEAKER_1: And that's why you have different Jerusalems.
SPEAKER_1: You have the earthly Jerusalem, the children of the slave woman, you have the Jews who are apostate, unbelievers, not part of the promise, and you have the heavenly Jerusalem, which is the mother of those, obviously speaking, symbolically, the mother of those who are believers.
SPEAKER_1: So, continuing on here, we will start with verse 15 now.
SPEAKER_1: I should tab back over to that, so you can all follow along, probably a little easier.
SPEAKER_1: And a word of the Lord came to me saying, Son of man, take for yourself a rod and write on it, Judah and the sons of Israel who are joined to him.
SPEAKER_1: And you shall take for yourself a second rod, and you shall inscribe it for Joseph, the rod of Ephraim, and all the sons of Israel who have been added to him.
SPEAKER_1: And you shall join them to each other into one rod for yourself so as to bind them, and they shall be in your hand.
SPEAKER_1: And it shall be when the sons of your people shall say to you, Will you not proclaim to us what is this thing of yours?
SPEAKER_1: Then you shall say to them, This is what the Lord says, Behold I will take the tribe of Joseph, which is through the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel join to him.
SPEAKER_1: And I will give them on to the tribe of Judah, and they shall be as one rod in the hand of Judah.
SPEAKER_1: And the rods, those upon which you write, shall be in your hand before them.
SPEAKER_1: And you shall say to them, This is what the Lord says, Behold I am taking the whole house of Israel from the midst of the nations, where they went, and I will gather them from all those around them and bring them into the land of Israel.
SPEAKER_1: And I will give them into one nation in my land, and on the mountains of Israel, and they shall have one ruler, and they shall no longer be as two nations, nor shall they be divided into two kingdoms, so that they never again defile themselves with their idols.
SPEAKER_1: And I will rescue them from all their lawless acts, whereby they have sinned, and I will cleanse them, and they shall be for me as a people, and I, the Lord, will be a god for them.
SPEAKER_1: Again, you can see very clearly in this passage, it's not speaking about earthly, ethnic Israel.
SPEAKER_1: It can't be, because also later on, the next passage here, I'll read that in a second.
SPEAKER_1: It's dealing with the eschaton, it's dealing with eschatology, the end of all things, because this is the gathering end of all of those who are of the house of Israel, which is to say, again, the church, who will be in paradise with God as their ruler.
SPEAKER_1: Made more obvious by the next passage here.
SPEAKER_1: And my slave or servant, same word in Greek, David shall be ruler in their midst, and they shall all have one shepherd, for they shall walk by my ordinances and keep my judgments and perform them, and they shall live upon their land that I have given to my slave, Jacob.
SPEAKER_1: There were their fathers lived, and they shall live upon it, and David, my slave, shall be their ruler forever.
SPEAKER_1: If it's talking about an eternal ruler, and it's talking about David, David is used in the Old Testament in this sense here, typologically of Christ, because of course, no human ruler is going, no merely human ruler, is going to rule them forever.
SPEAKER_1: This is Christ, this is the new Jerusalem, this is the new land of Israel, this is paradise, this is again, talking about the eschaton.
SPEAKER_1: And of course, we know that, because David again, typological of Christ, Christ is the one shepherd, very obvious in the New Testament, I am the good shepherd, I lay down my life for my sheep, and many other places.
SPEAKER_1: And so, we cannot be dealing with an earthly kingdom, because it talks about them following his law, obeying his commandments, walking by his ordinances, no longer sinning.
SPEAKER_1: That's not something that's going to happen in this life, in this world, in this creation unrenewed.
SPEAKER_1: That is the next life, that is the creation renewed, purged of sin, where those of us who are in Christ will be ruled by Christ and will no longer sin, no longer have all of the problems we have today.
SPEAKER_1: Concupiscence will no longer be a thing, original sin.
SPEAKER_1: So it's very clearly speaking of the restoration of all things.
SPEAKER_1: I'm going to skip the bit about all of the nations coming and fighting against Israel.
SPEAKER_1: I've already mentioned what that means.
SPEAKER_1: Again, it's the eschaton.
SPEAKER_1: You can see this in Revelation as well.
SPEAKER_1: This is something that is typological.
SPEAKER_1: It is then echoed in Revelation, speaking of the end times and the assault of Satan and his followers on the church.
SPEAKER_1: That's all that this is.
SPEAKER_1: I think that's probably sufficient.
SPEAKER_1: I don't think I need to read through 38 and 39, because I've really touched on how you exegete this entire passage just by reading through 37.
SPEAKER_1: I do, of course, encourage you to go and read all of it, but I'm not going to take the time now to do it.
SPEAKER_1: So, again, I may touch this in an essay at some point, deal with it more thoroughly, but that gives you sort of the starting place to deal with those who talk about this being ethnic Israel, because it's just very clearly not.
SPEAKER_1: The only way that you can find ethnic Israel here is if you ignore what it's actually saying about what God is doing, about what God is going to do, about the fact that they're not going to sin anymore, or they're going to follow his ordinances.
SPEAKER_1: Look at Israel today, so called.
SPEAKER_1: Are they obeying God?
SPEAKER_1: Are they following his ordinances?
SPEAKER_1: No.
SPEAKER_1: The restoration, so called, of ethnic Israel to that land in 1948 does not fulfill this, because it doesn't obey what is said here.
SPEAKER_1: They are not subject to David, which is to say Christ.
SPEAKER_1: They are still horrible, sinning Jews.
SPEAKER_1: They don't believe in God.
SPEAKER_1: They blaspheme him daily.
SPEAKER_1: That's sort of the Cliff Notes version, again, and the way to deal with this.
SPEAKER_1: And it's also worth mentioning, you do have sort of cyclical fulfillments of many of the prophecies in the Old Testament, including this one.
SPEAKER_1: And so you do have times where you will have a minor fulfillment, which is a restoration of ethnic Israel, incidentally, not actual Israel, the Northern Kingdom, because they get destroyed completely by the Assyrians.
SPEAKER_1: But you do have the restoration after the Babylonian exile, because the house of Judah was restored to the land, and then dispersed again for being faithless apostates again.
SPEAKER_1: But the ultimate fulfillment of this, the end of the cycle of fulfillments, is the end times, is the restoration of all things.
SPEAKER_1: And it's worth emphasizing that point.
SPEAKER_1: Again, this cannot be about ethnic Israel, because the northern ten tribes are destroyed completely, they're gone.
SPEAKER_1: So you can't have some restoration of the ethnic house of Israel, and the ethnic house of Judah, because the ethnic house of Israel ceased to exist after the Assyrian exile.
SPEAKER_1: Incidentally, also the way that you deal with those who try to say the 144,000 revelation are ethnic Jews.
SPEAKER_1: They can't be.
SPEAKER_1: First off, the list is wrong, because it's not actually a list of the tribes.
SPEAKER_1: But then second, it's very clearly typological.
SPEAKER_1: I've talked about that one before, so I won't get into that now.
SPEAKER_1: But I think that sort of covers it for really most purposes here.
SPEAKER_1: If someone has follow-up questions, of course, I can deal with those later.
SPEAKER_1: But you can also think, of course, Isaiah 56 came to mind while I was thinking about this question.
SPEAKER_1: Also, an eschatological promise, also dealing with the End Times.
SPEAKER_1: I will bring them into my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer.
SPEAKER_1: Their whole burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be acceptable on my altar, for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations.
SPEAKER_1: Not just dealing with Old Testament, ethnic Israel, all nations, because the gospel is for all peoples, as also seen very clearly in Galatians 3.
SPEAKER_1: The next question is sort of an easier, lighter question.
SPEAKER_1: Let me pull that up here.
SPEAKER_1: Basically, Anglicanism versus Lutheranism.
SPEAKER_1: Not in the sense of them being opposed, but sort of in the sense of which one should I be.
SPEAKER_1: So a little opposition, but I'll read the question.
SPEAKER_1: Hello, thanks for all you do.
SPEAKER_1: I recently moved, and I am considering joining a Lutheran church, but the hang up is that my ancestors are all from England, both sides, and my grandfather was an Episcopal priest in the 1960s until he passed.
SPEAKER_1: I respect your and Woe's opinion, and would consider a Lutheran church, but feel the Fourth Commandment leads me to stay Anglican.
SPEAKER_1: Thoughts on participating in the church of my fathers?
SPEAKER_1: I don't have any problem with the faithful Anglican churches.
SPEAKER_1: Obviously, I disagree with some of their theology, particularly the ones that lean a little more heavily reformed, because as I've mentioned before, the Anglican church is a very big umbrella, for a number of reasons, partly due to the empire historically, partly just because it was never really solidified into a single confession to which everyone adhered without exception.
SPEAKER_1: That's very common over in the reformed camp, and I don't think that I'm being unfair to the reformed.
SPEAKER_1: I think they would agree with me on that point.
SPEAKER_1: So there are very good Anglican churches, and there are very bad Anglican churches.
SPEAKER_1: The same is true of Lutherans, of course, but, and I'm not just saying Elka, because they're not even Christian.
SPEAKER_1: There are bad LCMS churches, there are good LCMS churches.
SPEAKER_1: The same thing is true over in the Anglican camp.
SPEAKER_1: If you can find a good Anglican church, by all means attend it.
SPEAKER_1: Yes, I disagree with some of their theology.
SPEAKER_1: Yes, I think there are doctrinal issues, but I still think they're Christians.
SPEAKER_1: There are faithful Christians in the Anglican church.
SPEAKER_1: You can be Anglican.
SPEAKER_1: There's also the historical tidbit that is worth mentioning.
SPEAKER_1: The Anglican church proper, as something separate from, in this case, Lutheranism, would not have existed if Henry VIII had not martyred Robert Barnes, because he was initially listening to him, but then, basically due to political shenanigans, very underhanded, but sort of the history of the human species, Robert Barnes was murdered, and so he was the one who was bringing England over to Lutheranism.
SPEAKER_1: He was a friend of Martin Luther.
SPEAKER_1: He had lived with Martin Luther for a period of time.
SPEAKER_1: Martin Luther published his confession and eulogized him, but because of that martyrdom, you wind up with an independent Anglican church distinct from Lutheranism and separated from it.
SPEAKER_1: That's unfortunate.
SPEAKER_1: It is part of history.
SPEAKER_1: That's just how it's gone.
SPEAKER_1: But there wouldn't be anything wrong if you were to join a Lutheran church.
SPEAKER_1: Effectively, what you would be doing is recognizing that historical reality, that unfortunate historical event, and undoing it in miniature, which I would love to see the Anglican church and the Lutheran church unify under a true confession, which is, say, the Augsburg confession, and no longer have that schism and no longer have that separation.
SPEAKER_1: So, you can join either one.
SPEAKER_1: It's not a violation of the Fourth Commandment because what you want to do to be true to your forefathers, not just your father, but your grandfather, your great-grandfather, all the way back, is to be a Christian, to be a true Christian, to be a faithful Christian.
SPEAKER_1: And I do believe that you can do that in an Anglican church and you can do that in a Lutheran church.
SPEAKER_1: As a Lutheran, obviously, I believe the Lutheran confession is better than what the Anglican churches confess.
SPEAKER_1: But I don't think that Anglicans are not Christian.
SPEAKER_1: So, join whichever one you happen to have in your area that is a good church and work to improve it.
SPEAKER_1: That's the best thing that you can do.
SPEAKER_1: I have sort of a follow-up question here for the next one, a little bit more about baptism.
SPEAKER_1: Unsurprising, that's going to be a question that comes up a lot.
SPEAKER_1: Hello, Cory.
SPEAKER_1: Hopefully, I am posting a question in the correct part of the forum.
SPEAKER_1: It was fine.
SPEAKER_1: I think I moved it, but it's good.
SPEAKER_1: Is there a morally permissible means that permits the head of the household, a man, obviously, to administer baptism to those that God has entrusted to his care?
SPEAKER_1: I confess that I'm likely standing in the way of God's free gift, and that is not what I want to do.
SPEAKER_1: I would rather receive his free gifts and return thanks in his church.
SPEAKER_1: I am hesitant to bring my family into a congregation that is part of a corporation that is demonstrably led by an apostate.
SPEAKER_1: Certainly a problem, and that's a problem across denominations.
SPEAKER_1: You're not going to find, unfortunately, good leadership anywhere.
SPEAKER_1: The Roman Catholic Church obviously has...
SPEAKER_1: As a Lutheran, I'm going to say some choice things about the Pope, but the current one is awful, even by the standards of popes, and they've had Medici's as popes.
SPEAKER_1: But the corporate heads of basically every denomination, they're all terrible.
SPEAKER_1: Thanks in advance for your time in considering my question.
SPEAKER_1: If I missed it in a prior SC episode, I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_1: Thank you for your time and faithful exegesis of Scripture.
SPEAKER_1: So, I have addressed this one before, but it is worth addressing again, because it's such an important issue, because the sacraments are important, and baptism in particular is important.
SPEAKER_1: Yes, of course, I'm not minimizing the Lord's Supper anyway.
SPEAKER_1: I recognize that many of those in the ancient church went to the lions, because they would not deny the real presence, the bodily presence of Christ in the Supper.
SPEAKER_1: But baptism is the way that you properly enter the church.
SPEAKER_1: Now, that's not to say that you cannot have faith from some other means, because there are means of grace, plural.
SPEAKER_1: And so, you can be given faith by hearing, reading the word, right?
SPEAKER_1: That's one of the means of grace.
SPEAKER_1: Another one is baptism.
SPEAKER_1: Baptism grants faith.
SPEAKER_1: And there's a follow-up question as well later on, I think, touching on regeneration.
SPEAKER_1: Yes, I may get to that one tonight, I don't know.
SPEAKER_1: But baptism regenerates.
SPEAKER_1: Baptism grants the free gift of faith.
SPEAKER_1: Baptism is how you enter the church.
SPEAKER_1: It does not mean, again, that you cannot have faith absent baptism.
SPEAKER_1: I've explained it before by saying, is baptism necessary?
SPEAKER_1: Yes, but not absolutely so, but yes.
SPEAKER_1: And I've explained that, I won't necessarily go to that right now, but the core of the question here is, can a Christian man, particularly the head of the household, although I won't limit it to that, because it's not limited to that, can he baptize the members of his household?
SPEAKER_1: The answer is yes, you can baptize your children.
SPEAKER_1: Is it the ordinary way that things are done?
SPEAKER_1: The answer is no, because the ordinary way that things are done in a Christian society, when everything is functioning as it should, is that the pastor, a member of whose flock you are, baptizes your children as they are born.
SPEAKER_1: That's the way it should be.
SPEAKER_1: That is the way it was for centuries.
SPEAKER_1: That is the ideal.
SPEAKER_1: We are not necessarily there right now for a number of reasons which we are all well aware.
SPEAKER_1: So, any Christian can administer baptism.
SPEAKER_1: That includes women.
SPEAKER_1: Women can baptize in an emergency, because that is even further outside the norm, because it should be the head of the household, or some male that has an appropriate relationship to the person being baptized.
SPEAKER_1: And so, usually, that's the minister, the priest, the pastor, but it can be the head of the household, it could be an uncle, a grandfather, whatever.
SPEAKER_1: My father baptized both of my siblings.
SPEAKER_1: Incidentally, he also baptized me, in the church, in my case.
SPEAKER_1: So, nothing wrong with that.
SPEAKER_1: That is entirely fine.
SPEAKER_1: Use the words as instituted in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_1: Go through the ritual of it.
SPEAKER_1: Ritual is important.
SPEAKER_1: It's not justifying in its own sense, of course, but it is an important part of being a Christian and practicing the Christian faith.
SPEAKER_1: And make sure you have witnesses.
SPEAKER_1: That's the standard for Biblical baptism.
SPEAKER_1: In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, with witnesses, water.
SPEAKER_1: It's water and the Word, because, of course, it's a sacrament.
SPEAKER_1: It's not just the water, it's not just the Word.
SPEAKER_1: It's the water and the Word together.
SPEAKER_1: So, the short answer, of course, is yes, you can baptize your children.
SPEAKER_1: And if you happen to have access to a Lutheran hymnal, they are all going to have a baptismal rite.
SPEAKER_1: Just follow that.
SPEAKER_1: Or, I think, probably most reformed hymnals, or the equivalent, if they have something separate for their rites, their services, we'll also have that.
SPEAKER_1: So, there's even an emergency.
SPEAKER_1: I'm looking at my Lutheran service book here.
SPEAKER_1: But there's even an emergency form in the back of many, or in the front, depending, of many Lutheran books.
SPEAKER_1: So, in an emergency, if someone needs to baptize someone, that's something that's there and available.
SPEAKER_1: So, if you're on an airplane and it's going down, by all means, baptize someone with a water bottle.
SPEAKER_1: If you are any Christian, male, female, doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_1: The next question is again about denominations and kind of denominational differences here, this time in the context of marriage.
SPEAKER_1: As a Christian, is it permissible to marry a Roman Catholic?
SPEAKER_1: I'll read the rest of the question here, there's a couple more paragraphs, but I do want to point out first, there are Christian Roman Catholics.
SPEAKER_1: And I know some people think, how can a Lutheran possibly say that?
SPEAKER_1: Our confession, the Book of Concord, says that the Pope is anti-Christ, and basically says everyone should desert him, and some other choice phrases, particularly in certain documents in the Book of Concord.
SPEAKER_1: And that doesn't mean that there are no Christians in the Roman Church.
SPEAKER_1: Similarly, I believe there are Christians in the Eastern churches.
SPEAKER_1: I believe the Eastern church itself is apostate due to Palomism and a number of other things, but there are Christians in those churches.
SPEAKER_1: Just as there are even some Christians in the Mormon Church, so called, I wouldn't call it a church, but they like to call themselves that.
SPEAKER_1: In the lower levels of that, before they become a temple Mormon, which is what they call them, before they get initiated into the mysteries, because it is a mystery cult, there are people who just believe in Christ.
SPEAKER_1: In the simplicity of their ignorance, they hold to Christ, they believe in Christ, that makes them a Christian.
SPEAKER_1: Are they a good Christian?
SPEAKER_1: Not particularly, but that's not what saves you.
SPEAKER_1: What saves you is belief in Christ, faith in Christ, the free gift of faith.
SPEAKER_1: And there are Christians in the Roman Church.
SPEAKER_1: So, continuing on the rest of the question.
SPEAKER_1: I'm a young man who's pursuing a relationship with a woman about my age.
SPEAKER_1: She is a Christian, as am I, but she is currently in RCIA with a strong intention to convert to Roman Catholicism.
SPEAKER_1: I am unsure about marrying this woman if she converts to Roman Catholicism, as the differences may be irreconcilable.
SPEAKER_1: Is there a middle ground that we can reach, or should I shake the dust off my feet?
SPEAKER_1: This touches on a number of things.
SPEAKER_1: The core here, though, and I think that's the bulk of what I'll address, is that a woman is supposed to follow her husband, period.
SPEAKER_1: Scripture is very clear.
SPEAKER_1: Wives submit to your husbands in all things as you would unto the Lord.
SPEAKER_1: That certainly includes in theological matters.
SPEAKER_1: And so, a wife is to follow her husband.
SPEAKER_1: If he's a Presbyterian, you are a Presbyterian, your children are Presbyterians.
SPEAKER_1: If he's a Lutheran, you're a Lutheran, your children are Lutherans.
SPEAKER_1: And that is the way things are supposed to go.
SPEAKER_1: Now, if a husband becomes completely apostate, right?
SPEAKER_1: Let's say he goes from being some Christian denomination, pick whichever one you like, to a neo-pagan, or a Muslim, or a Mormon, or God forbid, someone who follows the Talmud, right?
SPEAKER_1: Then no, she can't follow him in that, because you must obey God rather than men.
SPEAKER_1: That would be an exception to that complete submission to her husband, because it is as you would submit unto Christ, right?
SPEAKER_1: There's a limitation there.
SPEAKER_1: It's a minor limitation, because it is comparable to when slaves are to submit to their masters, even to bad masters.
SPEAKER_1: And so wives are to submit to their husbands, even when they aren't good husbands.
SPEAKER_1: Now, husbands should endeavor to love their wives, of course, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, among other passages.
SPEAKER_1: But you are to follow wives, you are to follow your husband with regard to what denomination he chooses to be a Christian.
SPEAKER_1: And so, to answer your specific question, she has to follow you if she is going to be your wife.
SPEAKER_1: So you need to have a serious conversation with her.
SPEAKER_1: If I am a Presbyterian, or whatever you happen to be, right?
SPEAKER_1: Are you going to be a Presbyterian?
SPEAKER_1: Or are you going to continue to insist on being a Roman Catholic in this case?
SPEAKER_1: Something else.
SPEAKER_1: And is that going to be a constant source of conflict in the marriage?
SPEAKER_1: How are you going to raise the children?
SPEAKER_1: Are you going to teach them to be Presbyterian, and she's going to teach them to be Roman Catholic?
SPEAKER_1: That doesn't work.
SPEAKER_1: She has to submit.
SPEAKER_1: If she is unwilling to do that, it is going to cause you nothing but strife in your marriage, and she's already demonstrated she's not going to be a faithful wife.
SPEAKER_1: So, wisdom would dictate you probably should look elsewhere.
SPEAKER_1: Hopefully, she recognizes that her duty in scripture, her duty to God, is to submit to you if you are her husband.
SPEAKER_1: If she's willing to do that, then there's no problem.
SPEAKER_1: Lead her back into what you believe to be the true faith and out of what she is currently investigating.
SPEAKER_1: That is, to some degree, on you, and if you are able to do that, if she is willing to listen, if she's willing to submit and obey, then by all means, she makes a great wife, marry her, may you have many children, and be blessed by the Lord.
SPEAKER_1: But it comes down to whether or not she is willing to do what scripture commands her to do, to be an actual wife.
SPEAKER_1: The next question is again about sort of house churches and what to do under current circumstances.
SPEAKER_1: That is, starting a home church, a follow-up question to that.
SPEAKER_1: What do you recommend doing if one is new in an area or traveling and does not have a group to start a home church?
SPEAKER_1: Is there a kind of lay service one can do at home, which is different from regular daily devotions?
SPEAKER_1: There is.
SPEAKER_1: Follow-up to that.
SPEAKER_1: Perhaps it would be a good idea for people interested in doing this to organize some kind of locator map or resource to indicate if there are others in the area who would be interested in doing that.
SPEAKER_1: Certainly, that's important.
SPEAKER_1: Probably a little less so when traveling, because if you're organizing a group, you kind of want to have the regularity of being able to meet together.
SPEAKER_1: But certainly, if you cannot find a good church, because obviously, do not forsake the gathering together of the saints and all the other injunctions.
SPEAKER_1: If you can find a good church while you're traveling, just go to that church.
SPEAKER_1: It doesn't have to be perfect.
SPEAKER_1: You're going for one service, two, three at the most, right?
SPEAKER_1: Maybe a couple of years if you travel frequently, whatever it happens to be.
SPEAKER_1: By all means, just find a church and attend it.
SPEAKER_1: I've done that when, in various other places, even going to LCMS churches, despite the LCMS's corporate opinion of me.
SPEAKER_1: I'll take a sip of tea here.
SPEAKER_1: But yes, you can just find a faithful church and attend it.
SPEAKER_1: And if you can't find that, then by all means, simply find a rite that you can do at home, just a basic church service.
SPEAKER_1: You know, you're basically going to have a prayer, say the Lord's Prayer, recite the creed, whether it happens to be the Apostles of the Nicene, or if it's the Trinity Sunday, then the Athanasian.
SPEAKER_1: And you're not going to have the Lord's Supper by yourself.
SPEAKER_1: That would be inappropriate.
SPEAKER_1: And you're not going to have the corporate absolution.
SPEAKER_1: But you don't need the corporate absolution, because you know that all of your sins are forgiven before you commit them.
SPEAKER_1: God has already forgiven all your sins in Christ.
SPEAKER_1: It's good to have that reminder.
SPEAKER_1: God is super abundant in His grace and how He delivers His forgiveness to us, His good gifts to us.
SPEAKER_1: But you don't need all of them all the time.
SPEAKER_1: It's not absolutely necessary.
SPEAKER_1: So yes, you can just follow a rite.
SPEAKER_1: There's a rite in the Lutheran service book I keep looking at.
SPEAKER_1: I should have put it on my desk.
SPEAKER_1: But you can just follow that.
SPEAKER_1: It's available online.
SPEAKER_1: If you are part of some other denomination, then they undoubtedly have one as well.
SPEAKER_1: You can probably find it in your equivalent of the service book or the hymnal, whichever you happen to use.
SPEAKER_1: So I would say just go through that.
SPEAKER_1: That's probably the best way to do it.
SPEAKER_1: The next question here, let me pull that up.
SPEAKER_1: Maybe I don't have my notes there.
SPEAKER_1: Apparently, we're significantly shifting categories here and sorts of questions.
SPEAKER_1: In the context of the marriage bed, are erotic fantasies shared between husband and wife a sin?
SPEAKER_1: The short answer to that is no.
SPEAKER_1: The sort of longer answer is that to some degree, it depends because if you are imagining your spouse is another person, that's inappropriate because that is mental adultery.
SPEAKER_1: Coupled with an act that isn't itself adultery, but is certainly inappropriate because of the nature of what you have associated with it.
SPEAKER_1: Because you're supposed to be pure not just in body but also in mind.
SPEAKER_1: But I guess to give a not too concrete of an example as to not be inappropriate or get banned.
SPEAKER_1: But if you want your wife to wear a cheerleader outfit, whatever, have fun, that's between you and your wife.
SPEAKER_1: God's not going to object to that, you're allowed to do that.
SPEAKER_1: That's not a problem.
SPEAKER_1: Just don't do anything that's extreme or against conscience.
SPEAKER_1: That's the line here.
SPEAKER_1: Your conscience is going to tell you when you're doing something that's over the line.
SPEAKER_1: God gave you that to help you know what you should and shouldn't do.
SPEAKER_1: Listen to your conscience.
SPEAKER_1: That's the Holy Spirit inside you saying, you shouldn't do this, right?
SPEAKER_1: So, is it fine?
SPEAKER_1: Yes, but don't go overboard.
SPEAKER_1: Take another sip of tea.
SPEAKER_1: Eventually get a British audience just from sipping tea.
SPEAKER_1: Although they might object to the brand I drink.
SPEAKER_1: Tea people get very weird about brands.
SPEAKER_1: The next question is, again, going back to baptism just briefly.
SPEAKER_1: And the question is about regeneration and how that interacts with baptism, how baptism and regeneration are related.
SPEAKER_1: And I won't read the question because it was just sort of a paragraph, objection slash response in the comments to an episode, I think, a couple of weeks ago.
SPEAKER_1: But the difference here is going to be between Lutherans and the Reformed in how we understand what baptism is and what baptism does.
SPEAKER_1: There's some difficulty in addressing this because the Reformed are not a monolithic camp.
SPEAKER_1: For Lutherans, I can give a definitive answer because I could just pull out the Book of Concord that I have.
SPEAKER_1: It's actually, I think, on my floor right now, but sitting over here and just read it.
SPEAKER_1: That's the Lutheran answer.
SPEAKER_1: So if you want the Lutheran answer, go to the Book of Concord, read the articles on baptism.
SPEAKER_1: That's it.
SPEAKER_1: That's our answer.
SPEAKER_1: And so the Lutheran conception is that baptism regenerates because baptism grants you faith.
SPEAKER_1: Faith and regeneration are not identical, but they are simultaneous.
SPEAKER_1: They are not divided necessarily logically even.
SPEAKER_1: They are certainly not divided in time in Lutheran theology.
SPEAKER_1: They are for the reformed, because the reformed believe that God comes in and regenerates you prior to these things, because unless you are regenerated, you can't do any of the stuff that follows.
SPEAKER_1: Lutherans don't have that sort of logical or chronological distinction between the two.
SPEAKER_1: It's all sort of simultaneous.
SPEAKER_1: It's at the same time.
SPEAKER_1: That's the distinction between the Lutheran and the reformed position on it.
SPEAKER_1: And the reformed are going to have more of a symbolic view of baptism.
SPEAKER_1: Baptism is a seal of your faith, as opposed to the Lutheran view, which is baptism gives you faith, again, depending on whether or not you already have faith, right?
SPEAKER_1: Because we do believe in the means, plural, of grace.
SPEAKER_1: And so, maybe you have faith already from reading the word or from hearing the word.
SPEAKER_1: In that case, baptism, yes, it is a confirmation of your faith, it strengthens your faith, but in the ordinary course of things, you enter the church as an infant being baptized.
SPEAKER_1: And if you want to read about infant baptism, then Luther has an excellent piece on it in the Book of Concord, specifically on infant baptism and why we baptize infants.
SPEAKER_1: Basically because the Lutheran conception, which I would say is what scripture teaches very clearly, it is entirely God's work.
SPEAKER_1: And so, you can't worry about the status of the person being baptized so much because God is the one doing the work.
SPEAKER_1: You aren't doing anything in baptism.
SPEAKER_1: You are having something done to you.
SPEAKER_1: It is a different thing.
SPEAKER_1: So, that's basically the difference between the regeneration view, the doctrine of regeneration in Lutheran theology versus the Reformed, without getting into all the minor distinctions of the different Reformed camps.
SPEAKER_1: Because if you want those, it's probably better to ask someone who is himself Reformed.
SPEAKER_1: I'm familiar with a lot of them, but it's probably better if a Reformed theologian answers that instead of a Lutheran one.
SPEAKER_1: Right.
SPEAKER_1: The next one is shifting gears here a little bit, talking about China.
SPEAKER_1: I always find it funny when I talk about China while drinking tea.
SPEAKER_1: But, refresh my tea here without pouring it on my stream deck, which would be very bad.
SPEAKER_1: The question now is about politics and China, and the normalization of relations with China, and the most favored nation status.
SPEAKER_1: And it's probably useful first to tell people what most favored nation status is, because not everyone is familiar with international law and how that works.
SPEAKER_1: So, the most favored nation status is a particular term of art in international law.
SPEAKER_1: It's technically a different term under US law now, because it was codified differently, but you're going to see most favored nation status, and they are equivalent, so you can ignore the other one.
SPEAKER_1: Most favored nation status means simply, and in summary, that a nation will receive the sort of treatment that is afforded to the most favored, which is to say the most preferenced or the nation with the most beneficial relationship with the nation in question.
SPEAKER_1: So, for instance, to give a concrete example to make it easier to understand, and then I'll get into a little bit more of how that works in practice.
SPEAKER_1: If we afford a status to Japan, right, of having no tariffs, so free trade, actual free trade.
SPEAKER_1: If we then grant most favored nation status to another country, say Thailand, we have to also grant them that free trade status, no tariffs.
SPEAKER_1: Now, how it works in practice is that if you are a member of the WTO, the World Trade Organization, you basically automatically grant this status to every other member of the WTO.
SPEAKER_1: That's effectively what the World Trade Organization is.
SPEAKER_1: It's granting most favored nation status.
SPEAKER_1: There's some more stuff to it than that, obviously, but it's granting that status to member nations in order to encourage free trade.
SPEAKER_1: We can get into what free trade is, and why it's a problem, and why it's not great, and the WTO has a lot of problems, but that's how it functions in reality.
SPEAKER_1: And so, you can take exceptions, and you can enact restrictions and other things on countries, but it is an exception to the general rule.
SPEAKER_1: The US sort of has most favored nation status with almost every other nation.
SPEAKER_1: It's just sort of how we conduct business.
SPEAKER_1: And so, to answer the question, I don't necessarily think that we should, I guess, de-normalize or un-naturalize or whatever term you want to use, relationships, our relationships specifically with China, but we should not give them most favored nation status.
SPEAKER_1: In fact, I would just withdraw from the WTO and no longer just hand out MFN like candy to every other nation in the world because it's not beneficial to Americans.
SPEAKER_1: It's not beneficial to us.
SPEAKER_1: It harms our people.
SPEAKER_1: It benefits large conglomerates and banks in particular.
SPEAKER_1: It doesn't benefit us.
SPEAKER_1: We should hand that out sparingly to nations that are actually friendly nations, nations that are proper allies, other Christian nations, our actual friends, not to everyone on the planet.
SPEAKER_1: And certainly handing it out to China has hollowed out our manufacturing.
SPEAKER_1: You have the so-called rust belt now, which I hate that it's called that, but it's somewhat accurate.
SPEAKER_1: It hollowed out basically everything in our economy, in the middle, the core of our economy.
SPEAKER_1: It's one of the reasons that we could no longer do what we've done in past wars for good or ill.
SPEAKER_1: We can't field massive armament at this point because we don't have the manufacturing capacity.
SPEAKER_1: Everything's produced in China.
SPEAKER_1: Look at the stuff on, if you're sitting at your desk right now listening to this, look at the stuff on your desk.
SPEAKER_1: How much of it was made in China?
SPEAKER_1: Probably the majority.
SPEAKER_1: That's no way for a country to function.
SPEAKER_1: That's terrible.
SPEAKER_1: To say nothing of the quality issues with everything made in China.
SPEAKER_1: So, the short answer is yes, we should get rid of most favored nation status for China.
SPEAKER_1: But I don't think we have to go to the point of, you know, terminating relations with China.
SPEAKER_1: We can't really do that because China is aiming to be a hegemon.
SPEAKER_1: They are certainly relevant in the political theater.
SPEAKER_1: They're nowhere near a hegemon yet, but they could certainly inflict serious harm to the United States and to most of the world.
SPEAKER_1: And so, we have to recognize them to some degree, and interact with them diplomatically, politically, things like that.
SPEAKER_1: But we should not be trading with them in so-called free trade, because again, it's harmful to our people.
SPEAKER_1: So, the next question.
SPEAKER_1: Someone sort of objected to my formulation in a previous episode of The Nature of Christ, The Two Natures in Christ, God and Man.
SPEAKER_1: I'm just going to go ahead and say that what he said, and you can find the comment, certainly, if you're so inclined, but I'm going to say that what he said is simply wrong, because it starts to get into the point of almost denying the deity of Christ.
SPEAKER_1: So, my answer for this is always going to be what any Christian should answer anytime the Trinity comes up or the hard questions like that.
SPEAKER_1: And that's going to be the Athanasian creed.
SPEAKER_1: That's my answer.
SPEAKER_1: And yes, you can find that on the bookofconchord.org if you just type slash C3.
SPEAKER_1: C1 goes to the Apostles, C2 to the Nicene, and C3 to the Athanasian.
SPEAKER_1: So, of course, my answer would just be, whosoever will be saved before all things, it is necessary that he hold the Catholic faith.
SPEAKER_1: Catholic lowercase C meaning universal.
SPEAKER_1: Which faith except everyone do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.
SPEAKER_1: And then, skipping to the relevant one to this question.
SPEAKER_1: Furthermore, it is necessary to everlasting salvation that he also believe faithfully the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_1: For the right faith is that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and man.
SPEAKER_1: God of the substance of the Father begotten before the worlds, and man of the substance of his mother, born in the world, perfect God and perfect man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting, equal to the Father as touching his Godhead, and inferior to the Father as touching his manhood, who although he be God and man, yet he is not two, but one Christ, one not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking the manhood into God, one altogether not by confusion of the substance, but by unity of person, for as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ, who suffered for our salvation, descended into hell, rose again the third day from the dead, he ascended into heaven, he sitteth on the right hand of the Father God Almighty, whence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead, at whose coming all men shall rise again with their bodies, and shall give an account of their own works, and they that have done good shall go into life everlasting, and they that have done evil, into everlasting fire.
SPEAKER_1: This is the Catholic faith, which except a man believe faithfully and firmly, he cannot be saved.
SPEAKER_1: That is the answer when anyone brings up if Christ is true God and true man, or the Trinity or anything like that, obviously, there's other parts of this particular creed about the Trinity, and you'd want to bring those up in that case.
SPEAKER_1: And then for anyone who wants to read more in depth about the theology of the natures in Christ and related matters, and I don't recommend it for everyone, because it's not for everyone.
SPEAKER_1: It's sort of a high-level theological topic.
SPEAKER_1: Not everyone needs to read about it.
SPEAKER_1: Not everyone needs to try to understand it thoroughly.
SPEAKER_1: And there are going to be limitations, because you're getting into mystery at this point.
SPEAKER_1: How can you be fully God and fully man?
SPEAKER_1: That seems counter to our reason.
SPEAKER_1: It seems like something that doesn't make sense, because it's a mystery.
SPEAKER_1: The same thing as the faith, ultimately, is a mystery.
SPEAKER_1: There's nothing wrong with the word mystery.
SPEAKER_1: It's not a dirty word.
SPEAKER_1: It's part of our faith.
SPEAKER_1: It's part of Christianity.
SPEAKER_1: And of course, the sacraments are called mysteries, when you're talking about the Greek, as opposed to the Latin, from which we get sacrament.
SPEAKER_1: But my recommendation for those who want to read more about it, a good starting place is Peeper's Dogmatics.
SPEAKER_1: He deals with the issue thoroughly in a way that is very well explained.
SPEAKER_1: He does a very good job.
SPEAKER_1: That's a three-volume set.
SPEAKER_1: There's a fourth volume that's just the index.
SPEAKER_1: You can usually find it pretty cheap secondhand.
SPEAKER_1: Probably don't buy it new from CPH, the overcharge.
SPEAKER_1: But if you are so inclined, that's what I would recommend reading.
SPEAKER_1: So I can get rid of the browser there.
SPEAKER_1: Pull up the next question.
SPEAKER_1: The next question is about the Septuagint translation and sort of the recommendations that we gave in the Stone Choir episode on that.
SPEAKER_1: The question is, is there any progress toward that translation presently?
SPEAKER_1: There are a lot of men who, excuse me, there are a lot of men who have worked on snippets here and there, small parts of it.
SPEAKER_1: I know they're those who translated bits and pieces.
SPEAKER_1: That's not ultimately what we want, right?
SPEAKER_1: We described that very thoroughly in the episode.
SPEAKER_1: I am not aware of any organized overarching effort yet to produce that translation.
SPEAKER_1: That's going to be a significant cost, as we outlined in the episode, and it's going to be a significant undertaking.
SPEAKER_1: And Woe and I are not going to be the ones to do it, because we're not translators, we're not sufficiently versed in the languages.
SPEAKER_1: I'm not fully fluent in Greek, for instance.
SPEAKER_1: Neither is he.
SPEAKER_1: And so we're not the ones to do that.
SPEAKER_1: And again, we're also not the ones to do that for the reasons we outlined in the episode, because, for instance, when I am reading the daily readings, and now I read the Old Testament reading and, of course, the Psalter being part of the Old Testament from the Septuagint, I changed over to doing that for the daily readings some time back.
SPEAKER_1: I'm certainly doing that for the balance of however long I'm going to keep doing it, as long as God lets me.
SPEAKER_1: When I read those, mentally, I recall the Masoretic version, because I read the Masoretic version in the ESV so many times that I have huge chunks of the Psalter effectively memorized.
SPEAKER_1: That's why I can just bring it to mind when I'm speaking.
SPEAKER_1: I can quote these things.
SPEAKER_1: That's not what you want when you're trying to translate something faithfully without these external malign influences.
SPEAKER_1: So we're not the right men to do it.
SPEAKER_1: So the restrictions that we spoke about in that episode are going to be absolutely key in order to produce something that is what the church can use for 100 years, for 200 years, however long the language doesn't evolve past the point where it is comprehensible.
SPEAKER_1: Because we don't want to rely on it to the point where it's like the 1611 KJV, which even the KJV-only people have to admit they can't read.
SPEAKER_1: Because certainly they read the updated one with orthography and things like that.
SPEAKER_1: So, the short answer is no, I'm not aware of any organized effort yet, but I'm also not the one who's going to be doing it.
SPEAKER_1: But of course, I will tell people, if such an effort materializes, I will certainly inform people that it has begun.
SPEAKER_1: And here's how you can support them sort of thing.
SPEAKER_1: Those are the questions that I had written down for this episode, but I think I will scroll quickly through the chat, which is thankfully loading on the website, although still not loading in the plugin.
SPEAKER_1: Here's an easy question.
SPEAKER_1: I am an aspiring attorney currently studying for the LSAT.
SPEAKER_1: I do recommend that.
SPEAKER_1: I did not study for the LSAT, which is probably not the way to do it, but I am starting my legal journey somewhat late as I'm 30 years old.
SPEAKER_1: It's not too late.
SPEAKER_1: Tech background, do you recommend I prioritize law school rank or location slash scholarships?
SPEAKER_1: The general answer to that is always going to be rank, because that's just how it works.
SPEAKER_1: Particularly if you can get into top 10, but, you know, top 20, whatever it happens to be.
SPEAKER_1: Secondary to that, and in some specific cases, more important, connections.
SPEAKER_1: Can you get connections that will get you a good job when you graduate if you go to x law school, right?
SPEAKER_1: So, if you go to one of your regional law schools, whatever it happens to be, maybe it's not the top 20, maybe it's not even top 50, but you can get a job with a good local firm where you want to work right at a law school, by all means, take that one.
SPEAKER_1: But, generally speaking, you want to go to a top level firm.
SPEAKER_1: And I see here that you followed up by saying intellectual property, same answer.
SPEAKER_1: If you want to work for a major international firm, you're probably going to want to go to one of those top 10 schools if you can get into one, because the name on your resume is going to matter a lot.
SPEAKER_1: In fact, a lot of times, I've spoken to partners at certain firms, they throw your cover letter away.
SPEAKER_1: You still have to write it, it still has to be good, but good chance the partner is just going to shred it.
SPEAKER_1: And he's going to look at where you went to school, and a couple of other key things on your resume.
SPEAKER_1: So the better the school you can have on that resume, the better your odds of getting that job if that's what you want.
SPEAKER_1: But if you want to work for, again, that local firm, maybe you happen to know a partner at that firm, or several partners even better, then go to whichever school they like if they're going to hire you.
SPEAKER_1: So, you're going to be a slave for your first year as an associate, and probably your second year, and maybe your third year, but I'm sure you already know that, so that's just how it works in big law.
SPEAKER_1: But yes, the ranking of your school does actually matter when it comes to law school, for better or worse.
SPEAKER_1: A question about the South African National Party.
SPEAKER_1: I am insufficiently familiar with them to answer it right now, so I will note that down for perhaps next week.
SPEAKER_1: Does Matthew 21, the parable of the tenents, when the Lord said to the Pharisees, the kingdom of God would be given to another people, ethnos, of course, just being the Greek there, does this refer to the prophecy of Japheth in Genesis 9?
SPEAKER_1: Yes, Christ is echoing that.
SPEAKER_1: That was the Jews being wicked and apostate and not producing the works because I don't want to get too into depth into this right now.
SPEAKER_1: I've done that before.
SPEAKER_1: But the whole point of ethnic Israel and their place in the Old Testament was that they were supposed to be a nation of faithful priests to spread the word to other peoples.
SPEAKER_1: That was the whole point.
SPEAKER_1: God wanted to restore a faithful understanding of His word to the entire world.
SPEAKER_1: And so, they were supposed to go out into the world and spread the word.
SPEAKER_1: That was their duty.
SPEAKER_1: It was what God tasked them to do.
SPEAKER_1: He told them they were going to be a nation of priests.
SPEAKER_1: They didn't do that.
SPEAKER_1: They decided to be insular.
SPEAKER_1: They decided, well, God picked us.
SPEAKER_1: We're the best people in the world.
SPEAKER_1: We're not going to tell anyone about God.
SPEAKER_1: They became apostate.
SPEAKER_1: They made themselves into their own God, and they wound up worshiping Satan in the process.
SPEAKER_1: And so, they completely and utterly failed.
SPEAKER_1: You know, you can talk about middle knowledge and other worlds and counter histories and things like that, but that stuff doesn't really matter, because you look at the actual history of what happened, they failed in the task given them by God.
SPEAKER_1: God knew that was going to happen.
SPEAKER_1: He knew it was going to happen beforehand, and his plan accounts for their wickedness, their apostasy, their failure.
SPEAKER_1: And it fulfills the prophecy to Japheth that he will dwell in the tents of Shem, which say he will become Christendom.
SPEAKER_1: And that's what we did.
SPEAKER_1: Our ancestors became Christendom.
SPEAKER_1: Our ancestors built the church.
SPEAKER_1: Our ancestors took the faith to the entire world, whether they accepted it or rejected it, whether they hated us or loved us, and usually they hated us and rejected it.
SPEAKER_1: But we fulfilled what God prophesied all the way back by Father Noah.
SPEAKER_1: And so, yes, Christ is echoing that there when he's speaking to the Pharisees, and he's not speaking just to them.
SPEAKER_1: He's speaking to the wicked apostate Jews.
SPEAKER_1: And that's not to say that no Jews converted, of course.
SPEAKER_1: I've never said that.
SPEAKER_1: Because it says, for instance, though Israel be as numerous of the sand of the seashore, only a remnant will be saved.
SPEAKER_1: Well, the remnant was saved in the first century AD, because many of them converted and were then murdered for their trouble by their erstwhile brothers.
SPEAKER_1: Someone asked, is the Q&A for Superchats only?
SPEAKER_1: The answer is no.
SPEAKER_1: Because obviously, I'll just answer whatever question happens to come up.
SPEAKER_1: I do prioritize the questions asked in the forum.
SPEAKER_1: That's almost purely for sort of administrative purposes.
SPEAKER_1: It just makes my life a lot easier, because I can link to them, and I can say it was answered, and then I can make it searchable and things like that.
SPEAKER_1: It's just easier for me.
SPEAKER_1: It fulfills the purposes of what I'm trying to do here, which is making a catalog of answers to questions, instead of having to constantly answer them again and again and again.
SPEAKER_1: I don't have a problem with necessarily answering the same thing repeatedly.
SPEAKER_1: We can think, for instance, of Luther's comments in The Small Catechism about learning the same thing over and over, and God teaching the same thing every day.
SPEAKER_1: And so there's nothing wrong with repetition per se.
SPEAKER_1: But it is useful to have a catalog of answers, and questions asked on the forum make that a lot easier for me.
SPEAKER_1: That's why I prioritize those.
SPEAKER_1: And quite frankly, it's just easier to find them, because otherwise I have to search through five or six different places to try and find questions, and then figure out if they've been asked before, and overlap, and things like that.
SPEAKER_1: Let's see.
SPEAKER_1: What would be your counterargument to those that argue the Prussian Union in Germany was an example of Christian nationalism, and therefore we have to reject it?
SPEAKER_1: The Prussian Union gets blown out of proportion to some degree.
SPEAKER_1: For those who aren't familiar, the Prussian Union was basically the leadership of Prussia getting tired of the Lutherans and the Reformed bickering all the time and just being extremely obnoxious, because that's a problem politically.
SPEAKER_1: The same thing was true during the Reformation.
SPEAKER_1: The emperor was tired of the, in that case, the Roman Catholics and the Lutherans bickering.
SPEAKER_1: And so that's part of why some of the things he did, he was wrong, but some of the things he did were political considerations because he was tired of the fighting.
SPEAKER_1: And he had other things that were a problem on his doorstep, the Muslims, namely.
SPEAKER_1: But the Prussian Union attempted to get rid of sectarian strife in Germany.
SPEAKER_1: It didn't succeed.
SPEAKER_1: It's part of the reason that the founding fathers of the LCMS left Germany and came here because they were able to be Lutheran without having to be sort of shunted in with the reform driving, the reform shunted in with them.
SPEAKER_1: I don't think what Prussia did was ideal.
SPEAKER_1: I don't think it was necessarily a good solution.
SPEAKER_1: I understand the political impetus.
SPEAKER_1: I understand the annoyance of having to deal with the conflict, but Scripture is very clear.
SPEAKER_1: There are going to be divisions among you brothers so that the true can stand out, right?
SPEAKER_1: We're going to have divisions, we're going to have strife and fights.
SPEAKER_1: That's just how human beings function.
SPEAKER_1: It will be that way until the parousia, the end of all things.
SPEAKER_1: But how do we deal with the Prussian Union in light of Christian nationalism?
SPEAKER_1: I think we don't necessarily have to say that we agree with everything that every Christian country has ever done.
SPEAKER_1: It's a completely ridiculous contention that we would have to do that.
SPEAKER_1: And so we can say that we don't like what Prussia did, but we do like that Prussia was Christian.
SPEAKER_1: We would have preferred that they had admitted some sort of freedom of denomination, not freedom of religion, which of course is not what the First Amendment means either, because it means freedom of Christian religion, freedom of denomination.
SPEAKER_1: They're not going to put you in prison for being a Presbyterian or an Anglican, right?
SPEAKER_1: I think the best solution, the cleanest solution, is what was initially tried and worked until the emperor went back on his word.
SPEAKER_1: In the aftermath of the Diet of Worms and all of the Luther stuff, right?
SPEAKER_1: The prince gets to pick what is the religion of his lands.
SPEAKER_1: That works.
SPEAKER_1: In our case, it would probably be something the equivalent of states, perhaps rearranged a little bit more logically than our states, which is to say in line with geography and populations, instead of arbitrary lines on a map.
SPEAKER_1: But if you say that the prince gets to choose which denomination is permitted in his lands, which is the official one, then if you object, you move next door, right?
SPEAKER_1: You move 100 miles to the east, the west, whatever it happens to be.
SPEAKER_1: I think that's probably the best way to solve the problems, particularly in the US context, because we're never going to get all Americans to agree, right?
SPEAKER_1: I have no illusions that I'm going to get everyone to become Lutheran, and I hope that no one else has illusions of making everyone Anglican, or Presbyterian, or Baptist, or whatever it happens to be, right?
SPEAKER_1: It's not going to happen.
SPEAKER_1: And instead of having to fight against our Christian, even if in error, Christian brothers, and thereby commit greater sins, because I don't think that we're justified in killing our Christian brothers over this stuff, if we can in any way avoid it.
SPEAKER_1: Instead of going down that path, I think what we have to do is have the prince of whatever territory says, this is the church that's permitted, you can be a member of that church, or you can worship in your home, that should probably be allowed still, or you can go to the next door territory and be a member of that church.
SPEAKER_1: It solves the problem in a way that doesn't require violence among Christian brothers, which we should definitely avoid.
SPEAKER_1: We can still have the discussions, we can still have the debates, of course, have those a little more formalized and useful instead of just screaming at each other, which is sort of what social media is for these days.
SPEAKER_1: It has its uses, but I think that's the solution we're going to have to follow in the American context in particular, and I wish it is the solution that had been followed by the Prussians, because they could have done that.
SPEAKER_1: It would have been perhaps a little more difficult for them because things were so interspersed, but there's some of that in the US context, but at the same time, there are very clear centers of gravity for different denominations, right?
SPEAKER_1: You have basically the Scandinavians and the Germanics in the Midwest, and the territory is there.
SPEAKER_1: Well, that's going to be Lutheran.
SPEAKER_1: And then you have in the south, it's basically Presbyterians and Baptists and some Methodists and things.
SPEAKER_1: They're going to sort that out.
SPEAKER_1: But that will avoid the unnecessary and I think sinful conflict while still permitting a particular governing authority to exercise that authority to see that in his belief, in his estimation, and according to his conscience, the faith is taught rightly in his lands.
SPEAKER_1: Because it's vitally important to remember in all of this, the prince will have to answer to God for the fact that he did or did not see the faith was taught rightly in his lands.
SPEAKER_1: He is responsible for that.
SPEAKER_1: That is one of the duties of the prince, and he will answer to God.
SPEAKER_1: And if he's going to answer to God, then he has to have the power to do something about it.
SPEAKER_1: So yes, the sovereign, the state, the Christian prince does have the right and the power to say that this denomination is the one that will be acceptable in the lands under my control.
SPEAKER_1: But I do think at that next level up, which, call him an emperor, whatever you want to call him, it hardly matters what the title is.
SPEAKER_1: But the next level up, I think he does have to permit that sort of federation in the lands under him, because it is a greater evil to impose the one denomination, whatever it happens to be, because you are going to have to kill Christian brothers to do that.
SPEAKER_1: And I think that is the greater sin.
SPEAKER_1: So I think that is the short answer to that question.
SPEAKER_1: See if there are any other follow-up questions here.
SPEAKER_1: The question, what is your opinion of how criticism of Israel slash the Jews is being allowed and platformed without them ruining your life?
SPEAKER_1: True, to some degree, to some degree.
SPEAKER_1: But how none of these types are talking about race or solutions?
SPEAKER_1: Sort of a multifaceted question with a multifaceted answer.
SPEAKER_1: Can you talk about the Jews and even racial issues fairly openly on social media and some other places these days?
SPEAKER_1: Obviously, the answer is yes.
SPEAKER_1: I'm talking about it right now, and my stream didn't just die when I said that.
SPEAKER_1: And I'm currently live on X and Kick and Twitch and YouTube and Rumble, right?
SPEAKER_1: So can you do that?
SPEAKER_1: Yes.
SPEAKER_1: Can you talk about solutions bluntly?
SPEAKER_1: Not really.
SPEAKER_1: That will get you banned and probably a knock on your door if they don't just break down your door at three in the morning.
SPEAKER_1: And so there are still some limitations, but I think they recognize that if you sort of bottle things up too tightly, right?
SPEAKER_1: You can use sort of the cooking analogy of a pressure cooker.
SPEAKER_1: You bottle up the pressure a little too tightly, it explodes instead of letting off steam.
SPEAKER_1: Does that mean that it's bad to talk about these issues in a way that isn't the fullness of it, taking it to its logical conclusions, the solutions and things like that?
SPEAKER_1: No, I don't think it's bad because we're getting more men to recognize the truth, recognize the reality.
SPEAKER_1: It is building up that necessary foundation for the political solutions that follow.
SPEAKER_1: Now, of course, I'm talking about politics in the ultimate theory sense, not politics in the electoral politics sense.
SPEAKER_1: I don't think that electoral politics has no part to play.
SPEAKER_1: It's just not the fullness of it, of course.
SPEAKER_1: But even historically, obvious examples, we see electoral politics play a role.
SPEAKER_1: So there's also the aspect of it, though, that you do have to recognize that they are still going to do a lot to try to destroy you if you talk about these things openly and sort of gain any traction, right?
SPEAKER_1: Unless you're controlled, because then they let you have a little bit free or leash to some degree.
SPEAKER_1: But if you're not controlled and you talk about these issues, depending where you are, they are going to come down on you pretty hard.
SPEAKER_1: If you're in Europe, they're probably going to raid your home, they're probably going to take things from your home that you may or may not get back, and if you do, it'll probably be years later and they'll be destroyed.
SPEAKER_1: That's just the reality of it in the European context.
SPEAKER_1: And you'll be lucky if they don't send you to prison and you get murdered in your cell by a Muslim prisoner.
SPEAKER_1: That happens more often than you hear about in the news.
SPEAKER_1: That is just sort of how they solve the problem over there.
SPEAKER_1: Or in the case of the AFD in Germany, the Alternative für Deutschland, you have the politicians who were simply assassinated before the last election cycle, and that's already been memory hold.
SPEAKER_1: Multiple politicians were assassinated right before the election.
SPEAKER_1: That's just how they conduct business now.
SPEAKER_1: And so there are still very real risks and very real costs.
SPEAKER_1: And you have to also bear in mind, Antifa exists, and they are still the militant wing of the left as they have always been.
SPEAKER_1: And one of the things that the left tries to do is gin up crazy individuals to go out and commit what is, I know the left loves the term and some on the right don't, but it's true, stochastic terrorism.
SPEAKER_1: They are trying to gin them up to get them so animated and out of control that they just go and murder people randomly.
SPEAKER_1: Which is politics, of course, in sort of its truest, most brutal sense.
SPEAKER_1: But no, there's still very real risks of speaking about these things publicly, particularly if you are doing so using your actual name and face.
SPEAKER_1: Sip of tea here.
SPEAKER_1: I think that some people are talking about solutions at this point, because certainly we have some now who are recognizing that, for instance, deportations have to be racially based, not just legal status, so called, because that's complete nonsense.
SPEAKER_1: So you have those who are talking about the reality of it and what has to be done, but it's sort of a balancing act, because on the one side, on our side, it's, you have to go as far as you possibly can without being shut down, because if you get shut down, you get de-platformed, de-personed, de-banked, all those things.
SPEAKER_1: I've had some of that stuff happen.
SPEAKER_1: I'm still banned from some of those processors and things, but if that happens to you, you're obviously much less effective, because no one will ever hear you.
SPEAKER_1: And so when you get people who, they're usually bad actors, but sometimes they're just dumb.
SPEAKER_1: There are dumb people as well.
SPEAKER_1: You'll get people in the comments, they'll say, well, why didn't you say what we have to do to fix this problem, and we should go out, and you can't do that.
SPEAKER_1: That's dumb, that's unwise, that is not going to help our cause, it is going to negatively impact our cause.
SPEAKER_1: There will come a time perhaps, hopefully soon, hopefully in the not too distant future, where yes, those things have to be said by our politicians, but we need those men to be available and in positions where they can do it without immediately being destroyed.
SPEAKER_1: So that's sort of the balancing act on our side.
SPEAKER_1: And then the balancing act on their side is that pressure cooker.
SPEAKER_1: How much can they restrict without it backfiring?
SPEAKER_1: How much can they restrict without actually harming their overall goals?
SPEAKER_1: Now, thankfully, I do think they make a lot of mistakes because they are animated by Satan, and quite frankly, Satan is kind of dumb, because his whole thing is just anti-God, anti-Christ, anti-church.
SPEAKER_1: And so, they're going to make mistakes because they are driven by an inhuman, a demonic malice.
SPEAKER_1: We have to take advantage of those mistakes.
SPEAKER_1: And so, is it a mistake for them to grant us as much leeway as they are right now?
SPEAKER_1: I think that it is.
SPEAKER_1: And I'm willing to say that, because even if they hear it, they're not going to change their policies, because again, they're driven by that demonic malice.
SPEAKER_1: So, it's a balancing act.
SPEAKER_1: But yes, there are very real costs.
SPEAKER_1: So, if you're going to stand up and speak the truth on these issues, be prepared for what is going to come your way, particularly if you are a married man with children.
SPEAKER_1: And that's one of the things that Woe and I pointed out a number of times in Stone Choir.
SPEAKER_1: Of course, we get attacked because, you know, he's divorced, and I've never been married.
SPEAKER_1: I don't have children.
SPEAKER_1: He doesn't have children.
SPEAKER_1: We got attacked for that.
SPEAKER_1: But the reality of it is, if I had children, they'd be attacking my wife and children.
SPEAKER_1: So, if I were to get married at some point in the future, they'd attack my wife.
SPEAKER_1: I recognize I would be making her a target to a certain degree, not saying I'm morally culpable for it in that sense, but it would make her a target, because they're always going to do that.
SPEAKER_1: Just as if you look through comments on any particular thread, you'll recognize that the reality underlying these things is that they hate ultimately the truth.
SPEAKER_1: They hate God, they hate the idea, but that is sort of devolved to a point where they attack whatever is standing up and speaking that truth.
SPEAKER_1: So, if you're the person who stands up and does it, then they'll attack you in any way they possibly can.
SPEAKER_1: And so, you'll get people who will mention hypocrisy and things like that.
SPEAKER_1: Hypocrisy has nothing to do with any of this, because it's politics.
SPEAKER_1: It's pure animalistic, blunt, brutal politics of the most base kind.
SPEAKER_1: And so, you'll have people on the left who are constantly saying, well, you can't fat shame, right?
SPEAKER_1: You can't body shame, you can't do X, Y, and Z.
SPEAKER_1: You have to love and accept everyone.
SPEAKER_1: But if you stand up and start speaking the truth about God, speaking the truth about race and all these issues, all of these little pet things that they say you can't critique or comment on, or make a negative comment you have to defend, they will attack you with every last one of those.
SPEAKER_1: You can certainly see it if you scroll through comments on my videos.
SPEAKER_1: You'll find people who will attack me for having a beard or being bald, right?
SPEAKER_1: Like, okay, I couldn't possibly care less if I cared I'd be wearing a hat.
SPEAKER_1: The only reason I wore a hat in some videos is because my head is shiny because I'm bald.
SPEAKER_1: I'm aware of that.
SPEAKER_1: I don't care.
SPEAKER_1: So but they'll attack you for those things while at the same time, in every other aspect of their life, they'll say you can't attack people for those things or anything like that.
SPEAKER_1: Hypocrisy does not play a role when it comes to the left, when it comes to those who are again animated by demonic malice.
SPEAKER_1: So it's basically somewhat of a warning, I guess, just bear in mind what will come your way if you stand up and speak the truth.
SPEAKER_1: It doesn't mean you shouldn't, because in some cases, you're going to have a duty to do so.
SPEAKER_1: But you are supposed to act in wisdom, because yes, we're being sent out as sheep among wolves, but at the same time, be wise as serpents.
SPEAKER_1: So hopefully that answers your question there.
SPEAKER_1: The question about the Crusades, I will write that down for next time, since that is actually a really broad topic.
SPEAKER_1: I could give a sort of summary answer, and I had been thinking about the Crusades recently, actually, in response to something.
SPEAKER_1: I was preparing an article that is nowhere near ready to be published, so don't be looking for that in the near future.
SPEAKER_1: But the Crusades is a pretty broad topic.
SPEAKER_1: I think it's a 10-volume set that takes up a giant chunk, almost an entire shelf, in one of my bookshelves.
SPEAKER_1: Worth the read, interesting, but only if you're truly interested in that particular time period in history, because it is quite long.
SPEAKER_1: So, let's see.
SPEAKER_1: Question on the historical critical method.
SPEAKER_1: I'm going to write that down for next time as well, because that is, again, something that's probably going to take me 20 minutes to comment on.
SPEAKER_1: Trying to keep my notes a little more organized to make it easier for people to find things in the future, so that I will add it as show notes and things like that.
SPEAKER_1: I think that I may call it a night here since sort of gone for, I mostly want to keep these to about an hour.
SPEAKER_1: I don't want it to be, you know, not necessarily burdensome, but a huge time commitment for anyone who's listening, even if you're listening to the podcast at double speed or something like that, if people want to listen to each one, it tends to be a bit of a commitment, and I know that you have other things going in your life, so you don't need to listen to me for two hours a week or whatever it happens to be.
SPEAKER_1: Even though I recognize many of you did for Stone Choir, and certainly that's a different thing, but I do sort of want to try to keep these to an hour each week, and it's been right about the hour mark now, excluding the intro there.
SPEAKER_1: So I think that will be all for this week.
SPEAKER_1: If there are any additional questions in the chat, I will try to write those down and answer them in the future, which I've been trying to do for previous episodes.
SPEAKER_1: If I missed your question, by all means, submit it on the forum or ask it again in chat.
SPEAKER_1: Hopefully, I'll see it the next time.
SPEAKER_1: And I think that is it for this week.
SPEAKER_1: Thank you for those of you who submitted questions, and thank you for those who participate in the chat.
SPEAKER_1: Particular, again, thanks for those who submitted them on the forum, because that does make my life easier.
SPEAKER_1: And thank you for your time.
SPEAKER_1: I'm glad you were able to join me for this Q&A, the first one of 2026.
SPEAKER_1: Again, happy new year to all of you.
SPEAKER_1: Also, Merry Christmas.
SPEAKER_1: We are still in the season of Christmas, just for a little bit more here, coming up on the next church holiday.
SPEAKER_1: So, I believe that's all for now.
SPEAKER_1: I hope you all have a wonderful evening, a good weekend, a good rest of what few days are left of the Christmas season.
SPEAKER_1: And may God bless you all.
SPEAKER_1: See you next week.