Y'all need to stop beating the "don't date non Christians" drum so hard. There's are at least two people in just that church building who are there because their own spouse married outside the faith and brought them in, including one of the elders. You're preaching the probability of failure to people who've succeeded.

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Seen here in Hattiesburg, MS.

Knowing the history of the songs distracts me when trying to worship. It Is Well With My Soul used to be one of my favorite hymns, but ever since I learned the story of Spafford's tragedy, whenever I sing it, I can't focus on God because I keep thinking about him.

Fantastic Sermon!

Remember that there are a lot of us who have the passion and fire, the heart and desire, who aren't allowed to help because we can't make it into a church building on a regular basis.

0:05 Hi dad

I just watched this drop from 12 views to 10. I wonder if KZbin is penalizing the video for more than one of them being me.

I'm definitely at rock bottom where my faith is concerned today. It doesn't feel like I'll ever again know how to please God, or how to trust or belong to any church congregation. I've lost all sense of certainty and all frame of reference for knowing what is and isn't trustworthy. God's never going to provide any kind of feedback during this life, and the people around me give me feedback that's too contradictory to know what's right. My conscience invariably says what I'm doing is wrong, but no text, no person, and no institution gives me any guidance about what I SHOULD be doing instead. Whatever I do, it's wrong, and whatever I change in my behavior, it makes no change at all in my life.

I did sing out on the tenor part, but of course y'all couldn't hear it with your ears. I hope you felt it in your hearts.

I'm pretty sure you already did this whole sermon series when you started.

Emily Robertson Etienne Wright Continued prayers

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There are elements of modern Western culture in the discussion that ought to be acknowledged since no one mentioned it. The questions Gideon asked, if those words are said in our society, there's a contrary assertion built into those questions. "Why are things like this?" means "Things shouldn't be like this." "Who am I to do this?" means "I shouldn't be the one to do this." That's definitely how this class is reading those questions when Gideon asks them, but that second meaning may well be missing. If we look at Gideon's actions rather than listen to the tone we've assigned to his voice, we see a faithful and obedient man who's scared and insecure. Since our culture also maintains that one can't be faithful and fearful at the same time, we see a tension there, which Edward called out, that may not be present in the raw text. Gideon may not be challenging God as much as asking for reassurance repeatedly, especially since unlike Moses Gideon never really seems to look for a way out of his assignment. I don't think Gideon's wrong to ask for reassurance that he's doing the right thing, and God doesn't rebuke him for asking for it. God gives it to him. To me, the model of Gideon has always represented that determination and obedience in the face of fear, not someone who eventually resigns himself to his duty after he was unable to get out of it. We have that model in Jonah, and to a lesser extent in Moses, but I see Gideon as a small, scared man with great faith and desire to please God.

Emily Robertson E’tienne Wright I’m just waking up Hope to see you this afternoon

Yay! Wednesday night service!

At this point, I'm just praying for deliverance, like the Hebrews in Egypt. Long-term, we have no hope but that our current system goes away and we get a better one. It will not be reformed or get better, no matter how much we pray, and we won't be allowed quiet peaceful lives in this country anymore.

27:34 You can see 75% success rate in our family. The four May males - our dad, my two brothers, and I - all married outside the Church. Three of us brought our wives in, and one has gone astray. It matters, but the numbers don't support the idea that this is worse than it is good.

I listened to this one again because the first time through provoked a lot of thoughts and I wanted to come back to share them. First, on the topic of generosity, I struggle with knowing whether or not I should be doing more. I don't have much time or money to give to anything, and it's not a question of giving up a hunting or fishing trip, season tickets, or a vacation. Diverting money to anything means at worst a bill's not going to be paid, and at best I'm resigning to walking around with my shoes falling off for another month without replacing them. Every dollar given to someone else is a dollar I have to make up or do without. Time is similarly tight. With my long and heavy work schedule I need every hour not spent at work dedicated to recovering from work. Every trip out of town, including the two I've made in the past month to be there at Goodwood in person, comes at a cost. It has lead to stiff muscles, aching joints, and diminished cognitive abilities because I didn't get enough rest. It was not a sacrifice of surplus left over. It required sacrificing of my own substance and doing without necessities. Giving an afternoon or a whole day to helping a brother or sister means *I'm* going to need help the next day, and I won't get it. I'm perfectly willing to be generous with my home, but nobody wants to come visit me. But when it comes to the resources where people do make demands - my time, my effort, and my money - I'm constantly being pressured to give more from an already depleted stock. I don't believe that's a scriptural view of generosity. We're supposed to "give till it hurts" but we're not supposed to keep giving to the point that we're in constant pain. Second, on the subjects of Balaam, I agree he's a Midianite/Moabite prophet in the vein of Jethro, Moses's father-in-law. Our God did have believers, priests, and prophets outside the people of Israel, and they're not all recorded in the Bible. I think everyone is right to a degree about this incident, but no one's captured the whole picture. I agree he didn't do anything wrong THIS time, but as we see elsewhere in the Bible, he certainly had a record. I don't think God intervened to punish him for doing wrong, but to KEEP him from doing wrong. God may have been angry about his past behavior and seen that his heart was inclined to do what he was paid to do, like he usually did. Since he's using his miraculous gift for profit rather than doing what God wants him to do, God sends an adversary to ensure a dishonest man stays on the right path for once. So why does God intervene the way he does? What's the connection between the lesson and the form used to deliver it? The donkey keeps being scared off the literal path Balaam is attempting to go down and Balaam keeps having to change course to find the one that's open to him. Balaam, the prophetic diviner, should have been able to discern the Lord's message without having an Angel revealed to his plain sight. But he was more focused on doing what he wanted to do than looking for the Lord's message. Third, on the subject of the Angel of the Lord, I believe this is Lucifer-Satan before his fall, still exercising his divine office. As my dad (Corky) says, this is a being that doesn't object to Balaam worshipping it, and yet it's not God, Jesus, or the Holy Spirit because those are never described as angels. There's a similar confrontation with Joshua when he crosses the Jordan and meets the commander of the Lord's Host and worships that being without being rebuked for doing so. I've heard that these beings may be the "Preincarnated Christ", but if that's the case suddenly we have Jesus being described as an angel, which never happens anywhere else. What's more, when the angel is described as an adversary to Balaam here, the word we have in English "adversary" is translated from "Satan" in Hebrew. This angel is described as Satan by name in this instance. So for those reasons, I believe this is Lucifer in the role of Angel of the Lord coming down and speaking with God's authority, when he was still allowed to do that.

I was there in person this morning, but I'm back home in Hattiesburg for this one

31:05 When I was a kid I always thought Theophilus was the title of the book. That the volume we call the Gospel of Luke, Luke himself called Theophilus.

Congratulations to Meckenzie❤🎉!!

My sister is in this her name is nayelii

29:05 I think it depends on how staunch you are. Some might say stubborn. My dad brought his wife into the Church, and I brought my wife into the Church, and it's because we're both too rooted in God's truth to be dragged out of it by anyone. That's why I'm still on social media as well. I don't want to cede that battleground to the Enemy unfought, and I'm not going to be led away nor have my behavior and speech dragged down to the level of the Enemy's prisoners I'm conversing with. Each of us needs to know that about ourselves, and know whether we're going to be dragged or do the dragging. Those of us who are unshakable draggers do belong in the contested areas, because we're bringing the Light into the darkness and the Light of our eyes will not be turned into darkness because we don't take our eyes off the Light.

Thanks so much for streaming. I'm singing and praying along the next day, and listening to the class. That was a good discussion.

i am meckenzie 😍

When it talks about someone sinning in error or without knowledge and the it becoming known, I don't think that means they commit a sin that no one else knows about and then it comes out in public. I think it means when someone does something they don't realize is wrong and then learns it's wrong. That's supported by the mention of touching an unclean thing and then learning they touched it. Their period of uncleanness begins at the point they learned about it, and they have to make sacrifice based on that period of time. The answer to the question about committing an error and it never becoming known means the sinner never learns that they committed it. You can't make atonement under Mosaic Law for "all those other sins I don't know about" the way we often pray today; you have to make a deliberate and specific sacrifice for a specific sin, based on when you realize you committed it. The division between unintentional errors and intentional rebellions is sound.

42:08 Yeast is a fungus, not a kind of bacteria.

No audio for the entire lesson 😢

59:37 I'm not sure that theologically the New Testament Jews or the Jews today think of their worship and salvation as works-based. In their hearts, in their pride, they always thought of themselves as better than the people who weren't doing the works they did, particularly the Pharisees. But when John and Jesus challenge them, they always fall back on the source of their salvation, as they see it: "We have Abraham as our father." John and Jesus both show that this isn't as valuable as they think - John points out that God could raise the stones into sons of Abraham if He wanted to, and Jesus points out that if they were really Abraham's children they'd demonstrate Abraham's faith. But the narrative even today is that Jewish salvation is birth-based, not faith-based or works-based. Jews today still describe themselves as "God's chosen people" and certainly the Jewish entertainers who've written books I've read seem to think that's all that matters, as do the leaders who assert their special status that we see in the New Testament.

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I get that this is a parable, but I give it more weight that it may be an accurate portrayal of the afterlife because it's coming from Jesus. We don't get many glimpses of what the afterlife is really like in the Bible, but Jesus is speaking this parable with actual knowledge of it.

1:01:00 The other thing that might be helpful in this discussion is that when Jesus brings it up in Matthew 5, he acknowledges that they had been previously instructed to swear by God, while he's saying don't swear at all. So it was certainly accepted before, but Jesus is changing it.

42:30 It's even more insidious than that, as Clayton probably knows. After the events of the Old Testament, they started building the hedge of tradition around the law to make sure no one could ignore the law again the way they did before the Babylonian captivity. Their introduction of all these man-made laws, like the actions of the priest and Levite in the parable, are motivated from a good place. But they're not paying enough attention to the outcome they're having. And, as Clayton says, I'm sure they also like the control it gives them too.

37:10 I think about that every time I drive past someone stranded on the shoulder of the highway. In my own mind, I always think that my ineptitude with vehicles means, unlike the Samaritan, there won't actually be anything I can do to help. But I never feel quite right about it either.

33:22 Don't forget that the priest and the Levite are headed to the temple to perform their holy offices as well. Their concern for their cleanliness isn't really selfishness; they're concerned about their ability to be obedient to the law as they understand it. But Jesus is saying that their concern for obedience should be secondary to the concern for the need that's right in front of their face. That concept is going to be pretty jarring to Jesus's audience.

30:10 I agree with that. As divided as we are, it's pretty clear we're not loving our neighbors very much. But even in light of this parable, I'm not sure what specifics we need to change to do a better job of it. It's easy to see things other people are doing wrong. It's much harder to see areas where I'm not being loving. It sure seems like I'm already doing all I can to be loving towards all my neighbors. What sort of study would help identify the areas I/we can still improve?

27:23 A bit of a touchy subject nowadays, but "everyone who lives in the land" being our neighbor also doesn't distinguish between people who got here legally vs illegally.

25:57 Yep. by coincidence, I listened to the book of Luke just yesterday, and when it got to that part about wanting to justify himself, my first thought was, that was how I would respond as well. I had to pause the audiobook and think about all the areas where I try to justify myself, but fortunately I only found areas where I justify myself to other people, not to God.

20:27 We're authoritarian and individualistic, although in my opinion not in the right way.

I thought it was a very good lesson. I always feel plagued by my possessions. I have so much stuff I don't want and can't get rid of responsibly. I wish I could sell all my possessions and give to the poor, but no one wants to buy them. None of that is new, but I've been thinking recently that the more I look for things, I see that there's so much that's available, and often for free, but not stuff I want. The material blessings, personal skills and abilities, and other such things as I desire are not available. All the world gives me is more stuff that I do not want.

8:44 I'm here Edward! 😊 It was a pretty nice day, thank you. I hope yours was too.

1:02:00 Same here Stephen/Steven. As I said in my email to the elders, I'm willing to tell Jesus "Here's your talent back. I tried, but nobody would do business with me." Jesus didn't give us any examples of that happening, but it does. Like Edward said, we just keep trying. If the call ever comes, it's "Master, here am I!" not "Master, wait a minute!" and if the opportunity never comes, I don't believe Jesus will hold it against us like the wicked servants who were truly unwilling to do their work.

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44:40 I don't think that's the point of either of these parables, because neither the widow nor the friend stops asking and grows in wisdom. They both keep bugging the other person until they get what they're after. "Grow in wisdom until you mature and give up your foolish request" may be a good moral lesson, but it doesn't follow from these parables.

37:17 Hello Edward! Yes, I can hear you. Your mike's a little quieter than the audience mike tonight, but I can make out what you're saying.

22:31 That's close to how I see it, especially given the figure of the vinedresser and the comparison to the people killed in disasters. The Jews were used to looking at a lack of "fruit" and seeing a lack of morality. Jesus is saying sometimes all it indicates is a lack of adequate care.

1:21 You know it! Thank you 😄