05 Mar 2026 (Q&A)

0:03 It is the 5th of March 2026. I am Corey J. Mahler, and this is at any cost. This is, I believe it is the 19th episode, and just a little bit of housekeeping before I get started in on the questions this week. And really it's just one issue. If you are watching this on YouTube, please let me know if it shows any mid-roll ads whatsoever, I have tried to disable all of those. And so if it's showing those, it means that there is a problem. I don't want any of that going on. And I've also tried to disable all of the inappropriate categories on YouTube for advertising. You can't just disable all advertising because it wouldn't be a Google company if you could do that. But at any rate, please let me know if you encounter something

0:53 that shouldn't be there, whether it's mid-roll or inappropriate. But getting into the questions, I have 13 questions. I just kind of like the numbers, so we'll see if I can get through that many. It's just what I have in my template for questions for each week. The first question is about first question's an easy one. When are you releasing your stone choir clothing line? Shirts with the Hebrew is unknown or something like that would make good conversation starters. I do actually agree. That would I send it to Woe as well and we would like that one. It would be great fun to have the the Hebrew is uncertain and perhaps even have that in Greek just as an added bonus. We don't have any current plans to do that.

1:45 We're both pretty picky when it comes to these things. So there would be the issue of finding a producer that is of the appropriate quality and things like that, and preferably, you know, an American producer or at least a European producer, and then all the logistics and such. we've talked about things like that, we don't have any concrete plans for that. But certainly something like that would be entertaining and I think that a lot of guys would enjoy wearing something like that. I see someone mentioning in the chat that there's a little more artifacting with this shirt. I did actually notice that when I started up my own camera, for whatever reason, the combination of my beard and this shirt, particularly

2:29 YouTube's compression algorithm, does not like it. And so there may be some weird artifacting probably like in this area I would think, because of the lighting and the beard and things interacting. The compression algorithm on YouTube has trouble with things that are very fine detail, and this shirt kind of is. It's not one it really is a solid color, but it's not because of the kind of fabric that it is. So unfortunately, there may be a little bit of weird artifacting from compression, but other than that, I hope there are no issues. The lavalier mic should be fine in terms of sound quality. The next question is about this is question two. How do I convince a girlfriend that I would like her to

3:17 wear dresses or skirts and a head covering as much as possible? This is going to be one of those as far as skirts and dresses are concerned, much easier than head coverings. Part of this is going to be that women are creatures of herd habit. Women don't really like to actually stand out from all of the other women. And so it's one of the reasons that if you can get more women in your church, for instance, to wear head coverings, it makes it easier for each additional woman to wear the head covering. It's not an excuse for her not to do it, but it's the reality of the thing. So if you can get her to wear a head covering at church, that's a great opening step insofar as that is concerned. But with dresses and skirts, there's partly the issue that she's not

4:10 your wife, right? So you don't really have authority over her at this point. You can't tell her to do anything. She's just your girlfriend. Her father still has authority over her. Her father can tell her to do things. She should listen. Maybe she won't given the reality of society we live in these days, but you can do things that encourage her to do so. One of the things, go shopping with her. Tell her you like how the skirt or the dress looks. Women respond well to positive reinforcement. And women like to have more of that interaction and more of that feedback than men do generally. Few men want to hear those things all the time. Women want to hear those things all the time. Even if she tells you she doesn't want to hear compliments all

4:56 the time, she still does. Because psychologically she's built to want that. That's part of the relationship that you are building with a woman. And so if you do things with her and make comments, positive comments, give or compliments about the clothing that you like, you're reinforcing that. You don't have to say you always have to wear a dress. That's a different sort of thing because we're talking about what is ideal in society, and that should be something that is enforced with regard to our laws and our culture and our norms. That's something that is enforced in a way that you personally don't have complete control over. You have some little influence because every man does. And so for instance, men dressing well when they go to church,

5:42 that's going to influence other men to some degree. Men less than women. If the women see that every woman at church wears a dress, you are going to find very few women who are going to rebel against that and say, Well, I'm going to wear blue jeans. Women don't like to do that typically. There's a certain streak of rebelliousness in some women, certainly, but by and large she's going to follow the herd. So the best thing you can do, because again, you're not her head yet, she's not your wife, is just give her the encouragement to do these things. Say you like the dress, say you like the skirt, hopefully an appropriate length skirt and such, but and go shopping with her. There's nothing wrong with that.

6:23 Maybe it's a little bit of suffering as a man, but you know, you can deal with it. Take a sip of tea here before we get to question three. Actually tangentially related to the tea. Relatively tangential, but it's about microplastics. Question three. What are your tips on protecting oneself from microplastics? I have bought some tweezers to handle receipts and all my underwear is one hundred percent cotton. What are some lesser known tips? The underwear thing is actually really big. And I think a lot of guys underestimate that one, and incidentally women as well. Maybe harder to sell women on that for some reasons, but by all means get cotton or linen. There's some great options out there. They aren't necessarily cheap, but if you get, for instance, linen and

7:16 take good care of it, it'll last you years and years and years. So that's worth doing. Now many of the linen options, and indeed cotton as well, you're not going to have zero plastic because they will usually have an elastic band. But as long as it is encased in linen or cotton so it's not touching your skin, and you don't put it in the dryer so it doesn't degrade as much, you're fine. Is there some marginal exposure there? Sure. So if you're concerned about that, get one that has drawstrings. I'm not aware of any brands that do that. I'm sure they're out there. Probably easy to find. On a more general note, before I get to some basic recommendations for avoiding this stuff, don't go overboard.

8:02 Don't let this sort of become your personality certainly. Don't become neurotic about it. Partly because you can't avoid all of the microplastics. There's no way to do it. It's impossible. There are microplastics in just everything. It's in the air, it's in the soil, it's everywhere, it's on surfaces you touch touch, it's on the food you buy at the store, it's in some of the food you buy at the store. It's not I'm not telling you these things to make you neurotic about it or worry. I'm saying you can't avoid all of it. And so don't make that your goal. Make your goal the minimization of the really big in terms of magnitude exposures, the bad exposures, which that you can certainly avoid. You can, for instance, buy Pyrex storage containers to use in your

8:55 kit. They're better. They're vastly superior. I have replaced most of my plastic ones with Pyrex at this point. One thing in particular, I use clarified butter for cooking a lot. Plastic has a tendency to get little micro basically cuts in it, little openings, where it's very hard to get all the bacteria out. Yes, you can run it through your dishwasher, but that increases microplastics because you're exposing it to high temperature. But it's harder to sanitize and sterilize plastic, and so things that you want to keep for a long period of time will not keep as long in plastic. My pyrex that I use now for those who don't know pyrex is a type of glass. The pyrex that I use for clarified butter, zero problems, keeps for

9:44 a very long time, great way to go. Are they more expensive? Yes. Are they fragile to some degree? I mean pyrex is very durable. Granted, there are two different kinds of pyrex. Not going to get into that now, but are they breakable? The answer is yes. You can actually break them. But they're reasonably durable. They're going to last you a lifetime as long as you don't break them, but you know lots of things are breakable. You have to be careful with things. my teacup is Pyrex. It's glass. Like this is breakable as well. I have a lot of glass things on my desk, so just because something's breakable doesn't mean it's worse. It just is a consideration, you know. The ink wells on my desk are glass.

10:28 So that's a good option because this is something you're putting food in all the time. And maybe you're even reheating food in it. So when you mix plastic and heat, you're going to have greater exposure, generally speaking, to microplastics. So don't drink water from the plastic bottle that you left in the sun. By and large, try to drink water and other things from things that aren't plastic. Use glass. Use stainless steel. Stainless steel is great for a lot of drinks. It's it stays cooler. It feels nicer when you're drinking from it. So for instance, if you're living somewhere warm like I am in the south, in the summer it's nicer to have that. You can keep them cool. Some of them are insulated.

11:12 I mostly have Hydroflats stuff. I'm not necessarily saying go with them. I found their products to be well made. I'm not sponsored by them. I don't get anything for saying that. I just use them and I like them. So that's another good way. Basically, you're trying to avoid the microplastics you'd have exposure to with regard to food and drink. It's an easy way to eliminate. And then obviously the clothing issue. If you can underwear probably the biggest one, socks another big one, you're going to have a very hard time avoiding all plastic and socks. And in fact in some cases, so performance socks for hiking and things like that, you basically will not be able to avoid 100%. But you can get something that's 90-95% not plastic.

11:58 That's better than 100%, certainly. You're not aiming for perfection because perfection is sort of a systemic issue, things have to change all up and down the production line. You're doing what you can do on your end. So replace your underwear with things that aren't plastic, replace your socks with things that are at least mostly not plastic. Buy shirts that are made from actual materials instead of plastic. You'd be surprised how many things are plastic these days, it's unfortunate, but these are the sort of steps that you can take in your daily life, and they're not that difficult. There's going to be a little bit more initial investment, but it pays off in the long term. But the fundamental point is just don't get neurotic about it.

12:44 Avoid the things you can and don't worry about the things you can't avoid because you can't avoid and worrying won't make it better. You mentioned labels and yes there is microplastic exposure with regard to thermal paper and things like that. I don't avoid it 100%. If you ordered a Stone Choir Challenge coin or a confident faith one, you know that the label is indeed thermal paper. I have the label printer right here on my desk. I'm looking at it. It's out of the camera view, but I use it because the amount of time that I save by using a label printer versus handwriting each label is immense. So is there a trade-off there? Yes, there's a trade-off, but I don't think the exposure is necessarily

13:26 of such a magnitude that I have to be particularly worried about it. And by and large you can avoid touching receipts these days just by paying with a credit card or your phone. Use your Apple Pay or your Google wallet or whatever and then you have the receipt electronically stored. You don't need the paper anyway. Unless of course you go to C V S in which case they force you to take the thing. So the next question pull that up. Question four. Why is the Magdeburg Confession not part of the Book of Concord? It seems like it should be. And for those who don't know what the Magdeburg Confession is, basically it is an explanation of the doctrine of the lesser magistrate, which is Christian resistance to wicked rulers, more or less.

14:15 So it's on the use of force by Christians, but in a particular circumstance. It is the Lutheran statement of it, but it is also sort of the earliest full treatment of it with regard to that doctrine, certainly in that way. And should it be in the book of Concord? I think it should probably be included in a collection of confessional documents, not necessarily in the book of Concord itself, because the book of Concord was meant specifically to deal with theological issues that were in contention between the Lutherans and Rome and in many cases the Lutherans and the Reformed because The reason the Reformed were included, in essence, is because Rome tried to lump Lutherans in with the Reformed to just

15:03 say, you're all Protestants, you're all whatever, you're all heretics, is really what they were calling us. But we felt that we needed to distinguish what we teach versus what the Reform teach because we're not the same. We are not identical. We do not teach the same things. But that was the point of the book of Concord, and then solving some disputes among Lutherans as well with regard to a couple documents, the formula of Concord. But the point was not a full statement of the Christian religion or a full statement of every facet of doctrine and theology that could ever arise. In fact, the authors themselves recognize there are issues that will need to be addressed in the future by other men because they're not

15:44 addressed to the Book of Concord. It's not a full statement of all these things. And so it didn't aim to be that, and so it is not that. That's why the Magdebird Confession is not included. So I would say in a collection of confessional documents? Absolutely it should be in there. But it's not in the Book of Concord for a number of reasons. Just not what the book is, what the confessional book is. Question Question five How to discern if helping a neighbor is helping an enemy? Those whom you come across are your neighbor when you meet them, but is it ever appropriate to not help them because doing so is helping someone who seeks to destroy you whether now or later? For example, helping a non white with workout advice, although it seems

16:33 that very soon nation will rise against nation. This is a difficult question, and part of it is going to be a matter of conscience. What is your conscience telling you you need to do? God gave you a conscience, you should employ it, you should not ignore it. And the question is, can someone basically the underlying ultimate question here is can someone who is in physical proximity, who would otherwise be a neighbor, be an enemy instead? The answer is obviously yes, because if you're on a battlefield, the guy next to you may very well not be your friend. And so just because someone is physically proximate does not mean that he qualifies as a biblical neighbor to whom you must render aid. There are times where he's going to be an enemy and you

17:18 should not render him aid. And so, for instance, if you are going out and feeding the homeless or the less fortunate, those in poverty, those who've lost jobs, the injured, disabled, etcetera, at all. If you are going out and feeding those individuals or otherwise helping them, you should focus on the members of your own nation. You should focus on those people who should be here. Do not go out and do that with regard to those who should not be here. Because they shouldn't be here. And their presence here is harmful to the members of your own nation. And so by helping them, you would actually be harming those to whom you owe a higher duty. Now, does that mean that you never under any circumstances render aid

18:04 to someone who, under some analysis, is wrongfully in your country. I'm going to say no. For instance, if you are out boating, right, you're out fishing or something, and you see someone who shouldn't be in this country, and he's drowning, do you throw him a life ring? The answer is probably yes. You generally do indeed throw him the life ring. That's a different sort of thing. And And I'm not going to say you always, absolutely in every case have a duty to do so, but generally speaking, you have a duty to render aid under those circumstances. And that's always been the understanding, even in European law. The US is actually a weird outlier when it comes to that. There's sort of no general duty to legal, positive law duty to

18:52 render aid in the US. Modulos state differences and distinctives, but that's the general rule in the US. For weird historical reasons. But insofar as the neighbor in terms of proximity is concerned, no, the person is not always your neighbor in terms of those to whom you owe a duty of aid. So employ the wisdom God has given you and listen to your conscience. There are going to be times where no, you should not render that sort of aid. But by and large, I just don't think it's going to come up in a practical sense because All of us are limited in terms of our resources and particularly just our time. Doesn't matter how much money you have, your time's still limited. You can only render aid to so many people.

19:37 You are not going to run out of the members of your own nation before you run out of time and resources. So it's just never really going to arise because you're not going to go, I've helped absolutely everyone in my city, town, whatever it happens to be, who belongs here, who is a member of my nation, who is a distant cousin, which is what we're really saying. I've helped all of them and I still have ten hours left in my day and a bunch of money left over. That's just never going to happen. Because there are more men and women and children who need aid than we can possibly aid and then have leftover time to do other things. If we were in a situation where everything was going perfectly for our own people and everything was in order in our country and

20:27 we didn't have any of these problems and we just had abundant resources left over, then by all means yes we can aid other people. But we're not there and we're nowhere near there. So that's a discussion for at some point in the future. I do see the questions that have popped up in the chat. I've added a few of them to my growing list. I don't know that I'll get to them tonight just because. Well, time constraints tying into that question I just answered. Question six, I'm pulling questions from the X thread at this point. Do you think godly white men with families are under any guilt for not unleashing violence at the evils we face? Would it be even worse to essentially abandon our families for a

21:13 quick victory over not doing certain things? I'll not read certain of the words in the question because obvious. The initial response to this is that we did an episode of Stone Choir specifically on this. We did the episode on violence. That's the title. And I will go ahead and link that in the show notes. Because that is my initial recommendation with regard to this issue. Because obviously I agree with everything we said in that episode. But the question is, essentially broader, when is violence warranted? And the Christian answer cannot be never. Because there are times when God requires it. And so this is a matter of wisdom, as many matters are, and generally speaking, going out and committing random acts of violence is deeply unwise.

22:10 I'm obviously going to say, don't do that. Do not go out and commit random acts of violence. It's just going to ultimately harm you and your family and make a mess. Don't do that. This also ties back in to the issue earlier of the Magdeburg Confession and the Lesser Magistrate. The question is when does the duty to wield the sword devolved to the common man, right? Because the lesser magistrate is the magistrate who is lesser than the one who is causing some evil. And so in our system I'll just use our system, even our system is a giant mess, if the president is doing something deeply wicked, in theory, the governor has a duty to protect the people of his state from the president. The governor being the lesser magistrate, regardless of what people and talk

23:02 about states' rights and such. That's how it works today. Historical issues are another matter. He's the lesser magistrate. But what if he's wicked? Well then you have mayors, right? That's sort of the next step down in our system. Maybe it's the county mayor instead of the city mayor, but if it's a big city, it's the city mayor, right? So if you're talking about California, it'd be the mayor of San Francisco and the mayor of Los Angeles. Not going to be good men in this case, but that's how it falls. And then the question is what happens after that? And it keeps devolving downward. But if all of the men in this list are wicked, at some point it devolves to the common man, just the Christian man

23:40 who's the head of the household. And as we said in that episode, you do have a duty to protect those who are entrusted to your care. That is the key there, though. You owe them the highest duty because God has given them into your care, and so your wife and your children, your extended family, you owe these individuals the highest duty of care, and so you should not do things that jeopardize your ability to care for them. Does that mean that a man can never go out and risk his life and his ability, obviously, attendant with his life, to provide for these individuals? The answer is no, because if the answer were yes, it would always be wrong to be a soldier. And there are times where it is incumbent on men to be

24:28 soldiers. But this is Nat pestering me here, this is a matter of wisdom, and it is also a matter of leadership, which is severely lacking right now in our case, because someone has to have that duty to stand up and act as the lesser magistrate, telling the higher magistrate, he's wicked, and that if you are not going to stop, we are going to do whatever is necessary to stop you I think we probably are at that point. We just lack the structure and the leadership and the organization to do that properly. Again, don't go out and commit random acts of violence, don't do that, that is deeply unwise, just going to cause trouble for everyone. But no, that's not something that Christians can say is simply morally prohibited

25:23 in all cases, because it would be to accuse God of evil. And it would be to accuse God of sin with regard to the things he commands us. So it is again at risk of ad nauseum, I guess, but it is a matter of wisdom. But no, there is not sort of a generalized guilt for not going out and doing something on your own. But is there a sort of higher level more generalized in another sense guilt among those of us who using the broad sense of the pronoun there, those of us who could have done something, so mostly past generations, right? At this point, it's kind of falling on us as well because now we're in sort of their shoes where they should have acted. Do they bear moral guilt for their failure to act?

26:14 The answer is yes. But there is a difference among men, even because there are men to whom God has given the skills to lead these sorts of things, they will bear a greater guilt if they do not act. The common man who is just going through his day and going to work and providing And providing for his family, he doesn't have the duty to stand up and say, I'm the leader now, everyone follow me, grab your pitchfork, right? That's absurd. That's anarchy, it's can't how it works, and it's egalitarian as well, so it's wrong on every possible level. But there are men to whom God has given the necessary skill set to do these things. If they do not act, God will have some questions for them as to why they did not, because that is a moral failing.

27:01 But I would say go and listen to the episode, go into it in greater depth there for some obvious reasons. Question seven is a transition here. What do you believe hell is? There are a number of different ways I could take this question and a number of different answers I could give, then, but Hell is eternal conscious torment. That is the short answer, and that is the term that many who argue for annihilationism or some other heretical position. It's the one they try to say, well, you're just this and that's the epithet they give. But it's true, because that's what hell is. It is a fire that does not consume. It is it is eternal torment. Hell is not somewhere you want to go and scripture is abundantly

27:56 clear that it is eternal. If you just read the passages that talk about hell, it is clear that it does not end, there is no escape, there is no way out Hell is eternal torment. Prepared for the devil and his fallen angels, but those men who reject Christ will join them. Completely and utterly foolish. But to explain a little bit of the just a little bit of the theology, the reason that hell is eternal is because the debt of sin is infinite. You being finite can never pay an infinite sum. And so you will be there forever. Because the infinitude, right, the infinite has to be somewhere in that equation. And the equation, of course, if you're talking about something paid, in this case is going to be time versus value.

28:49 So nothing you can do as a finite is of infinite value, and so the time is the one that has to be infinite in your case. Christ was able to pay the infinite debt of sin because the value of his sacrifice was infinite, so he didn't have to suffer forever from the eternity past, right? The value of his sacrifice was infinite, and that's paid for the infinite debt of sin. And so those who are in Christ are covered by Christ's payment and declared innocent, declared not guilty. And so that's what salvation is, that's what forgiveness is. Those in hell have had their sins forgiven because Christ atoned for all sins, he atoned for all creation, they just rejected it, and so they're trying to pay the infinite debt themselves.

29:43 And they will be there forever doing that. Question eight. In light of the increased discourse surrounding interracial marriage, there has generally been considerable neglect for people in such marriages with children who have come under new convictions and are unsure on how to navigate going forward, what advice would you give them? Of course this is a difficult position, right? If you find yourself in the position where you believe that you did something that was sinful or unwise, not necessarily both, but if you did something that was sinful or unwise, and now you recognize that you would have done something else if you had known better at the time, but because of the reality of what you did, you are now stuck

30:33 with the consequences. That's a difficult position in which to find yourself, but at the same time it's the position in which every single man finds himself. And not just in the personal case, right? We've all done stupid things at some point and had at least consequences that lasted for a little while. It can even be something trivial, right? Every man listening to this can go, Well that scar is from the time I did X, and this one's from when right, you did something stupid, and you have a scar to prove it. Well that scar is a consequence, and you can't get rid well yes, I mean these days obviously there's plastic surgery and things, but let's say it's more extreme, you're a woodworker and you're missing a

31:12 finger like most woodworkers are, right? That's a consequence of something you shouldn't have done. In that case it's something probably stupid that you did, which marrying outside your race can be stupid. In many cases it is. And so you have the consequences to speak broadly, not necessarily just in a pejorative sense, right? Children Children are also a consequence of marriage, in the sense of they are consequent to marriage, and they are a natural outcome of the exercise of marriage. So what I have always recommended all along is the children who are half one thing and half something else are going to have to choose. Someone said volume dropped on X. Did the tell me in the chat, did the volume drop or

32:02 did it drop, which is to say did it decrease or did it disappear? Because I would hope it didn't disappear, there are still people who are clearly listening because they're not saying that I they can't hear me. But my levels show fine. The issue for those children is that they are torn for between two worlds, right? They do not have what all of us have, what I pointed out before. I didn't have to choose if I were, you know, American or something else. Because I am American. That's just what I am. Yes, I'm also German, because obviously I am German biologically and a little bit of Scottish, but I didn't have to choose what I am, because I'm not multiple things. And the Scottish and the Germans are cousins.

32:54 They're as close as they the Scottish and the Dutch, but they're close enough that I'm not torn between two worlds, right? I don't have to choose if I want haggis or vice verst. That's not a big life choice. They're both good, incidentally. The vice versa is better. But if you are split between two vastly different cultures, that's a more difficult thing. So, you know, you can pick any example of this. Just pick any two peoples that are far apart, right? If you're half Korean and half Ugandan, you're going to feel torn between those two worlds because those cultures are not the same. They're not even compatible. They're wildly different. And so those children are going to have to choose. And then the question of course is, well, how do they choose,

33:40 right? How do you choose which one you are? Generally speaking, you are going to choose your father, because your father is your head. Until you are, of course, of age as a man in case you're own you're your own head, and then if you're a woman, your husband, right? But you're still going to be torn between those two worlds. Generally, you choose your father's side and go with that and you're making a conscious decision in a way that other men do not. There is a burden there, and those who are of mixed ancestry know that. They recognize it, and quite frankly, a lot of times I've heard from they don't like being patronized by these supposed Christians and others and say, oh no, it's it's perfectly fine, there's no difference and

34:26 everything is great and it doesn't cause pro because they know that's a lie. Because they've lived it, because they personally experience it every single day. It's one of the reasons that I and others oppose it, because it's deeply unwise. It places a burden on your society, it places a burden on your family, and it places an immense burden on your children. And there are things that are so unwise they become sin. It's not always sin, it is sometimes sin. And I have another recording I did one of the archival episodes of this show actually, on interracial marriage. I will link that in the show notes. I would say listen to that as well, because I I go into it a little bit more. But insofar as the children are concerned, they have to choose.

35:11 And it's going to depend on the mixture as to what your viable options are, right? You have a much harder decision to make if you're Korean and Ugandan versus versus if you are you know Russian and British. You still have to choose. But that's not as hard of a choice because two European peoples, even though in this case they are opposite sides of one of the great divides in Europe, the great divides being west, east, and south, it's not as big of a difference as if you're crossing the lines of the great races descended from the sons of Noah. So if you are half African and half European, that is more difficult than if you are half East European and half West European, or you know, half Japanese, half Korean.

35:58 Do you still have to choose? Yes. Is there a distinction there? Yes. Are you going to have a little bit of tension, particularly some historical tensions in some cases? Absolutely yes. But the best thing you can do is be deliberate about what you are doing, choose the one side and go all in on that. Because it is the best thing you can do with the circumstances that are inescapable at that point. And as far as the marriage is concerned, obviously divorce is not permissible, except in cases of adultery. So the Christian answer on that one is quite easy. But the reality is that yes, it causes problems and it is going to be difficult regardless of the decision you make. In many cases, it will be a matter not for the individual,

36:45 but a matter of future laws in any given country. Because if countries start enforcing scriptural morality, there will be laws regarding these things. And so part of it will be you have to pick the option that's open to you at the time. But again, that comes down to the mixture and various things like that. It is a fact-specific inquiry. It's not a general rule, other than the the general rule of, you know, side with your father when you can. But go and listen to the other episode I recorded on that because I go into a little bit greater depth and I think that's probably a a good starting place. And I guess before I move on to the next question, I have had people basically ask me to draw up essentially Nuremberg Laws

37:32 two point oh. I don't know that I'll do that because I don't know how helpful that would be at least at this time and also I don't know that we're really going to ever wind up with that sort of law being enacted in that way. I think it might wind up being a little more hodgepodge just because of the reality of the the mess we've made for ourselves. But I I don't have any current intention to drop those laws. Hypothetical, obviously not real. I don't have the power to drop the real ones. Question nine. Where in scripture do people, mostly, boomer generation, feel they can justify war as we are currently seeing And how do those passages need to be properly interpreted? Whenever it's brought up to parents, I get the it's in the

38:22 Bible. This one obviously relates to Iran and Israel and things like that. So the basic question, for those who are not reading into it, what is actually being asked here, is war morally permissible? The answer is yes. Because Because just war is morally permissible. So But it has to be a just war. You know. A war of aggression because you just feel like killing people is not morally permissible. That would be a violation of the moral law. You're not permitted to do that. This war, and most of the wars related to Israel and the Jews, you have You have those who are dispensationalist or dispensationalist adjacent, and I just put them all under the umbrella of dispensationalist because that's where they belong, other than in jail.

39:13 They all believe that this is a fulfillment of prophecy. The problem is, you ask them what prophecy, and 90% of the time they don't have an answer. Some of the time they just vaguely point, hey, Revelation. Great, what verse? What part of Revelation is involved here? Because as far as I'm concerned, it looks a lot more like Israel is Babylon the Great, the whore in Revelation, than anything related to God. I'm not saying that it is in that case, I'm saying it looks more like that. But they can't actually point to any sections of Scripture, any prophecies that actually make any sense here, it's always wild misapplication. They'll interpret things like the passages about the sting of hornets and

40:05 they'll say, Oh well that's Apache helicopters. This is schizo level insanity. This is not something that should be taken seriously. But the problem is they've heard it so many times over so many years from so many different sources that you are going to find it very difficult to break through that programming because they read Left Behind, or they watched it, I think there was a television series, I I don't remember. They've read other various fiction dealing with dispensationalist ideas. They have listened to various heretical pastors saying that Israel is somehow some important part of the end times. It's very difficult to break through that level of programming. And as I've said before to those who have particularly boomer parents,

40:51 so millennials, just don't raise the issue. You're never going to get anywhere. It's going to give you a headache and be a nightmare and cause strife in your family. Just don't do it. Don't open the can of worms. If it comes up, speak the truth as best you can. Don't necessarily be abrasive with regard to the truth because his family it's a different sort of thing. If it's a stranger, it's a different thing. You obviously owe a different duty to a stranger. But in so far as these passages are concerned, it would depend on the passage. I have to know what on earth they're arguing. And like I said, most of the time, they're not arguing anything. They're just emoting they're expressing their love of Israel because people have

41:35 told them they're supposed to love Israel. The problem is the Israel that is chosen is the Israel of God, otherwise known as the Church. Christians are the true Israel. The nation state over in the Near East, from nineteen forty eight onward, is a geopolitical abomination or aberration, is what I've usually called it. It has nothing to do with prophecy. It has everything to do with corruption and Satan. So the issue is that unless you can break them of the dispensationalist theology, you can't break them of the political conclusions they draw from it. Because like I said, there's no reason involved. It's just misapplication of scripture they've never even bothered to read. And I've gone over some of the passages in Revelation and elsewhere

42:32 in the Bible before. So the one hundred and forty four thousand isn't Jews. It's representative of the entire church. It's twelve for the Old Testament, twelve for the New Testament, a number of perfection and completion related to humanity. What is twelve times twelve? A hundred and forty-four. Why is it one hundred and forty-four thousand? Because the number one thousand is symbolic of the number of God's perfection. Because what is it? ten the number of perfection three three, the Trinity. You know, these things make perfect sense if you actually understand Scripture and are able to couch these things in the context of the rest of Scripture and just so people don't think that I sound crazy talking about numbers, which is always the danger with numbers, right?

43:14 What does scripture say about the number one thousand? If I were hungry, I would not tell you, if I were thirsty, I would not tell you. I own the cattle on a thousand hills. Does God own the cattle on a thousand hills? Yes and no. Because he owns the cattle on every hill, because everything is his. It's a number of God's perfection, it's not a literal number. So when you see that number somewhere in scripture, particularly in a prophetic book, your first thought should not be, Oh, a literal thousand. It should be, What does this represent? And the danger of the prophetic books is that you get people people who just go completely off the rails because they don't read it in the right context and then they try to extrapolate it

43:54 out to what's currently happening in the world, and that's how you get people standing on a mountaintop having sold all their possessions and waiting for God to show up. What does scripture say? No man knows the hour. So anytime you get people who are really into eschatology, you should be worried. Because no one gets really really into eschatology without going off the rails. Because eschatology is not the most important thing in scripture. Why would you focus on it? Focus on the things in scripture that are the most important. And one of the signs that you'll find with regard to those who get into the weeds and off into crazy places with eschatology, they'll take revelation, as they say, literally, and then they will try

44:43 to spiritualize away the historical books. So that's the exact opposite of what you should do. Genesis is history. You should read it like a history book. Revelation is prophecy. You should read it in a totally different way. And part of what confuses people is that they look at scripture as if it's one book. It's one book in the sense that God is the ultimate author in terms of inspiration, and God is the one who put his seal on it, and it is bound together. But. It's not one book, because it is a collection of books, and they are of different genres written at different times, and you need to read them in context and accordingly. And the example I usually give people would you read poetry in exactly the same way you would read

45:40 just a dry historical account of the Civil War? The answer is no, because it would be crazy to do that. But you get people who try to do that with scripture, and it's inappropriate. And they wind up in very bad places causing us a great deal of political harm. But But like I said, for the older generation you're probably never going to get through them. Just don't bother. Reach the younger generation that will be around longer and may actually listen. So just avoid the issue with your boomer parents The next question. Question ten. What is the Lutheran answer to the reformed objection to carnal presence? And then he attaches a screenshot. For those who want to, you can go look at the screenshot

46:33 on X. It's in the thread from yesterday announcing the QA. Basically the question I don't I don't want to get too deeply into this because this gets very complicated and at a level of theology that isn't going to be useful to most men, and that's just not necessarily the focus of this particular show. It's not my my goal here. But what he's asking about is the communicatio idiomatum, right? The communication of attributes. And the communicatio is basically a description theologically of how the I want to stop using Latin, the personal union works with regard to Christ. Right? He's fully man and he's fully God. But how does that work? And And discussing this is basically seeing how far we can take

47:35 our human understanding with regard to these things without going off the rails, which is always the danger when you're talking about things that are above you and beyond you, which that's sort of my starting place often when I talk to the reformed, because the reformed will say You know, with regard to this issue in particular, the finite is not capable of the infinite. If they're feeling, you know, spicy, they'll say it in Latin, which is fine. Words are almost identical. But the problem with that is that so much of Reformed theology is in fact the finite, the person telling other finites what the infinite cannot do. There's a bit of irony there. There's a contradiction. And so things that are

48:34 self-invalidating can typically be ignored. But with regard to the person of Christ, I want to give some reading recommendations for those who are actually interested in the issue. I'm not going to necessarily say that I'm going to go deeply into it for the reasons I already mentioned, but I do want to read a little bit of the formula of Concord because that is sort of the most theologically dense document in the Book of Concord, and it goes into it in a way that's not incomprehensible for most men. It's still in a way that can be grasped and understood. But I will give some other recommendations that maybe are not in that vein, they're a little higher level. So with regard to the person of Christ, that's what this article

49:22 is. This is Article 8 of the Solid Declaration of the Formula of Concord. We believe, teach, and confess that God's Son from eternity has been a particular, distinct, entire divine person. Yet He is true, essential, perfect God with the Father and the Holy Spirit. In the fullness of time, he received also the human nature, into the unity of his person. He did not do this in such a way that there are now two persons or two Christs, and of course you can think of the creeds here as well, right? Christ Jesus is now in one person at the same time true eternal God, born of the Father from eternity, and a true man, born of the most blessed Virgin Mary. This is written in Romans 9 5, from their race, according to

50:06 the flesh, is the Christ who is God over all, blessed for ever. So, we believe, teach, and confess, this course speaking as Lutherans, but I firmly believe this is just what Scripture says that now in this one undivided person of Christ there are two distinct natures the divine which is from eternity and the human, which in time was received in the unity of the person of God's Son. These two natures in the person of Christ are never either separated from or mingled with each other, nor are they changed into each other. Each one abides in its nature and essence in the person of Christ to all eternity. We believe, teach, and confess also, that both natures mentioned remain unmingled and undestroyed in their nature and essence each keeps its natural essential

50:59 properties to all eternity and does not lay them aside. Neither do the essential properties of the one nature ever become the essential properties of the other nature. For those who are familiar with theology and philosophy, you note the technical use of the terms here, right? Essential There are things going on here beyond just the the words on the surface. We believe, teach, and confess that it is the property of the divine nature to be almighty, eternal, infinite, everywhere present at the same time and all knowing. In other words, it agrees with the property of the divine nature and its natural essence. Thus These are essential attributes of the divine nature. Never in eternity do they become essential properties of the human nature.

51:44 On the other hand, these are properties of the human nature, being a bodily creation or creature, flesh and blood, finite and located in one place, it suffers, dies, ascends, and descends, it moves from one place to another, suffers hunger, thirst, cold, heat, and the like. These properties never become properties of the divine nature. And then I'll read one more paragraph here because I think this is sort of what's necessary for getting into answering this question. We believe, teach, and confess that now since the incarnation, each nature in Christ does not exist by itself, so that each is or makes up a separate person. These two natures are so united that they make up one single person, in which the divine and the received human nature are and

52:32 exist at the same time. So now, since the incarnation, there belongs to the entire person of Christ, personally, not only his divine nature, but also his received human nature. So without his divinity and also without his humanity, the person of Christ or the incarnate Son of God is not complete. We mean the Son of God who has received flesh and become man. Therefore Christ is not two distinct persons, but one single person, even though two distinct natures are found in him, unconfused in their natural essence and properties. The question here, with regard to the reformed position theologically, the one that is being asked specifically here is about the Lord's Supper. It's about the Lutheran conception of the real presence or as we

53:25 also call it the sacramental union, because the reformed also call their understanding the real presence and we disagree, so we call it the sacramental union to make sure that is specifically what we mean when we say it. This has arisen a number of times, and in fact, a Lutheran theologian, so-called modern one, not ancient, recently got this wrong and has not recanted his false statements. And it's part of why I went into this a number of years ago. This is also another archival episode of this show. I would say go and listen to that. I will add that to the notes as well. It is the mode of Christ's presence in the supper. And so I will include that in the show notes, but the objection the reformed have is that they say he is not

54:18 carnally present. Part of the issue here is that it's squabbling over words, right? And so do Lutherans believe that Christ is carnally present? We don't use that term, right? We say he is sacramentally present. We say he is truly present. He is really present. And I have gone so far as to say he's physically present, because I don't think that's inappropriate. But he's not present locally. And this is where it starts to get into philosophy that's going to be not particularly useful for a lot of men. But when we talk about presence, right, there are different kinds of presence. And thankfully for modern men I can kind of use a very easy example to get you to understand exactly what we're talking about

55:08 with presence. It's a rough example, but it works for this. I am physically present, locally present in my chair, in my study, in East Tennessee. That's where I am. I'm a human being. That's the only place where I am, right? I know the reformed are listening to me say that like, ah, but just wait. I am also I am also present virtually on your screen. I am virtually present with regard to my voice in your ears, right? I am present a different way. You are all virtually present to me in the chat. Are you locally present in the chat? The answer is no. Is Christ locally present in the supper? We would not say he is locally present. We object to the use of localiter is what it's called because it's just Latin for locally, it's the adverb.

56:01 That is the objection. But is he physically present? The answer is yes. And so the reformed will try to say that it is an essential property of the human nature to be locally present only in one place. Okay, fine. We're not saying he's locally present in the supper, so there's no objection there with regard to the sacramental union, because his present his presence is sacramental. Is it physical? Yes, and the reason we say that is simple. Well What does he say? I'm so tempted to use Latin, but I will not use the Latin. He says, this is my body. Right? But think about the fullness of the statement. What is he saying? What is he holding when he says it? He's saying, you know, pretend this is bread.

56:54 This is my body. I'll try and hold it in front of the camera instead of this is my body, right? Pretend it's bread. So what is he saying? This bread, well it's bread, I can see it's bread, is my body. It's also his body, it's bread and body. We simply affirm what Christ says. We're not going to subject the word of God to the logic of men and then tell God what he can't do. Because he can do that. The other proof that I will give for the reformed, because I know many of them are going to be unsatisfied with that. But this one I don't know how you can possibly avoid it. There are two things in scripture we need to pull out in order to address this particular issue. I won't necessarily pull them out because I don't need to, you

57:39 you all know these ones, right? Scripture says that in Christ, the fullness of deity dwells bodily. Well if the fullness of deity dwells bodily in Christ, it is And the deity is never absent from the essence of deity, and the attributes are essential to the essence, then the fullness of the attributes of the deity are also dwelling in the Christ. That's sufficient. That's sufficient with regard to logic, it's sufficient with regard to Scripture. But there is also the fact that Scripture speaks of Christ in two distinct ways, two distinct phases, as it were, parts of his life. You have the state of humiliation, which is from his birth or conception, until his death, right, or his resurrection, depending where exactly

58:33 you want to put that line either end. And then you have the state of exaltation. And so if you just look at that without thinking about it, it seems like, okay fine, that makes perfect sense What does that mean about the human nature? Well, it says the human nature is the one that is exalted to the right hand of God, because God, Christ, according to his divinity, has had the fullness of the divine attributes, the glory, the power, the omnipresence, the omniscience, all these things, from eternity past, because it is his essentially for all time. There's no canoticism or anything like that here. He's not emptying himself of the deity. And so the deity is not what is exalted, because with regard

59:21 to his essence he is equal to the Father, with regard to his divinity he is equal to the Father. And so the exaltation can only be of the HUMANIT. And so if the humanity is exalted to the right hand of God, That is saying exactly what Lutherans are saying, about Christ being omnipresent, omniscient, and all these other things also according to his humanity. Not because they are essential attributes of the humanity, but because in the personal union of Christ, you do not have this distinction where you can say, humanity cannot do this, and so no, because it is the person of Christ. The person of Christ is fully God and fully man. And so, yes, he is physically present in the supper, he is sacramentally present in the supper, as he says in his word.

1:00:11 And we simply affirm what he says in his word. We're not going to try to say, no God, you can't do that. Christ knows what he can do. And he told us what he can do, and he told us what he will do. He promised it. We simply rely on his words. And I could go into this in greater depth, of course, and go to the communication of attributes and all the different kinds and the genus and stuff stuff like that. But that would be for if I were going to do like a class on this subject. It's not really the point of again this. And so I think that's a sufficient answer for you, but I did say that I would mention some resources for you, particularly to give you a deeper understanding of the Lutheran position and the fullness

1:00:49 of it. Start with Peeper's Dogmatics and then read the things he references. That's generally a great starting place for Lutheran theology, just on most issues. But to give you an idea, in Peeper's Dogmatics I have the volume over here, but it's about three hundred pages on the doctrine of Christ, so I can't really summarize that in five minutes, ten minutes, whatever that was. So I would say start there. Read the Doctrine of Christ section in Volume two of his three volume work, Christian Dogmatics. It's available on Logos if you want the electronic version. It's usually available relatively cheaply as a used book if you want the physical copy. You can order it new from CPH, but they charge an arm

1:01:36 and a leg, so maybe don't do that. And of course read the fullness of article eight of which I read part of of the Solid Declaration that's available free online. So thebookofconcord.org. The next question, question 11. If parents who are clearly not practicing Christians and not part of our congregation ask to have their baby baptized, should our church agree? The concern is that the child will probably not be raised, as Jesus teaches in Mark sixteen sixteen, or would refusing mean inviting the millstone? The baseline answer to the question is that it is always good when the child is baptized. But the sort of caveat there is that if you know the child is not going to be raised a Christian If you know the

1:02:38 child is going to be taught to reject his baptism is the wording Lutherans would use, then you actually are not doing him any favors. You are in some ways even sort of profaning the sacrament. But the usual Lutheran way around this, right, if you have unbelieving parents of the child who for some reason want the child to be baptized, which there's already some questions there, right? Why do unbelievers want the child baptized? That's something for the pastor to suss out, right? This is an opportunity to talk to them about the Christian faith. You recognize your child should be baptized. Why aren't you attending church? Why aren't you Christian? If you recognize the realities thing, right? This is something that a good pastor should be doing.

1:03:26 And just the baptism itself provides the opportunity to preach the gospel to the parents and for others who are in attendance. It's one of the prime opportunities that we get to talk about these things with unbelievers in a context where they're actually likely to listen. Another, of course, would be marriage, right? The marriage ceremony. You should have a short statement of the gospel there as well. So if you have the unbelieving parents, the usual Lutheran solution is called godparents, which is what Roman Catholics and others do as well, right? You have someone present who swears that he will undertake the duty to raise this child child in the Christian faith, right? Because that's part of the the ceremony of baptism is the parents

1:04:15 swearing to raise the child as a Christian, or in this case the godparents. Usually you want to have both present because you know, sometimes parents die. Things happen. So you want some assurance there, some insurance against disaster. So if you can get godparents, who are believers, to be present and to swear that they will raise the child in the Christian faith despite the unbelief of the parents, then by all means baptize the child. If you have unbelieving parents and you have no godparents. So basically, you have the second worst possible scenario, right? The worst possible scenario is you know Satanists come to you and say, We want to baptize our child because we want to profane and insult the sacrament.

1:05:00 You tell them no, right? That's the easy case. The hard case is the worst case where you have unbelieving parents who for some reason want to have their child baptized, but then But then clearly have no intention of raising the child as a Christian. That one is going to be a matter for the pastor because he is the one who has to investigate the parents. He is the one who has to figure out what's going on in this child's life. What is the family life going to be like? What is the home life going to be like? Are these parents actual unbelievers, or are they just sort of very weak in their faith? Have they fallen away? Did they used to believe? Are they open to attending church? Are they open to their child at least being catechized?

1:05:47 There are a lot of moving parts here. That is the duty of the pastor to figure out exactly what is going on and make that call. I think that if you can mount any argument whatsoever that you're going to be able to get this child some sort of education in the Christian faith, then by all means baptize that child. Baptism is still a means of grace. Baptism is a sacrament, it is a blessing and a gift from God, and it should always be cherished, and baptizing a child is always a good thing. So if So if there's any way that you can ensure this child is going to be raised in the Christian faith, then yes, baptize that child. But the obvious extreme example up, you know, the Satanists. I don't think that's probably the case here.

1:06:32 So have the pastor call them in and talk to them. Have another elder there to answer as many questions as you can. Try to get them to understand this is an important thing. It's a real thing. It means something. You recognize that by virtue of the fact you've admitted by virtue of the fact that you want your child baptized. Why would you want that if it means nothing? So the door's open. Bring them in. that's the point. That's the goal of the pastor. And hopefully that's what happens in this case. Hopefully they recognize that they want the child baptized because this is something that's important And so they themselves become believers as well. But certainly take the opportunity of a baptism to preach to those

1:07:15 who are unbelievers and are present, because many times at a baptism you have unbelievers present. The next question, question twelve. What do you think of the push pins and yarn on corkboard theory about the number six six six, Saturn, Jews, Stones, Cubes, Color Black, Sabbath, etc. I see many connections, but feel like there's a deeper evil meaning that I cannot grasp. Maybe we're not meant to. It's a little spooky. You sort of answered your own question. We're not meant to. Because there are some things that you're actually just better off not knowing, right? We know that. That's sort of the narrative of the fall of the beginning of Genesis and the tree of the knowledge good and evil, there are things that men are not meant to know.

1:08:09 God didn't give us any access to it. God didn't give us any way to gain access to it. And that's sort of a key here. Because I know those there are many who will hear, well, all knowledge is good. First off, that's a lie. And the example I usually use, let me take a sip of my tea before I continue. The example I usually use is an extreme one because extreme examples work really well. Hopefully, none of you listening know what it is like to be stabbed. Right? But if you get stabbed, you have gained knowledge in the process of being stabbed. Is that knowledge good? I don't think there's any way to say that knowledge is good. Would and you can even take the abstracted out to the extreme and then analyze that.

1:09:01 Would the universe be better if knowledge of what it is like to be stabbed never occurred, never came into being? The answer is yes. So there's bad knowledge. It's not morally neutral, not all knowledge is morally neutral. Some things are horrible. And I would say notably I have never had to have this discussion with friends who practice criminal law and deal with, so for instance, sex crimes. You're never going to find a single attorney working in the DA's office who deals in that unit and says that there's no such thing as bad knowledge because he knows what it is because he's seen it and he has it in his head. And it will never go away until the day he dies. So there's such a thing as bad knowledge.

1:09:47 Knowledge of demons and things like that in this way is going to be bad knowledge. Does that mean that knowledge of sort of the symbols and the conspiracies and things like that and how they work is always bad. I don't think so, because at least for certain men, it's going to give you the ability to recognize it and to map these things out and be able to warn other men. Not all men should go after these things because some men don't have the same defenses, either intellectually, psychologically, spiritually. If a man who does not have sufficient defenses against these things, starts investigating them, he's opening himself up to demons. And possession is real. You don't want to play with that stuff.

1:10:33 So The other part of that, the point I wanted to make with regard to the access to knowledge, right? There are things to which God has given us access. The workings of the universe to some degree. It gets a little wonky when you get out into the quantum because things start to behave differently when you look at them. But beyond that, right, higher level, God has given us knowledge. He has given us access to knowledge, right? I'll hold this up again. It took knowledge to figure out how to make ink. It took knowledge to figure out how to make teal ink. It took knowledge how to figure out, you know, blotter paper and this design and glass and all those things. That took knowledge. We have access to that knowledge because God has provided us the

1:11:17 tools and has not made the knowledge inaccessible. We have no tools to access knowledge of how that demonic stuff works. Now, the surface level recognizing their symbols and when they're bragging and confessing their crimes and things like that and mapping their networks, that's all basically just psychology and politics and sociology. We have that. We have access to that. But But the rules God has imposed on demons for how they interact with the world and human beings, how demons interact with each other, the hierarchy, how none of that is accessible to men. There are only two places you could possibly get that. You could get it from God, or you get it from demons. God doesn't seem like he's going to tell us anything about it,

1:12:07 and so your only possible route would be demons. As a general rule, and I hope this goes without saying, you should one not be asking demons questions, and two, you shouldn't believe their answers even if they tell you. So there's no good way to gain access to the information. There are only horribly dangerous and wicked ways to do it. So yes, we should just we should ignore it. We should not deal with that stuff. We should not try to delve into it. It's one of those things that Satan tries to use to lead you astray, right? it's bait for a certain kind of man. Because, you know, it's esoteric, it's interesting knowledge, it's something that other men don't possess, and maybe there's a reason.

1:12:52 Maybe you don't want to possess it. Maybe you don't want to be possessed by it. So is the Is there some sort of connection there? Are there threads running through these things? Absolutely yes. But I think the best thing that we can try to do is endeavor to erase their reality in this world, their presence and their power, and then not ever contact or deal with them again as best we can. I don't think trying to map the rules of engagement of hell is is a wise way for a Christian to spend his time. So yes, there's reality to it, but it's not knowledge you want and it's not knowledge you should seek. I'm going to refill my tea. As a slight contrast to talking about the d the demonic, I'll have some tea.

1:13:50 Question 13, and then I think I'll just run over a little bit and I'll get to some questions in the chat. Christ commanded as for these enemies of mine who would not have me to rule over them, bring them here and slaughter them at my feet. How am I not supposed to immunitize the Eschaton with what seems so clear a command? His intended audience was two thousand plus years in the future, question mark. This ties back into you know the Magdeburg confession and the question about violence and things like that. What is it that Christians are supposed to do in this world with regard to bringing the nations under Christ's control, right? That's the essential question here. And what tools are permitted for us to use in seeking to

1:14:41 achieve that end? Violence is not impermissible, but the sword is entrusted to the state. So for instance, when Europeans went and conquered the third world and Christianized much of it in the process. That was not impermissible. Enslaving was not impermissible. Using these means in order to spread the faith was not impermissible. And so, should we, as Christians, speaking in terms of a Christian state, destroy those who are enemies of Christ? I think the answer is yes. I don't mean that our foreign policy should be to wage war with everyone at all times with everything we possibly have. It's still a matter of wisdom, right? You're not going to declare war on the entire non-Christian world day

1:15:33 one of of theoretical Christian nationalist administration. That would be stupid. Unless, you know, God specifically tells you to do it, which I don't think that he he does that, typically. So Are we permitted to engage in a holy war? I say the answer is yes. But it again is a matter of wisdom. It is something that should be undertaken with due deliberation, and in accordance with God's commands and word. So So it's partly related to you have so many Christians these days who were almost tying back into how you interpret different books of scripture and different genres, but you have so many who want to spiritualize away the passages about the conquest of Canaan. And you can't do that because it's history.

1:16:20 It's a history book. It's not symbolic. I mean it is symbolic on one layer, but it's not primarily symbolic. The surface first layer is the reality of the thing having happened in history. These events transpired as recorded. You can't spiritualize them away. And so you have to accept the fact that God occasionally commands genocide, and he commands it as a punishment for wickedness, and he commands that the righteous enact it on his behalf. And God doesn't change. So I don't think that the people who try to argue it away by saying, well, that was then, right? Oh, that that was then, okay. You're making the exact same argument as the people who say that homosexuality is fine now because Sodom and Gomorrah was oh that was

1:17:08 then. No, God doesn't change. And nations that worship demons are still an abomination to God, and if he gives them into your hands, if he delivers them into your hands, it is your It is your duty to destroy them. Because God has given them to you, and God has given them to you as partly as a test. And it's one of the ways that quite frankly Europeans failed historically. Because we kept a lot of rank demon worshippers around and let them go right back to worshiping their demons. I think it's one of the reasons that we're currently being judged. So No, there is a political and a geopolitical element to Christianity, and it is something that has been ignored for far too long. But that is the thirteenth question that I have for

1:17:58 tonight. So I will go through the chat now and see which questions I can answer. I see the question about Ezra nine and ten. I can answer briefly. I'll just read the question first. Question fourteen. I should make notes for myself so I can make the show notes later. It seems that Ezra 9 and 10 are not often cited in the interracial marriage debate. I have never heard you mention them in your explanation of the issue. Why is that? Partly it's because Ezra 9 and 10 are very difficult to apply, not in the sense of being difficult to exegete, but difficult to employ in a way that doesn't just explode the conversation immediately. And so I don't typically use them in part because of that and partly because I haven't personally decided how best yet to integrate

1:18:56 them into the overall tapestry of the argument. I just haven't set aside the time to do it. I probably should. I should probably address the issue at greater length at some point in an actual article, an essay, because it is just going to be a continual issue, it's just going to keep coming up, it's never going to go away, at least for the foreseeable future. But I'm not avoiding it because I you know I don't believe it or anything. No, I'm just I haven't brought it up because it causes some problems. And it is to some degree a little bit difficult to apply because obviously it's not a blanket rule to send away your foreign wives, right? It can't be because God hates divorce. But at the same time, now you have God hating divorce and

1:19:46 at least one case in which divorce is not only permissible but the moral option. That's a challenge. That is something that has to be applied and interpreted very carefully because particularly for the teacher who teaches on it, he better get it right because you know the stricter judgment awaits and you don't want to get something like that wrong. It's an important issue. So I'm not necessarily avoiding it, I just haven't used it because I haven't decided exactly how to integrate it with the overall argument. But yes, it's relevant. It's absolutely relevant. Your thoughts on Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana versus Concordia Seminary in St. Louis. Fort Wayne is typically the more conservative at this point, so

1:20:41 if you are going to attend one, go to Fort Wayne. But similar to what I've said about seminaries previously, at this point, yes, there's some value in a seminary education. I'm not going to say there isn't, but if you can obtain the necessary education some other way and then become ordained in the relevant body, at least consider that. Unless, of course, you know, you have a full ride scholarship or whatever, then by all means take advantage of that. That's fine. But I don't know that I could justify spending that much money and time for what is now these days at basically every existing seminary a rather lackluster education and also having to deal with some professors who are not going to be

1:21:36 will say firm Christians. So there are serious problems there, but there's still value to be had. It's a wisdom call, right? It's calculation. Do you think Latin is a compromise language for someone to learn, or is it important to learn because of Hebrew? Well, Hebrew is just not anything that a Christian needs to learn ever and we'd all be better if it were erased from the earth. But Latin is fine, but Latin is not a language you need to learn for scripture, right? The The Vulgate is not the inspired word of God. I'm not saying the Vulgate is a bad translation, it has its quirks, but it's not a divinely inspired text like the Septuagint. So you don't need to learn Latin so you can read the

1:22:33 Vulgate. Latin is useful for other reasons. Latin will force you to learn grammar, particularly as an English speaker. It's going to force you to learn grammar you never learned as an English speaker. Because grammar is just not taught in most English speaking countries anymore, unfortunately. Or it's taught on a very surface level. Excuse me. Latin is going to force you to understand the machine of language in a way that you probably don't if you speak only English. If you learn some other language that has more structured grammar, German, Latin, Greek, you'll get it as well. But Latin has utility. And it opens up a world of poetry and historical writings and things, and it has use, but it's not something you need to

1:23:21 learn for the sake of scripture. Greek is far more important. And quite frankly, I know that a certain subset of Christians aren't going to like to hear it, but German is better than Latin for theology because a giant chunk of theology was written in German, not in Latin. And that's particularly so for Protestants, right? So, but no, there's nothing wrong with learning Latin. I know some Latin. I'm nowhere near fluent, certainly. I couldn't have a conversation with the Pope if he were so inclined. But Any advice for a university student in a campus full of liberals? Keep some of your opinions to yourself. And the reason that I say that is that you should think, why am I here? What am I here to do?

1:24:22 And yes, historically, of course, part of the reason to be on a university campus was debate issue was to debate issues, to have interesting discussions, to have that meeting of minds and the mixing of ideas and things like that, right? But you're not going to find that these days. What you're going to find is hostility and attack and altercation and possibly assault. So I don't think there's any real utility for you in broadcasting your ideas and making yourself a target, unless, of course, that's you know, your life path is that's what you're planning on doing, then you know, start early. But if you are just attending to get your degree, which is most likely what you're doing, then attend to get your degree.

1:25:08 You know. Don't cause unnecessary problems for yourself. There's just no need to do it. Let them be stupid. You know, they want to be stupid in their little bubble. Let them be stupid in their little bubble until life slaps them. You can discuss the issues with those who are like minded and close friends, right? That's we're getting back into a wisdom call again. You know the men with whom you can discuss issues and the men with whom you cannot. So it's the same sort of thing. I've answered the question before with regard to family and things like that. There are just some issues you have to think, okay, fine. We're not gonna deal with this because dealing with it is just going to cause strife and trouble and suffering, and there's it's not

1:25:47 worth the cost. So on a university campus, you're really trying to graduate, you're trying to get your degree. Should a university be more than that? Yes. Is it these days? No. And that was true to a large degree even when I was in undergrad. I mean it's That long ago, but you know, it's been a while. I'm forty, so even when I was an undergrad. Granted, I was on a relatively left-wing campus at the University of Michigan, but even then, you probably don't want to reveal too many of your far right positions, right? Far right? Because the only right wing stance that is relatively acceptable on university campuses is being a libertarian, because they look at libertarians as just being degenerate drug users and they're like, oh, it's my my favorite

1:26:38 brother, right? That's how they look at them. So the you know the guy who has weird views on taxes, that's how they think of libertarians. So yeah, just don't reveal your power level, basically. There's no need to, there's no reason to. It doesn't benefit you, it won't benefit them. See if there are any other questions in the chat. Someone asked about the legal or or constitutional implications of the 1790 Naturalization Act for America today. That is a slightly more complicated more complicated and complex question than I am going to answer off the top of my head. So I will note that one for a later episode. Constitutional law was not my specialty.

1:27:41 I did actually focus on a little bit, but it was it was never my specialty. The question of the constitution generally is that it won't be relevant going forward. It'll be relevant for a period of time, but it's not going to get us where we need to go. And at most it's going to stand in the way. Sort of the the basic answer to the constitutional question, but not specifically that one. Let's see. I spoke with someone about World War Two, and I brought up the God commanded destruction of the Amalekites, and they basically said, Yeah, but God explicitly told them to and not Uncle Adolf. What would you say to this? Well, neither side in that conflict descended from Amalek. So it it just isn't relevant.

1:28:39 And also, the Jews are an apostate nation. They don't have any command from God to do or to execute or implement anything. They're hostile to him, they hate him, and he hates them because God does not just hate the sin, he hates the sinner as well, because you can't judge Just hate the sin, that's completely incoherent, because there's no sin without the sinner. So obviously his command to them is to repent, to turn from their wickedness, which they will not do. But people who bring up Amalek on our side are just trying to invert what the Jews claim because the Jews claim that everyone else basically on earth is Amalek, largely those of fair complexion. So they hate Germans specifically, they hate the Iranians, they hate most

1:29:28 of Europe. They try to say that we are Amalek. We're descended from Japheth. It's not even the right son of Noah. Amalek is their cousin, not ours, but they they make these crazy claims and when men on the right try to invert it, it just sounds ridiculous. There's no reason to do it. We aren't Amalek, they aren't Amalek. They are evil Christ-killing apostates. I feel like that's probably sufficient. So What do you think about Japheth being mythologized into Jupiter by later Indo-Europeans? I do think that's probably part of it. I think that's part of how that played out. There are obviously some, I don't want to get too deeply into

1:30:28 mythology, but there are some distinctions. So you have Odin, right? There are some obvious parallels with Noah. What does No what does Odin carry around? Ravens? What did Noah send out from the Ark? Ravens, also dove, of course, but you get those parallels, you get you know the wandering about in the forest, maybe it's a throwback to the fact the first worship of God took place in a grove because you had sacred trees, right? One of the ways you can interpret the tree in Genesis is not being a singular tree, but tree in the sense that we would say apple tree, right? As a species, and so a a grove. So the first worship of God took place in a forest. Even if it was one tree, it's still in the Garden of

1:31:12 Eden, which is full of fruit trees, so it's still a forest. But you have a lot of parallels there, and you have obviously the similarity of the name J Fith and Jupiter, Jove, things like that. You have the titles for them. You have, you know, the All Father and things like that. It's a title for the head of something. Well it's the federal head of the European race, Japheth. In some cases a conflation of Japheth and Noah and maybe some other ancestor who did great things as well. But that sort of conflation happens with mythology when you have Oral retellings of these stories down through the centuries. Basically a giant game of telephone, right? I think that a lot of that played into European mythology.

1:31:57 I think a lot of it is based in reality. Is there some influence from malign forces as well? Absolutely. You certainly have some very strange things in some of the European mythologies. The Greek gods are not the best people in the world. But that could mean they were just mythologized people, because people are often like that. So is there reality to mythology? Absolutely. And is the European mythology aligned with and parallel to the biblical truth in some ways? Absolutely as well. I've said before, I think that's one of the reasons that Europeans were able to be converted back to Christianity so easily and it was much more difficult in other cases because you don't have those parallels in say African mythology, ignoring intelligence issues and other things like

1:32:48 that. You don't have the parallels. You don't have these figures who look very much like Christ, you don't have these figures who look very much like Noah. And all of these things you can draw out and bring someone into the Christian faith by saying, Your ancestors were Ancestors weren't entirely wrong, they just played telephone a little bit and messed some stuff up. Let me tell you the truth. As opposed to coming to someone and saying, literally everything your ancestors believed and did was wrong and evil, and you have to stop. That's what we found when we got to Africa and they were eating people and engaging in witchcraft and all these other things. That's a harder sell, right? So I think that played into the Christianization, the conversion of Europe

1:33:30 to Christianity. I think that our ancestors did not fall as far and did not fall for as long with regard to their apostasy. And so they just weren't as evil. That is an easier conversion. Someone who is less wicked is generally easier to convert, particularly what they believe is already parallel to Christianity. So yes, Japh, Jupiter, those things definitely related. Kind of hard at this distance to figure out exactly what fed into it and how things got changed over time. We just don't have the documents to draw that out because most of them have been lost to time. They were written on animal skins, they decayed. If they were written down at all. Let's see, I'm trying to get around my camera which is blocking

1:34:28 the question I want to read. You previously recommended I'm not afraid by Robert Bennett to understand African syncretism. Do you have any other thoughts on that book or its sequel? It's been a long time since I looked at that book, so I don't really have any particular thoughts on it. I think it from what I remember, it's really a good view of View of some of the challenges of dealing with trying to Christianize people who just have a very wicked mythology and a very corrupted view of the world. And yes, it is not as frank as perhaps some in our circles would be, but it's a pretty blunt depiction of the reality of dealing with people in Africa and trying to get them to not just become Christian,

1:35:14 but stay Christian. And also, of course, the reality of demonic possession and the just the presence of the demonic in places that have been so far from Christ for so long. You can feel the evil in some places. I think that is probably it for this time. I think 20 questions. I think that's probably pretty good for one week. So I think I will call it here. If I missed your question, by all means, submit it on the forum. That is, of course as I as I always say the preferred way to submit the questions. So if you have a question you would like to ask me, you can submit it on the forum. The link will be in the show notes for the episode.

1:36:15 It should also be in the notes or the description for the stream. You can find that it's omniphora.com, and then you can just find the request category. If you want to submit a question elsewhere, that's also of course find my telegram channel on X or in the comments here. If you submit it in the comments to a previous video, it will probably take me longer to notice it, just because I have a wild amount of notifications to try to get through and sometimes I miss things. But if I see your question, I will try to copy it into I have a standing thread on the forum of all of the questions I have in my backlog. So if you don't see it there, please submit it on the forum or somewhere where I notice it.

1:37:01 I try to go through and like the questions on X so that the person knows that I saw it and added it to my list or I'm going to answer it. But I think that's basically all of the housekeeping. And since it's Thursday I guess we still have a little bit of work and other things to do tomorrow, but I hope you all have a great weekend coming up and of course, go to church on Sunday. And God bless you all until I see you next week. God bless.