Dale Partridge - August 28, 2019


Real Christianity #60: Why All Christians Should Delight in Doctrine and Theology


Episode Stats


Length

28 minutes

Words per minute

169.1268

Word count

4,797

Sentence count

191

Harmful content

Toxicity

2

sentences flagged

Hate speech

11

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Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, we discuss why all Christians should delight in Doctrine and Theology. Why is it important to have a theology about God? What role does theology play in our relationship with God and why should all christians delight in it?

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.020 Welcome to Real Christianity. Today we are talking about why all Christians should delight in doctrine and theology.
00:00:06.920 Delighting in doctrine and theology sounds like it would be a very boring episode, but it's not today. 0.86
00:00:13.100 It's going to be a great episode. I'm actually really excited. I think the content is going to be edifying for you.
00:00:19.000 Before we get started, I wanted to mention a few things.
00:00:21.460 One is if you haven't left a review and you're a regular listener to Real Christianity,
00:00:25.440 man, we would appreciate that if you just go to iTunes, tap the stars. You don't even need to write anything.
00:00:30.000 but if you do write something, we will read it.
00:00:32.720 If you guys want the show notes for this episode,
00:00:34.820 you want to listen to, watch the video,
00:00:38.580 you want to download the audio,
00:00:40.120 you want to look at the show notes,
00:00:41.380 the references of scripture that we use,
00:00:43.460 you can always do that at relearnchurch.org forward slash listen.
00:00:50.460 On that note, let's dive right in.
00:00:52.120 I want to just get started and get moving in the conversation.
00:00:54.700 So our theology is simply our defined view of God.
00:01:01.640 So that's just, you know, whatever theology you hold, it's just your defined view of God.
00:01:07.600 And so whether you like it or not, you do have a theology if you're a Christian.
00:01:12.380 You have some doctrine and theology, and that is what makes up your defined view of God.
00:01:18.080 And so today's conversation isn't about if you want to have a theology about God or understand some doctrine about God.
00:01:26.640 It's really about do you have sound theology or biblical theology about God?
00:01:33.280 Is your theology that you currently have correct theology?
00:01:36.860 That's kind of the conversation that we're going to have today.
00:01:39.840 And I think this episode actually fits quite nicely with our previous episode,
00:01:44.340 which was titled is your worship music teaching you false doctrine that came out last week guys
00:01:50.180 if you haven't listened to that that was a really popular episode like a wildfire wildfire yeah we
00:01:55.480 had um out of a hundred thousand podcast episodes released in the uh spiritual and or the religious
00:02:06.060 and spirituality category that we're in uh this episode was like number 53 so the number 53 most
00:02:13.380 listened to. We had over 10,000 people listen to the episode in the first 24 hours. We definitely
00:02:18.720 struck a chord in a conversation that needed to happen around worship music. I think today's
00:02:23.780 conversation does a really good job of kind of piggybacking that last episode. Yeah, from what
00:02:29.340 people were saying to me online, I think its popularity was because it discussed many, it
00:02:37.400 discussed something that many of us in the church have felt but didn't necessarily know how to
00:02:42.500 communicate yeah so for those of you who did listen to it um we hope that you were encouraged
00:02:47.160 by it hope that it was edifying for you and brought some clarity um but today we want to
00:02:52.200 continue the conversation about theology and doctrine and why all christians no matter what
00:02:57.220 kind of christian you are young new old average or mature all christians uh should delight and
00:03:03.900 actually desire to study theology and doctrine yeah this is a this is exactly what veronica
00:03:09.760 it is a message for all walks of the Christian life. And I'm going to start off with a, what I
00:03:17.400 would say the bedrock scripture for having a theology for God. And this is Matthew 22, 37
00:03:27.440 through 38. This is red letter, Jesus talking here. And he says, Jesus said to him, you shall
00:03:34.160 Okay, so I just want you to catch that right there.
00:03:47.740 Okay, that is such an—this is the first and great commandment we're talking about.
00:03:52.040 Jesus Christ, our Lord, said this is the first and great commandment,
00:03:56.180 that we love our God with all our heart, with all of our soul, and with all of our mind, okay?
00:04:02.440 Western church, I would say, is a pretty emotional church.
00:04:07.180 I think that's kind of what we're dealing with in this generation, this era of the church.
00:04:12.320 And I don't think that we have much of an issue with loving God with our heart and loving God with our soul.
00:04:18.300 I don't think that's a real big problem in the church today.
00:04:23.520 But did you catch the last part of that verse?
00:04:26.760 You know, part of the first and greatest commandment is to also love God with all of your mind.
00:04:35.480 And we don't get to kind of avoid this intellectual component of our relationship with God.
00:04:41.920 That's what this passage is saying.
00:04:43.280 We can't just kind of opt out of the mental side of understanding God and our relationship with him.
00:04:50.660 It's actually critically important.
00:04:53.520 It's so important that it's part of the first and greatest commandment that we have a relationship with our heart, with our soul, and with our mind.
00:05:03.880 And there seems to be, in my experience, some fear in the church that if you increase your doctrinal and theological knowledge,
00:05:15.060 that somehow you'll either become two or one of these two people.
00:05:19.260 And so I'm going to break it down.
00:05:20.100 Number one, you'll become an intellectual who loses their relational elements with God.
00:05:27.380 And we've seen this happen with seminarians and academia,
00:05:33.820 that ultimately you'll become an intellectual who loses their relationship or their relational capacities for God.
00:05:41.020 It just turns into head knowledge at that point.
00:05:43.080 Exactly. And I think a lot of people fear that.
00:05:45.760 The second fear, I think, that diving into doctrine and theology, you know, in the church, what you would get is your fear is that you will actually decrease your accessibility to the lost or to the young in faith.
00:06:01.460 You've kind of maybe elevated yourself to a untouchable or unrelatable, unapproachable place that all those people that study theology and doctrine, they're really not practical. 0.77
00:06:14.520 They don't know how to talk to the average Christian.
00:06:16.700 They're not really evangelistic.
00:06:18.320 They've kind of like, I think there's a fear.
00:06:20.480 Yeah.
00:06:20.580 And it should actually be the opposite of that.
00:06:22.660 It should.
00:06:23.280 Exactly.
00:06:23.940 And, and cause it does happen, but it shouldn't be the result.
00:06:28.400 And if that's the case, if you become one of those two people after reading Christian
00:06:34.100 doctrine and theology, then you're either not reading Christian doctrine or theology,
00:06:38.280 or you're not allowing what you're reading to conform you to the image and likeness of Christ.
00:06:45.420 And so if you're reading Doctrine of Theology and studying it,
00:06:49.860 and you actually lose the relational elements, you're not getting what you're reading.
00:06:55.280 It's becoming prideful.
00:06:57.080 Yeah, well, you're just, you're missing the point, right?
00:06:59.800 And if you're reading Doctrine of Theology and you're studying this stuff,
00:07:04.500 and it makes you less approachable, you become prideful, academia, you're missing the point.
00:07:12.660 God's word, which I think we're going to see today in this episode, is that the closer you
00:07:18.600 get to him, the closer you should become to his people, to his flock, right? The more you know him,
00:07:26.180 the more you should love others, okay? The more you understand him, the more joyful and compassionate
00:07:33.600 and peaceful and mature, you should become. So we shouldn't fear this intellectual relationship
00:07:41.800 with God through doctrine and theology. It shouldn't make us unapproachable. It shouldn't
00:07:46.580 make us lose our relational elements of that. It should actually draw us closer, make us more
00:07:53.540 like Christ. This avoidance of intellectual relationship with God is actually an avoidance
00:08:01.780 of one of the parts of the first and great commandments so we can't check out of the 0.99
00:08:08.680 mental side of the christian faith we can't just stick with the abcs guys we gotta increase the
00:08:16.520 mental relationship with all of our mind to get everything we have and we can't just check out
00:08:22.080 the basics yeah so starting next week i will be uh starting aria in kindergarten next week and
00:08:30.040 for our family the path that we have chosen for uh homeschooling is going to be at least for now
00:08:35.880 a classical approach to homeschooling um and a classical education is unique because it actually
00:08:41.100 relates to my journey with doctrine and theology and in classical uh classical education it's broken
00:08:47.520 down into three steps or cycles of learning and it's called the trivium which i believe means like
00:08:54.580 three roads or where three roads intersect. And the first step of the trivium is grammar. The
00:09:01.140 second is the dialectic stage or the logic stage. And the third is the rhetoric, which is basically
00:09:06.680 the three types and stages of learning. And I want to say like grammar is step one is
00:09:11.500 understanding the words. Step two, or knowing the words. Step three is understanding the idea,
00:09:17.380 the concept. And step three is kind of like understanding to defending it, discussing it,
00:09:21.640 you know having bigger discussions around that yeah so you learn and understand um and doesn't
00:09:27.800 the words like you said in step one and nothing else you basically just get comfortable with the
00:09:33.360 vocabulary um so aria is just learning the words right now like noun pronoun adjective verb things
00:09:39.800 like that um and so she doesn't even necessarily know what they mean at this point um but she's
00:09:46.120 just learning the words um and basically you have to learn the words and eventually their meanings
00:09:52.200 before you can interact with the study so i think this is a huge uh barrier to entry for christians
00:09:59.780 when it comes to doctrine and theology um words like sanctification or atonement and justification
00:10:06.860 and election are intimidating um even the words theology and doctrine can be intimidating
00:10:13.760 But for me, I found that if I just spend time learning the vocabulary first and the words and getting comfortable with that, then move on to the study part later, that has helped me.
00:10:29.320 So my suggestion for those who can tend to be a little bit overwhelmed by the topic of doctrine and theology is to find a book that will ease you into the study of God.
00:10:41.700 Yeah, that's a good point.
00:10:42.920 Yeah, so there's actually two books that I want to recommend to you guys that I think are a really great starting point on the introduction to theology.
00:10:52.100 The basics, right? These words, getting the grammar, getting yourself comfortable with just the territory, the vocabulary.
00:10:59.820 And again, I think as Veronica said, those words like sanctification and atonement and justification,
00:11:04.700 it can be so intimidating because you just go, what are all those things actually mean?
00:11:08.880 I've heard them at church. I don't necessarily know what they mean.
00:11:12.540 And that's actually, for many Christians who have been believers for 10, 15 years,
00:11:17.100 they still don't understand those words.
00:11:19.120 And so, again, I think you feel so much more confident when you have an understanding.
00:11:22.660 You can come into the community, you can start communicating,
00:11:25.540 and you can start building on top of your understanding.
00:11:28.720 And so the two books that I think are a really great starting point,
00:11:31.240 I'm going to put these in the show notes.
00:11:32.520 So if you guys want to reference them later, you guys totally can.
00:11:36.020 But if you're an Amazon person, you can just pick these up.
00:11:38.800 One of them is titled Love Your God With All Your Mind, and that's by J.P. Moreland, and a great introduction of loving God with your mind, understanding theology, who he is, getting a mental picture and relationship with the Lord.
00:11:54.320 The second one is A Mind for God by Dr. James Emery White.
00:12:00.020 And these books, I would say, they have pretty good reviews.
00:12:04.120 They're both written by men who have great theological and seminarian backgrounds.
00:12:10.640 And I think it's a good place for people to start.
00:12:13.100 And I've gone through biblical theology at seminary, and it was nice to start with some introductory work like this.
00:12:19.600 They really do have a good system for getting you comfortable with the basics.
00:12:22.540 And so let's quickly talk about the problem. I think that it's an important conversation and an important component about our discussion today. The Western Church is evangelistically rich and discipleship poor. We are really good at evangelism in America.
00:12:40.940 We're not really good at discipleship.
00:12:43.860 And we're so heavily focused on saving the lost that we've kind of ignored the need to strengthen the saints.
00:12:51.120 And I think this is, again, part of the problem of why we don't have a hunger and understanding for theology in the Western church today.
00:12:59.860 And in many ways, you know, we're an outreach church, right?
00:13:03.280 We preach the basics of the faith just about every Sunday, kind of an evangelistically outreach Sunday.
00:13:09.000 And as a result, the deeper parts of the Christian faith have really been avoided.
00:13:14.020 And we end up with a church who has what I would say four weaknesses.
00:13:18.420 And we're going to talk about those weaknesses here and just have a discussion about what is that?
00:13:23.740 What happens when we don't have deeper conversations from the pulpit, when we're always focused on the entry point?
00:13:31.520 When you're always drinking milk and not eating the meat.
00:13:33.440 Exactly. Yeah, which we'll talk about a little bit later.
00:13:36.280 And so weakness number one, when you don't have theology and doctrine,
00:13:42.780 weakness number one is you don't know what you do believe.
00:13:47.060 Okay, people, they don't know what they do believe.
00:13:50.340 And most have accepted Christ kind of by raising their hand at church.
00:13:55.300 And they had a service, and that was the very beginning of their understanding of the gospel, right?
00:14:01.460 They're baby Christians, introduction to the Christian faith.
00:14:05.020 But outside of their understanding of their sin and maybe a need for their Savior, 0.54
00:14:09.740 they really don't understand what it means to be a Christian. 0.70
00:14:13.300 And they don't know about Scripture's command on sexual immorality, 0.79
00:14:17.240 the Scripture's command on money or marriage or parenting or repentance on prayer.
00:14:22.520 They don't know anything there.
00:14:24.620 They don't know what they do believe.
00:14:26.920 And that's a problem.
00:14:27.840 So that's weakness number one.
00:14:29.020 When you don't have theology and doctrine, you don't even know what you do believe.
00:14:34.560 Go for it weakness number two
00:14:36.860 They don't know what they
00:14:39.520 Don't believe
00:14:40.360 Vadi Bakham said once in a great quote
00:14:43.840 He said if we don't know
00:14:45.660 The bible if we don't know doctrine
00:14:47.620 If we don't know theology it is virtually
00:14:49.680 Impossible to identify false
00:14:51.740 Teaching and Dale I've heard you say
00:14:53.860 A few times you can't
00:14:55.900 Know the bible by simply allowing
00:14:57.880 Someone else to tell you what's
00:14:59.840 In it you need to study it
00:15:01.820 For yourself and when you study it
00:15:03.800 for yourself you'll learn uh what the bible says and when someone actually presents or teaches
00:15:08.840 something other than what's in the bible you will be able to identify and recognize it yeah it's
00:15:14.580 just so you got you got two really important points here right you have number one you don't
00:15:20.360 know what you do believe that's a weakness number two you don't know what you don't believe right
00:15:26.220 you gotta you kind of be fooled by anything because you don't know what you're not supposed
00:15:30.540 to believe because it doesn't fit in that theology framework. Weakness number three is they don't know
00:15:37.280 how to explain their Christian faith. Okay, so this is another really important element of theology
00:15:44.900 and doctrine because when you don't know your theology and doctrine, you don't know how to
00:15:49.680 explain your Christian faith to other people. Barna released a study that showed that only 11%
00:15:55.360 of Christians have read the entire Bible. Okay, so we have a very biblically illiterate church.
00:16:01.620 These are weekly church-going folks. Only 11% had read the entire Bible. They also found that 76% 0.99
00:16:10.000 of evangelical Christians in America don't know what the Great Commission is. And so we have now
00:16:18.300 biblical literacy. They don't know the mission of the church. You know, you don't read the Bible,
00:16:24.280 well, you don't know the Great Commission, right?
00:16:25.900 So that's probably the direct connection there.
00:16:28.720 And then the last finding that they had that was really interesting
00:16:33.780 is that only 5% of Christians are sharing the gospel with one person per year.
00:16:39.120 A lot of people share their faith.
00:16:40.760 Oh, I'm a Christian.
00:16:41.840 But presenting the gospel and being prepared to present it
00:16:46.420 and prepared to respond to people's questions
00:16:49.320 and prepared to understand a discussion, right?
00:16:52.200 So when you don't—
00:16:53.620 only five percent only five percent yeah yeah so when you don't have um doctrine and you don't
00:17:01.080 know what you believe um you don't have theology um you can't explain to anyone else what you do
00:17:08.420 believe and it puts you yourself in a really i would say vulnerable position and not an effective
00:17:13.880 position to be a christian witness yeah okay so weakness number four they don't know how to defend
00:17:20.580 their christian faith uh first peter 3 15 says but sanctify the lord god in your hearts and always
00:17:27.340 be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you with
00:17:32.300 meekness and fear so every one of us should should be studying and preparing for opportunities
00:17:38.720 to engage in a conversation about christianity um in the public square um i'm trust me i'm like
00:17:46.100 the last person that wants to get into, I don't know, a debate, I guess. Um, but the Lord actually
00:17:53.420 calls me to be ready to give an answer. Um, and for me, it might be, um, on my Christian perspective
00:18:02.620 on motherhood or parenting, um, or homeschooling. And for you, it might be the harder questions
00:18:09.160 about other religions or, or why does God allow pain? Um, we don't need to know, we don't need to
00:18:15.360 necessarily know everything but we should have our heart ready and prepared to give a defense
00:18:23.180 yeah and again so you have four weaknesses when you don't know theology and doctrine number one
00:18:30.020 is that you don't know what you do believe number two is you don't know what you don't believe
00:18:33.960 and and i want to stop at that point just for a second is that this is why so many people in the
00:18:38.300 church listen to prosperity gospel teachers and they don't even know that it's wrong because they
00:18:43.920 don't even know what they don't believe meaning that they don't know what they shouldn't believe
00:18:47.440 in terms of what is actual christian doctrine you could be fooled by anybody well and you better
00:18:52.340 believe too that if you are a new believer and you just came to the god like to the gospel and
00:18:57.720 satan's gonna want to rip you out as you are an infant baby christian yeah it take advantage of
00:19:04.760 the ignorance that you do have at that stage and so weakness number three is that you don't know 0.99
00:19:09.440 how to explain your Christian faith thoroughly. 0.63
00:19:12.200 And weakness number four
00:19:13.180 is that you don't know
00:19:14.260 how to defend your Christian faith.
00:19:16.420 And so, man, doctrine and theology
00:19:18.860 is so critical,
00:19:19.960 especially for those of us
00:19:22.440 who have been Christian for a long time.
00:19:25.540 And so before we close,
00:19:26.780 I want to share just two more passages
00:19:28.100 in the New Testament
00:19:28.820 that really call us
00:19:29.980 to know the more advanced things
00:19:33.360 of the Christian faith.
00:19:34.800 And you're going to learn
00:19:35.560 that this problem today
00:19:36.680 that we're dealing with,
00:19:37.440 with biblical illiteracy,
00:19:38.600 with people avoiding intellectual relationship with God.
00:19:41.700 It's not a new problem.
00:19:43.260 This is actually a problem that was happening even 2,000 years ago in the church.
00:19:47.480 And again, a little preface is remember, if you call yourself a Christian,
00:19:51.220 you should care about what God's word says on this matter.
00:19:54.720 This is the part of the first and great commandment.
00:19:57.380 And again, just to kind of check my boxes here, this isn't about legalism, okay?
00:20:03.720 This is about having a heart and a soul and a mind that loves God.
00:20:10.720 Okay, because I get a lot of comments and questions and sometimes we get some reviews that this is legalism.
00:20:15.720 Guys, I want to just clarify real quick.
00:20:17.940 Legalism is when you work, ultimately the law is what makes you saved.
00:20:26.240 When you obey certain laws, that is what justifies you before God.
00:20:30.800 A workspace salvation, that is legalism.
00:20:32.860 that is not what we're talking about today and and that's not anything that we believe
00:20:37.520 i think the church today legalism is defined as anything that the bible says that we don't want
00:20:41.600 to do we just like to call oh that's legalism um but that's not what this is about this is about
00:20:46.180 having a mental relationship with god alongside of a soul relationship and a heart relationship
00:20:53.460 um so yeah we're gonna have veronica open up um with some of these passages here yeah so my bible
00:21:01.020 calls this section that I'm about to read, uh, the peril of not progressing. And this is going
00:21:07.480 to be, um, Hebrews chapter five, verses 12 through chapter six, verse two. I'm going to be reading it
00:21:13.980 in the ESV for though by this time you ought to be teachers. You need someone to teach you again,
00:21:20.900 the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food for everyone who lives
00:21:26.720 on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness since he is a child but solid food is for the
00:21:32.220 mature for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to
00:21:37.220 distinguish good from evil and let us leave the elementary doctrines of christ and go on to
00:21:43.320 maturity not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward god
00:21:49.160 and of instruction about washings the laying on of hands the resurrection of the dead and eternal
00:21:55.060 judgment okay so it's a lot it's a wordy it was a wordy passage i mean we could just yell at the
00:22:00.400 apostle who wrote hebrews um but the the main point is this he says hey for though by this time
00:22:05.920 you ought to be teachers right this is a rebuke of going you guys come on how long have you guys
00:22:13.600 known christ and you guys are still stuck on the elementary or he says the basic principles of the
00:22:20.000 oracles of God you need milk not solid food and my point that I've written down here is that
00:22:26.960 there's a time for milk and it's when you're a baby when you're a baby you can't eat meat
00:22:31.760 you need milk to survive but if you only eat milk as an adult what would happen to you
00:22:37.700 you'd wither away you'd wither away and die and I think that's a really good word picture is that
00:22:43.980 And yeah, if we're Christians five years in, ten years in, still living on milk or not getting into the deeper parts of our faith, to a deeper understanding of God, then it's like having milk as an adult and we will wither away.
00:23:01.580 And eventually many people can fall away and die.
00:23:05.300 And in order to grow, you need meat.
00:23:07.560 That's just a part of, you know, basic biology.
00:23:11.000 And this is what the apostle is saying.
00:23:13.160 He says, therefore, let us leave the elementary doctrines of Christ and go on to maturity.
00:23:19.960 Like, what a powerful statement that is.
00:23:22.780 And it's so funny what he calls the elementary doctrines here, right?
00:23:25.780 He says, not laying again the foundation of repentance.
00:23:29.500 So that's an elementary doctrine.
00:23:32.760 Faith toward God.
00:23:34.120 Man, he's like, hey, we don't need to be talking about faith toward God.
00:23:36.140 You have faith, let's move on, right?
00:23:37.640 Add to your faith these things is what 1 Peter or 2 Peter 1 would say.
00:23:41.940 He talks about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, eternal judgment.
00:23:46.320 These are all just the elementary principles.
00:23:48.000 It's time to move on, right?
00:23:50.140 And those things are like advanced in our day and age, right? 0.85
00:23:54.200 So if you're a Christian who's been in the church for longer than a year or two, 0.99
00:24:00.680 I would say that you should be starting to eat meat. 1.00
00:24:04.880 Milk is, you need to move on from the ABCs and the basics,
00:24:10.680 meaning that you should again move on from the elementary principles of the doctrines of christ
00:24:15.380 and seeking to understand the deeper things of god so we'll move on to this next passage
00:24:19.520 yeah the next passage and the last passage for today comes from one of my favorite books in the
00:24:25.300 bible and that's going to be philippians from me in chapter 1 verse 9 and 10 and it reads and it
00:24:32.200 is my prayer that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment so that
00:24:38.380 you may approve what is excellent and so be pure and blameless for the day of christ yeah so um
00:24:46.760 i'm going to read it one more time just because sometimes when you're you know listening to this
00:24:50.700 it's a little a little harder to kind of grasp the text and i'm not the best at reading out
00:24:54.220 so it says and it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all
00:25:03.240 discernment okay he wants our love to abound more and more with what knowledge and all discernment
00:25:09.480 with knowledge and all discernment so that you may approve what is excellent and so be pure and
00:25:16.080 blameless for the day of christ and so the more you read scripture the more you see that the bible
00:25:22.980 never separates the knowledge of god from the love of god they are they're linked together okay you
00:25:32.240 can't separate the knowledge of God and the love of God, right? You can't have discernment without
00:25:36.460 knowledge. You can't have love without knowledge. You can't have relationship without knowledge.
00:25:42.400 And so, you know, basically when you increase your knowledge, your relationship should increase.
00:25:48.880 When you increase your knowledge, your devotion, your understanding, your love for God should
00:25:54.260 increase. Those are, that's the natural reaction to having knowledge. In the 1700s, George
00:26:01.280 Whitfield, he once said, study to know him more and more. For the more you know him, the more you
00:26:08.260 will love him. And I think that's a really good perspective of going, guys, we shouldn't fear
00:26:13.840 picking up an A.W. Tozer book. The Pursuit of God is a great theological book. I would say he's a
00:26:21.560 theologian. And A.W. Tozer wrote The Pursuit of God. It's a short 80-page book, 90-page book.
00:26:27.000 it's a great starting point to go a little bit deeper than what we do in the church and so um
00:26:33.700 yeah just really excited to push you guys forward into more maturity yeah so we hope that uh this
00:26:41.860 episode was encouraging to you and also just to remind you uh have grace with yourself you are on
00:26:48.920 a journey and you don't have to know everything but you do have to move forward you can't stay
00:26:54.900 stagnant yeah it's really important that you guys do move forward that you do seek these things out
00:26:59.360 pick up one of those books go a little bit deeper maybe do a Ravi Zacharias podcast I listen to
00:27:05.840 Ravi all the time he has a great podcast called just thinking and man your first time listening
00:27:11.800 to it it's gonna be a whole bunch of words that you go what is he saying but once you get the
00:27:16.280 vocabulary once you get the vernacular you can understand and you go wow it's become such a
00:27:20.800 great resource for for me that's for sure so a few things before we close one if you're one of
00:27:28.340 those people that has not read the entire bible we have a bible uh 365 day reading plan that you
00:27:37.080 can download for free from our website just relearnchurch.org forward slash bible and start
00:27:43.780 reading the Bible through a year and uh Veronica is so close to finishing she's done the entire
00:27:51.560 New Testament and almost all of the Old Testament she's got like a couple more books to finish in
00:27:57.160 the end of the Old Testament here um I've taken me longer than a year but yeah and I've got I'm
00:28:03.100 about to go through the Bible again uh next year for seminary so it's just something to go through
00:28:08.580 and we're excited for you so you can get that and again if you want to look at the show notes
00:28:12.060 for this episode just go to relearnchurch.org forward slash listen on that note guys we will
00:28:19.040 see you guys next week thanks for listening