Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1390 ｜ ‘A Court of Thorns & Roses’ is Bad for Your Marriage. My Warning

00:00:00.000 Sarah J. Maas, she's got three different series that are really popular, A Court of Thorns and

00:00:04.800 Roses, Crescent City, Throne of Glass. These books are designed so that you will get sucked in. You

00:00:10.420 will want to keep going. Even the implication of the things that are happening, I do think has an

00:00:15.460 effect on our mind. It's not just the sex. It's not just the vulgarity. It is also just the idea

00:00:21.420 that this is what a healthy relationship really looks like. That the alternative to this fictional

00:00:27.260 character is abusive. That if your husband or your boyfriend doesn't reach his level,

00:00:33.460 something's wrong with him. Something's wrong with love. Something's wrong with the world.

00:00:37.460 That creates discontentment. This episode is brought to you by our friends at World Watch.

00:00:45.420 Go to worldwatch.news slash Allie for your free trial, worldwatch.news slash Allie.

00:00:57.260 Hey y'all, welcome to Relatable. Happy Monday. Hope everyone had a wonderful and peaceful

00:01:06.820 weekend. Well, you might think it's strange that I'm not talking about the Lindsay Clancy

00:01:10.740 case today, but that's because we always record our Monday episodes the week before. So a few

00:01:16.900 days in advance, as I am recording this, closing arguments are happening and we do not have a

00:01:23.160 verdict from the jury today. But by the next time I record, hopefully we will have a verdict and we

00:01:29.900 will be able to give you a full analysis of that. What we know for sure is that no matter what

00:01:35.480 happens with our justice system, no matter what happens in our personal lives, in our political

00:01:39.860 system in this country, God's eternal plan of redemption is going off without a hitch. That

00:01:44.480 God never gets justice wrong. He never gets the truth wrong. He's never confused about what's

00:01:49.100 going on. He's never taken in by conspiracy theories. If you ever really want to know

00:01:53.820 what's going on beyond the headlines, beyond the mainstream narrative, you don't have to tune in

00:01:59.000 to a podcast. You don't have to follow an influencer. You don't have to go down the

00:02:03.300 rabbit holes on various social media platforms. You need to read the word of God because what is

00:02:09.000 really going on underneath everything is that God's eternal plan of redemption is going off

00:02:14.300 without a hitch. He is completely undeterred. He is completely uninterrupted. He is completely

00:02:19.740 unhindered in seeking and saving the lost, bringing himself glory, advancing his kingdom

00:02:24.940 and doing everything that needs to be done in accordance to his perfect will. He is totally

00:02:30.220 sovereign. Nothing throws him off. Nothing takes him aback. Nothing surprises him. Nothing catches

00:02:34.980 him off guard. He's never looking down and saying, oh my goodness, how did this happen?

00:02:38.860 How can I clean up this mess? So even when we look on social media and we are just so

00:02:45.060 We are so grieved by the state of the world and the moral confusion that exists. I mean, I feel that

00:02:51.620 Every single day we can trust that we have a refuge of clarity that we have a

00:02:57.960 Refuge that brings us stability

00:03:00.640 And we have that in jesus christ who is the same yesterday today and forever hebrews 13 8 yes and amen

00:03:07.780 and one day there will be no more evil. There will be no more justice system. There will be

00:03:13.560 no more politicians. There will be no more lies. There will be no more confusion. We will just

00:03:17.960 live in perfect peace forever and ever with him because Jesus is coming back. And so our

00:03:24.200 responsibility until then is to do the next right thing in faith with excellence and for the glory

00:03:29.700 of God. One thing that we are told in scripture is to, um, make a good use of our time. I'm

00:03:38.060 paraphrasing because the days are evil. We're also told that Satan is prowling around like a roaring

00:03:43.460 lion looking for someone to devour. So that means that while we are not paranoid, we are on guard

00:03:49.840 that we read a passage like Ephesians six, which tells us that there is a spiritual war that is

00:03:56.660 being waged at all times. In Ephesians 2, we read that Satan is the prince of the power of the air,

00:04:02.100 the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once walked in

00:04:06.680 the passions of our flesh, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

00:04:13.500 Once we see that the spiritual reality is what is really going on at all times,

00:04:19.880 that we're not going to find insight, the insight that we're looking for

00:04:23.980 anywhere except the word of God, that adds meaning to everything we think, say, and do.

00:04:30.560 That we realize that nothing is neutral, that every single molecule has been claimed by God

00:04:37.340 and counter claimed by Satan in this cosmic war that is going on, even as we know that God will

00:04:43.100 one day declare victory forever and ever over Satan. But as this battle is going on for our

00:04:48.900 hearts, for our minds, for our devotion, our admiration, our attention, we have to take special

00:04:55.300 care to look at the things that we are consuming. I know it's really easy to say it's just not that

00:05:01.980 serious. The shows that we watch or the books that we read, it's just fun. It's just entertainment.

00:05:07.800 And is it reading good for your brain? I love reading. I've loved reading since I was a very

00:05:12.980 small child and my mom and grandmother who were both school teachers prioritized teaching me to

00:05:18.600 read and teaching me a love of words from a very young age. And I've carried that with me my whole

00:05:24.680 life. And in high school, I was super into reading all different kinds of fiction books. And while my

00:05:31.780 parents were very strict about the things that I was consuming and the things that I was watching,

00:05:35.520 there wasn't quite as much thought about the things that I was reading and my friends were

00:05:39.600 reading too. I was reading these romanticcy novels like Twilight, like Great and Terrible Beauty,

00:05:47.240 like Avalon High and all of these. And I mean, they would have been considered wholesome compared

00:05:54.000 to a lot of the novels that we see today. But I look back and what, for example, Twilight was

00:06:00.320 teaching me about relationships, about love, about obsession, and even sexual desire and all

00:06:08.060 of that was not appropriate for a 16 to 17 year old girl to be reading because they were false

00:06:14.940 ideas. I look back now and see that. And as a mom of daughters, I see how important it is

00:06:20.560 to ensure that we are only focusing on that which is good, right, and true,

00:06:25.580 including and maybe especially in the things that we read. And yet I see a lot of people

00:06:30.640 carving out an exception for popular books, particularly this series by Sarah J. Maas that

00:06:38.400 I have not read, but we did a lot of research on, A Court of Thorns and Roses. It is a wildly

00:06:43.780 popular series, not only among book talk and non-Christian readers, but also among Christian

00:06:50.920 women. And if you haven't read it, I guarantee you, you have friends who've read it. Your daughter

00:06:55.520 has maybe read it. And despite what Mass says, the author, about her hypersexual novels being

00:07:02.680 quote, more than smut, the picture that she paints of relationships, of morality, of sexuality,

00:07:09.400 and the world are not neutral. It's not neutral. And it's certainly not biblical. And I believe

00:07:18.740 that these kinds of romantic novels are having an effect on how women, even Christian women,

00:07:25.460 view men and view marriage, which then has an impact on children, has an impact on society.

00:07:31.520 So the case that I want to make today is as someone who loves to read, loves fiction,

00:07:37.900 and in the past used to read some of these similar novels is that Christian women should 0.63

00:07:43.260 not be reading these books, really any of these books, but we're going to specifically focus on

00:07:48.960 Mass's books. And if you are a mom, like my mom was, of a teen girl especially who loves these

00:07:56.020 kinds of fictional novels and you're just happy that she's reading at night and not scrolling

00:08:00.800 TikTok, I just encourage you to pay special attention to what we're going to be talking about

00:08:04.960 in this episode. So first we'll back up a little bit and we'll talk about this genre of romanticy.

00:08:11.400 Maybe you're not even familiar with just how impactful this is. And then I want you to start

00:08:16.000 thinking, like once I tell you the popularity of it, and as we go through some of the themes that

00:08:20.560 we see in these books and other books, how do you see this manifesting in the world today?

00:08:25.240 And maybe, I don't know, how women view the Lindsay Clancy case and how women view relationships,

00:08:31.520 why women call themselves feminists, why women are pro-choice, why there is this huge growing

00:08:38.280 divide between men and women. It's not just politics. It is also the entertainment we are

00:08:44.000 consuming and how it is changing how we think about things and how we think about the opposite

00:08:49.300 sex. So we'll get into that in a second. Let me pause and tell you that if you are a woman who

00:08:53.960 is seeking truth, if you are a woman who is trying by the grace of God to be in the world,

00:08:58.520 but not of the world. As we all fallibly are, those of us who are believing women,

00:09:04.100 I really encourage you to come to share the arrows on October 10th in Dallas, Texas. I have

00:09:09.240 been having these meetings with each speaker, just going through what the theme is and what

00:09:14.180 their talks are going to be like. You guys are in for such a special Holy Spirit inspired treat

00:09:21.280 that day. And like I am too, I cannot wait to worship alongside you. I can't wait to learn

00:09:26.880 alongside you with these women. We've got Elisa Childers. We've got Rosaria Butterfield. Shane 1.00

00:09:32.580 and Shane will be leading worship. We've got Kosti Hinn. Kosti Hinn will be here at the end 0.98

00:09:36.820 of today's episode, by the way, talking a little bit about Catherine Crick, Natasha Crane, Audrey

00:09:41.760 Brogy, Grace Anna Castleberry. Y'all, it's going to be incredible. You are not going to find fluff

00:09:47.320 here. You're not going to find the deception that we see in the world targeting women. You are

00:09:52.540 actually going to be equipped with ways to fight against that biblically in every single realm 0.99

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00:11:25.660 Okay, so about a year ago, almost a year ago, we did an episode, and we've done a couple of

00:11:32.460 these episodes over the years because this topic just keeps on coming back up and seems to be

00:11:37.800 more and more popular, increasingly popular. But we did an episode, I think it was maybe the end

00:11:44.880 of August last year, the beginning of September rather, um, called, it was about this idea of

00:11:51.060 romanticcy novels becoming more and more bizarre, more and more explicit, more and more fantastical

00:11:58.400 and ruining our perception or women's perception of reality and real relationships and what they

00:12:05.880 actually look like in a really unhealthy way. If we look at this genre of romanticcy, which has 0.86

00:12:12.400 become more popular with the explosion of book talk, the book reading part of TikTok, we can see

00:12:18.520 that it generated, the genre alone generated almost $1 billion in sales in 2025, $1 billion. 0.65

00:12:30.080 And of course, the majority of those who are reading these books are women. Bloomberg recently

00:12:36.300 reported in an article titled The Steamy, Magical, and Now Very Lucrative Romanticist Business that

00:12:41.740 the sales for the romantic genre in 2025, uh, totaled just below 1 billion in the U S. Okay.

00:12:49.600 So I actually thought it was all over the world. This is only one, this is $1 billion in the U S

00:12:55.360 and that is almost double the sales in 2023. So it's just interesting. And we'll get to this in

00:13:02.040 a second that more and more women seem to be wanting to escape reality through these romantic 1.00

00:13:08.240 novels. Now about the books that we'll be talking about today, they're by Sarah J. Maas. This is

00:13:15.300 who the author is. She's a woman that is probably right in the demographic, represents the 0.99

00:13:22.340 demographic of those who are reading her books. And she's got three different series that are

00:13:27.520 really popular. As I already said, A Court of Thorns and Roses. She's got Crescent City. She's

00:13:33.240 also got Throne of Glass. And I had only heard of A Court of Thorns and Roses, but apparently all of

00:13:40.720 the other ones are wildly popular too. Now, A Court of Thorns and Roses is also abbreviated

00:13:47.420 or not abbreviated, but people use this acronym ACOTAR. So A-C-O-T-A-R. So I'm probably going to 0.93

00:13:53.740 use that because every time I say the full title, A Court of Thorns and Roses, I want to say Game

00:13:58.060 of Thrones. And so I don't know why. So I'm going to say ACOTAR and that's what I mean. She's

00:14:04.020 actually adding Sarah J. Maas, two new books onto this series in October of this year and then

00:14:10.140 January of next year. So again, just a wildly massive success for this author. A little bit

00:14:17.440 about this series. So here's the fantasy part of it. It follows a young human woman named Feyre.

00:14:25.540 I'm going to do my best. I'm going to do my best in pronouncing all of these characters and her

00:14:29.580 adventures, um, and love in the fae realm. So fae is kind of like a fairy. It's a mystical,

00:14:36.940 magical creature. So in the fae realm of Prithian, the fae are these immortal creatures

00:14:43.180 and the books feature themes of love, war, and political intrigue. So the kinds of books that

00:14:48.880 they are. And, you know, the plot of them are not really what we're focusing on today because that

00:14:55.600 is common to a lot of these romantic-y books. It's their popularity that makes them so important

00:15:01.760 to really talk about. So according to Mass's publicist, she has sold more than 85 million,

00:15:07.980 85 million English copies of her books. As someone who has written two books, let me tell

00:15:13.340 you, that's a lot of books. That's a lot of books in case you didn't know. Now you're thinking of

00:15:18.420 some other popular books, and maybe you're wondering, okay, but Colleen Hoover, surely

00:15:21.940 she has sold just as many, or Frida McFadden, writing The Housemaid, maybe she's sold just

00:15:26.820 as many. Those are indeed extremely popular books. They are not as popular as Sarah J.

00:15:32.760 Maas. For example, It Ends With Us has sold 1.8 million copies. Frida McFadden, author

00:15:39.300 of The Housemaid, 1.6 million copies. Rebecca Yaros, author of Fourth Wing, 1.3 million

00:15:46.100 copies. The crowds for Yaros' latest book release, Onyx Storm. I've heard of that. I have not read

00:15:52.680 it, which is in the same series as Fourth Wing. We're reminiscent of Harry Potter. So yeah, we're

00:15:56.740 going to put up that. And that's January 2025. So again, that's just to show you this is a book

00:16:03.820 that sold a fraction of the number of Sarah J. Maas' books, and yet look how popular they are.

00:16:11.500 So that's just to give you an idea that this is really having a cultural impact.

00:16:17.020 This is really having an influence on so many women and how they think about things.

00:16:22.460 So the first thing that I want to talk about, we'll get into a little bit more of the plot.

00:16:27.800 Although, again, that's not even the most important part of the discussion that we're

00:16:32.840 having, but I will explain a little bit more about what they're about, especially when

00:16:36.200 we get into the relationship aspect of this.

00:16:40.180 But the first issue that I have as a Christian woman, as a woman who understands that we are

00:16:45.480 supposed to focus on what is good, right, and true, Philippians 4, what is excellent,

00:16:48.980 what is praiseworthy, is the level of so-called spice in Mass's books.

00:16:54.100 Now, spice means sex scenes.

00:16:56.380 And you can see on BookTok, I'm not on TikTok, but from what I understand, they use like

00:17:01.440 a number of chili peppers to be able to indicate, okay, this is super spicy, like this is basically

00:17:06.680 hardcore pornographic or this is what is also referred to as a closed door romance where you

00:17:13.580 know that they're going to have sex or do something but you don't actually read about it so

00:17:18.640 the level of spice in Mass's books has increased over time she had a debut series throne of glass

00:17:25.880 that was mostly wholesome there was some romance but not a whole lot of sexuality next came

00:17:31.620 ACOTAR, and this is the new adult series. The first three books included one to two sex scenes

00:17:38.140 per book. These are open door, okay? So you're reading the descriptions of these sexual interactions

00:17:44.020 between the characters. The fifth book in the series, A Court of Silver Flames, contains between

00:17:51.180 seven or eight chapters with Spice. It is significantly more pornographic with very

00:17:56.920 vulgar language used to describe sexual acts between characters. And this is the first book

00:18:02.880 in the series that has real profanity. It has darker themes centered around PTSD.

00:18:07.780 It is significantly more descriptive and without question pornographic.

00:18:12.520 There are scenes that would last for full chapters in some cases with some of these things.

00:18:19.580 And these books actually don't contain any profanity that our team could find up until

00:18:25.080 the fifth book or reportedly they don't have any cuss words or anything like that until the fifth

00:18:32.640 book. And it's interesting because we see this a lot with Netflix series too, or series that you

00:18:38.280 get so sucked into. Of course, you're going to watch the next episode. You have to see what's

00:18:42.080 going to happen. But after they hook you in, they get more and more depraved to where you kind of

00:18:49.280 just get desensitized to it or you're like, well, I'm going to, you know, I'm going to find the

00:18:54.640 resolution to the last episode in this one and I'll ignore the sex scene or I'll fast forward.

00:18:59.760 I mean, it's the same kind of thing. I don't know if she started out this series intending that or

00:19:06.380 if this is something the publishers or the editors said, hey, we need to push people towards this,

00:19:10.720 but it's not good. It's not good because you are so emotionally attached to all of these characters

00:19:17.700 that then all of their physical lives start really affecting and impacting your mind as well.

00:19:25.000 Her next series, Crescent City, is categorized as adult and follows the pattern of silver flames

00:19:30.140 with significant cursing and pornographic scenes. And so that's just what you know you're going to

00:19:36.480 get. And so one of the reasons why I would say do not read these books, even if you're like,

00:19:41.020 well, the first few books, they're not that bad. You're not going to stop. They are designed so

00:19:46.040 you won't stop. She's an excellent writer. That's why she sold millions of books. You are not going

00:19:50.840 to want to stop. That's what I know about myself. I know that about myself. I love to read. I love

00:19:56.080 a grippy novel. I love fiction. And so if I read these books, I would not want to stop after the

00:20:03.180 fourth book. I would want to keep going. And there is just a part of us who thinks that we are

00:20:08.440 stronger than we are. We think we can filter out all perverseness and that it's not really going

00:20:12.980 to affect us, but that's not how God made our brains. We are very affected by the things that

00:20:17.940 we consume. So if you haven't started, don't start. And if you are in the middle of it,

00:20:25.760 just go ahead and stop. Yeah, it's going to be really hard to stop, but it's going to be harder

00:20:31.120 the longer you go and the longer you keep reading. I promise if you stop reading these novels right

00:20:36.420 now and you just take a breather for a couple of weeks, you're going to lose the emotional

00:20:42.040 attachment to it and you won't feel as compelled to keep going. And so I just think that we have

00:20:46.760 to have the self-control not to get ourselves in a situation where we end up mentally, sexually

00:20:52.100 sinning. Like when I think about Jesus, when he's like, you know what, it's better to pluck your eye

00:20:56.360 out than to lust after a woman who is not your wife. Of course, he's not just talking to men

00:21:02.980 about women who aren't their wives. He's talking about the problem of lust, that it goes down to

00:21:07.300 your heart. And like, okay, if he's saying it's better to pluck your eye out than to lust after

00:21:12.020 another woman, then I think it's better to stop reading these novels than to lust after a fictional

00:21:16.820 man. Now, Mass told Alex Cooper during a March episode of Call Her Daddy. So there you go. We

00:21:23.400 got a sex podcast. And of course, Alex Cooper wanted to have her on. She wouldn't have had 0.94

00:21:27.620 her on if she didn't think the books had some crossover with what she talks about. It's not

00:21:34.280 like she's had, you know, Alex Cooper's not going to have Francine Rivers to talk about redeeming

00:21:38.900 love on her show. She's going to talk to authors who are reading or writing about things that she

00:21:45.560 likes to talk about, which is largely, you know, vulgar descriptions of sex. Now, Sarah J. Mass

00:21:51.720 says to Alex Cooper that she is proud of the sex scenes, but what she is prouder of is that women 0.81

00:21:58.520 are actually leaving her husbands. She describes them as abusive husbands because of her someone.

00:22:04.280 I just think in general, when a lot of people hear that I write romantic fantasy, you know, like as much as I love my like steamy, sexy, hot scenes, like this dismissal now of like smut.

00:22:20.720 where i'm like yeah i write smut like i love it but like that's not what like my fans come up to

00:22:27.840 me to talk about like they like when they want to come thank me like it's like yes we giggle and

00:22:32.540 laugh about like the hot scenes whatever but like they tell me how they left like their abusive

00:22:36.740 husband after they read a court of mist and fury now obviously we believe that if you have an

00:22:42.960 abusive husband that you and your children should go and and be protected that is not a question of

00:22:50.200 course. But there is a question of what Sarah J. Maas considers abusive. Because I see on TikTok

00:22:56.580 by all of these feminists all of the time, you know, calling men who argue with them or disagree 1.00

00:23:01.960 with them or who in their minds is not treating them well or said something rude as being abusive.

00:23:07.660 I think we've expanded the definition of abusive to include things that were never before seen as

00:23:13.460 abusive. So when she's talking about women leaving their husbands, I'm like, well, is it really

00:23:17.920 because of abuse, or is it because their husband could not live up to this fantastical depiction

00:23:26.100 of what love should look like or what a romantic partner should look like? We'll get into more of

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00:25:07.400 And so also I just want to point out that she said in that, like, I love smut. I do write smut.

00:25:13.620 It's great.

00:25:14.280 So just remember that as we talk to you about this plot.

00:25:16.820 Like it might sound, oh, well, that's not bad.

00:25:18.520 Well, you just heard the author say that she loves smut 0.74

00:25:21.120 and that she's proud that the wives are leaving their husbands 0.81

00:25:25.640 for reasons that we don't actually know for sure.

00:25:28.580 But let me take you a little bit through this plot

00:25:30.540 just so you understand maybe why this is so compelling.

00:25:33.940 We'll put up pictures of what the author actually says,

00:25:38.920 I guess has confirmed these characters look like.

00:25:42.380 And so, first, we have the 19-year-old human character, Feyre.

00:25:48.900 This is apparently what she looks like. 0.99

00:25:50.760 She does not look 19.

00:25:52.320 She falls in love with a fey, a magical immortal creature named Tamlin.

00:25:56.580 Here's what Tamlin looks like.

00:25:59.100 Are you going to tell me he's 19 too?

00:26:01.380 That's crazy.

00:26:02.440 He's at first presented as a chivalrous masculine love interest whose main goal is to protect

00:26:06.980 Feyre.

00:26:09.040 I'm already forgetting how to say her name.

00:26:10.800 who dies and is resurrected as a fae herself at the end of the first book. Spoilers. Whoops. I

00:26:16.840 guess you're just going to have to stop reading it now. In the second book, Feyre and Tamlin are

00:26:21.660 engaged to be married, but Tamlin's behavior starts to change for the worse as he becomes

00:26:26.680 more controlling. There's something very reminiscent about Twilight in here. He refuses

00:26:31.980 to allow her to defend herself, almost kills her when he destroys a room with his powers during an

00:26:37.160 argument and goes as far as to confine her in his manner. And then she is rescued by her second

00:26:44.180 love interest, whose name is Resend, whom she marries and is mated to by the end of book two.

00:26:55.820 Feyre and Resend are fated mates, a concept similar to soulmates, which is reserved only

00:27:02.340 for the fae in the series and surpasses the importance of marriage. Again, reminds me of,

00:27:07.880 remember imprinting, the concept of imprinting in Twilight? It was so weird. I saw a video

00:27:13.980 making fun of that. I had completely forgotten about that, but someone was making fun of the

00:27:20.060 idea. Why did the character, the adult character in Twilight imprint on a baby? So weird. But

00:27:28.560 those are the things. Like, did I think about that when I was 16 or 17 years old reading these

00:27:33.240 books? No, you're just consumed by the characters and by the story. And that it's not until you get

00:27:37.700 out of these books and get out of that story that you're emotionally unattached and you can think

00:27:41.600 critically, oh, that was weird. That was a weird concept. And so you can see how all of these

00:27:47.700 things start to kind of contribute to your thinking just about life and the world and

00:27:51.760 morality and love. As the author said on Call Her Daddy, women are apparently reportedly 0.99

00:27:59.580 leaving their husbands that they're describing like the abusive character Tamlin. Now, as I said,

00:28:07.240 could be that women are actually leaving their abusive husbands, getting protection. Okay. That 0.91

00:28:13.660 is good. We want protection of those women. But it could also be that these women are breaking 1.00

00:28:19.200 off their relationships for shallow reasons. For example, there's an Instagram user, 1.00

00:28:24.520 Valeria Reads It All, or Valeria, I don't know how to pronounce her name, published a video

00:28:29.960 celebrating the announcement of the two new releases and said in the caption, 0.83

00:28:33.560 ACOTAR is the reason I asked for a divorce. We'll put up the picture. This person's very

00:28:39.540 excited about this. I'm not going to play the video. It's just kind of inappropriate and weird,

00:28:45.280 but that's one example. She elaborated. She said that reading the novels helped her realize that

00:28:50.180 she deserved an explosive, passionate, adventurous life and love. Okay. She didn't say my husband was

00:28:57.940 abusive. She didn't say my husband was like Tamlin. She said, I deserve more. Um, you know 0.95

00:29:04.380 what? I'm also going to play you and this actually doesn't have anything to do with ACOTAR, but I

00:29:10.640 this reminded me of another TikTok that I saw and I played on Instagram. It reminds me of this.

00:29:16.060 And just to show you that this is kind of a concept that comes up a lot when women read or

00:29:20.640 watch fiction about their relationships. Here's a woman saying that heated rivalry made her leave 0.99

00:29:27.100 her marriage. Heated rivalry convinced me that my marriage was over, so let's yap about it. 0.83

00:29:32.480 My life right now is deep in the intersection of what a lot of us have experienced from watching

00:29:37.920 the show and reading the books and what our real lives have been showing us. It just isn't the way

00:29:44.980 we want to move forward. I deserve sunshine and to be joyful. And so do you. And sometimes to get

00:29:50.800 there, we have to pull the kip and walk away from the person who isn't showing up for us the way

00:29:56.340 that we deserve. And it's hard and it sucks. And it also can be the right thing to do. 0.98

00:30:01.940 Okay. So she deserved, she deserved sunshine again, nothing about abuse in there. Now back

00:30:09.340 to ACOTAR, there's this Reddit post, um, that says that the book series and recent ruined her

00:30:15.500 perception of love. She said, I'm reading, rereading one of these books and realizing

00:30:21.480 it's ruined my perception of love because I don't think I could ever meet a man who would be as

00:30:28.220 devoted and loving towards me as Reese was to Feyre. You're right, because he's not real.

00:30:35.280 The bar is too high. The way he teared up saying how much he loved her. He was so vulnerable and

00:30:41.900 full of love. He said he was so happy around her and couldn't stay away. I'm 27. I've had two

00:30:46.800 boyfriends and feel like all my naivete about love in real life is gone. Seriously, can't imagine

00:30:52.080 experiencing a relationship like this in real life. At least I have the fantasy. Now, here's

00:30:57.100 something interesting that she says, and it just goes to show how far deception can go that she

00:31:01.280 actually believes the opposite of what is true. She says, I feel like all my naivete about love

00:31:07.020 and real life is gone. No, you are now extremely naive about how love and real life goes. Not to

00:31:14.880 say that a man shouldn't be vulnerable and tear up when he says that he loves you and be super

00:31:19.580 devoted to you and all of that. All of that can be wonderful. But the idea of comparing real life

00:31:25.920 people, fallible human people who deal with sin and get tired and get distracted and have their

00:31:33.440 own things going on in life, comparing that to this, to fiction. This is an immortal person,

00:31:41.340 by the way. This person is a fae, whatever that is. He's not even human. You're not even just 1.00

00:31:47.220 comparing him to a fictional human. You're comparing him to a mystical creature, and you're

00:31:51.440 mad that your boyfriends have it stacked up to that. That is very disturbing. We are seeking,

00:31:59.980 it seems like as a culture, a frictionless life with frictionless relationships, no inconvenience,

00:32:06.720 no discomfort, no sanctification, no working hard, no getting through things, but just I deserve,

00:32:13.200 I deserve, I deserve sunshine. But think about yourself for a second. Is that what you offer to

00:32:20.200 a man? Do you offer perfection? Do you offer unconditional and unwavering sunlight at all

00:32:26.640 times? Like, is that who you are? No, it's not who any of us are. It's not who I am. We're all

00:32:32.480 imperfect people. And yet I do think that women have become more and more used to, at least 0.99

00:32:38.900 online, like holding men to a standard that you do not hold yourself. I mean, I do think, I'm sorry,

00:32:46.360 but I do think about the whole Lindsay Clancy thing and how there's just this unending compassion

00:32:51.720 for this woman and her mental health struggles that you wouldn't have for Jeffrey Dahmer.

00:32:56.420 You wouldn't have for Ted Bundy. You wouldn't have for a lot of the gang members that we see

00:33:02.040 on the street, the illegal aliens that are committing horrific crimes. A lot of them 1.00

00:33:06.420 probably had mental health problems and were on all kinds of medications. And yet I don't

00:33:11.480 see this outpouring of support. And I think a lot of it has to do with this idea that so many

00:33:16.180 of us have been conditioned to think that women are always victims no matter what. Women aren't

00:33:21.520 often victims. We are not always victims and we certainly are not removed of our agency and our 0.80

00:33:27.180 accountability and our responsibility just because sometimes women are victims. So we see more and

00:33:35.700 more of this on the internet with people saying these books have just, they've raised the bar

00:33:41.500 for what they think that they should be able to find in a man.

00:33:46.240 This guy that everyone is looking for who saves this main character,

00:33:49.640 he's tall, dark, and handsome.

00:33:50.840 He's described as the most beautiful man imaginable.

00:33:53.660 He's the most powerful man in the world and is a ruler,

00:33:56.080 yet is somehow always emotionally available and vulnerable for Feyre.

00:33:59.960 Is that so hard, men?

00:34:01.780 Is that so hard to be the ruler of the world

00:34:03.760 and also emotionally available and accessible at all times?

00:34:06.940 Come on. 1.00

00:34:08.240 Women aren't asking for much. 0.74

00:34:09.880 he's protective and chivalrous but also encourages her independence and helps enable her to

00:34:15.720 be able to protect and defend herself oh she's a strong independent woman who needs a man to

00:34:22.460 tell her that she's a strong independent woman nice just a few months ago at a benson boone

00:34:27.680 concert the singer asked a girl um in the crowd who her crush was here's what she said satoo

00:34:33.400 Have you ever had a crush before?

00:34:35.400 Yeah. Okay.

00:34:37.400 Can I ask what their name was?

00:34:41.400 Can we do a made up name?

00:34:43.400 Maybe?

00:34:47.400 Reset?

00:34:51.400 Is that a name? Is that a name?

00:34:53.400 Reset?

00:34:57.400 How does everyone know Reset?

00:34:59.400 okay so majorly popular it seemed like that person i couldn't tell that he was talking to

00:35:15.000 was young like a younger fan so i do think that this is popular among young young people as well

00:35:21.800 um now it might surprise you after what we've talked about that there are also many christian

00:35:27.240 women who are positive about ACOTAR. And not only just reading it, because maybe you start reading

00:35:33.860 it and you don't realize what it is and you just keep going because you like it, but are actually

00:35:39.720 apologists for it, are actually saying, no, this is good. This is positive. We absolutely should

00:35:44.920 be reading this. And that is what's troubling. So we'll go through some of those examples and then

00:35:51.100 my response to that in just a second. Let me pause. Let me tell you about our next sponsor.

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00:37:11.140 okay so here is a christian woman she's on social media and she is answering the question would i

00:37:24.700 read akatar again as a christian would she read akatar again as a christian here's what she says

00:37:30.220 sub three the first book a court of thorns and roses there's maybe like two spicy scenes in

00:37:35.460 the entire thing. There's more in the other two books, Akamath and Akawar. So for these three

00:37:43.020 books, I would still read them now. There was nothing in these books that bothered me other

00:37:48.420 than the spice now would bother me, but I could easily skip over that. They're skippable. It's

00:37:54.340 usually like one chapter, no problem skipping that whatsoever. Now this is the book where

00:37:59.300 my opinion starts to change about the series very heavy on the spice like way more spicy

00:38:05.540 than any of the rest of the ACOTAR series so that's a person who is popular on book talk I'm

00:38:14.360 not attacking this woman at all I'm just showing her as an example of kind of the thinking that I

00:38:19.380 think a lot of Christian women have when it comes to books and her mind might continue to change

00:38:23.920 like I said she's a I think that she said that she's a newer Christian too and certainly my mind

00:38:28.800 changed and perspective changed on the things that we consume and all of that, the longer that

00:38:32.360 I was a Christian. But that's just representative of how a lot of Christian women think about

00:38:36.840 consuming this kind of content. And here's another Christian book talker saying, yeah,

00:38:41.520 I think that we should read it. Stop four. If you've been around a while, you know that I have 0.98

00:38:45.420 read all of Sarah J. Mass's books as a Christian, and I have talked in depth about what things I

00:38:50.000 think might bother you as a Christian and what things bothered me or didn't bother me. And if

00:38:54.660 it's something that I would read. Akhtar is no exception to that. I would read the Akhtar series.

00:38:59.160 I have read the Akhtar series. Just like a lot of people on here, these books are what got me

00:39:03.300 back into reading. And I absolutely, absolutely loved them. Okay, so that is a different perspective.

00:39:11.280 Basically, like, look, I like them. Okay, I like them. I'm a Christian woman, but I like them.

00:39:16.540 And I'm, I'm gonna read them. Now, we've kind of already covered why I don't think either option 0.99

00:39:24.060 is good for the Christian, just skip the spice, only read the first three books, or you know what,

00:39:30.740 it's just entertainment, and it's culture, and we're just going to read it because we like it. 0.65

00:39:37.320 Because no matter where you fall on that spectrum of acceptance or participation,

00:39:44.200 again, these books are designed so that you will get sucked in. You will want to keep going,

00:39:49.300 and it's going to be really hard to skip those pages. And even the implication of the

00:39:53.880 things that are happening, I do think has an effect on our mind. And again, it's not just

00:39:59.620 the sex. It's not just the pornographic material. It's not just the vulgarity in the fifth book.

00:40:05.500 It is also just the idea that this is what a healthy relationship really looks like,

00:40:10.920 that the alternative to this Reese person, this fictional character is abusive. That if your

00:40:17.960 husband or your boyfriend doesn't reach his level, something's wrong with him. Something's

00:40:24.200 wrong with you. Something's wrong with love. Something's wrong with the world. That creates

00:40:29.020 discontentment, especially if you are a single woman and you are rightly wanting to be married

00:40:36.020 one day. But I can't actually say especially. I would say it's just as harmful if you are a married

00:40:41.740 woman. But either, cause really either way, it's just creating these unrealistic expectations that 0.99

00:40:48.200 can cause dissatisfaction and discontentment in you. Discontentment will lead to resentment,

00:40:53.240 will lead to bitterness, will lead to you starting to think, huh, maybe I really,

00:40:58.160 maybe this isn't worth it. Like maybe I really should be out of this. Maybe I should be

00:41:02.660 looking for something more. Maybe I, maybe I do deserve sunshine. And you know what,

00:41:06.820 we've had a really hard couple of years and this is not what I want. If that's your mentality,

00:41:11.100 you're going to end up lonely. And that's not how the Bible describes marriage. The Bible doesn't

00:41:16.940 describe marriage as two perfect people coming together and having a perfect romance forever

00:41:21.140 and ever. Romance is good. And you should feel strongly for your spouse. You should fall in love

00:41:27.140 and be attracted and all of those things. Those are beautiful, but they are made beautiful and

00:41:31.840 deeper by the difficulty that you go through together, by working through conflict. That is

00:41:37.700 the intimacy that is privileged during marriage that you don't have with any other person.

00:41:44.300 It is the tying together of every part of your lives that is really hard because you're two

00:41:49.500 sinners, but also sanctifies you as an individual Christian and also sanctifies your marriage.

00:41:56.100 That's holy. That's good. What you're seeing in these books is, again, frictionless life,

00:42:01.960 frictionless relationships. They do not exist in the world. And as iron sharpens iron, so one man

00:42:08.660 sharpens another, well, you need friction for iron to sharpen iron. And if you are seeking romance or

00:42:15.420 life or a job or anything that doesn't take that kind of sharpening, then you are going to end up

00:42:22.200 being a very dull person. So let's get into the biblical perspective on this. First, like why are

00:42:30.340 women, particularly Christian women, why are they seeking out these books, knowing that there is

00:42:36.120 some pornography in some of them, vulgarity, unrealistic expectations, certainly not a 0.96

00:42:40.360 biblical worldview at the very least? Well, I think the first is that ACOTAR fulfills a desire

00:42:45.500 to escape from ordinary life, which can be difficult. It can have friction. It can be

00:42:51.180 inconvenient, uncomfortable, discouraging. It can be lonely. It can be boring. Maybe you don't like

00:42:55.760 yourself. Maybe you don't like the people in your life. You don't like the station that you're in.

00:42:59.600 it's a form of escapism. Feyre is just a normal girl in this book. It's taken to 0.85

00:43:05.300 this extraordinary world where there are these idyllic male characters that are fighting over

00:43:10.800 her. She gets one hot guy who mistreats her. She gets another hot guy who saves her. Okay.

00:43:15.700 Just like Bella in Twilight. Escaping from life though, this is the answer to that. Escaping from

00:43:22.460 life does not bring lasting joy. I think there is something innate in us that does tell us like,

00:43:29.600 something's not right here. Something feels broken in this world. Things are not how they're

00:43:34.320 supposed to be. And for some reason, I'm longing for something to reconcile all of it. I'm longing

00:43:40.900 for wrong to be made right. That is a good desire, but that is satisfied in Jesus. That is satisfied

00:43:49.080 in the future hope and glory and rest that we find in him. You are right. Things are not right.

00:43:54.180 Sometimes life is boring. Sometimes life is hard. Sometimes you are lonely

00:43:59.220 Sometimes there are things about yourself that you don't like. Sometimes marriage and your relationships are hard

00:44:03.620 the

00:44:04.380 Reconciliation and the redemption this the resolution to all of those things is found in christ in our hope of heaven

00:44:10.600 It will not be found in these fantasy novels

00:44:12.840 Jesus tells his disciples in matthew 16 if anyone would come after me

00:44:17.640 Let him deny himself take up his cross and follow me for whoever

00:44:21.040 would save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For

00:44:26.440 what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man

00:44:33.080 give in return for his soul? So it is not worth gaining the temporary pleasure, which really is

00:44:42.140 so temporary because you can see from the people who read it, they love it when they read it. And

00:44:45.800 then they're left super sad because their life isn't like that. Your soul, your purity, your

00:44:51.480 mind, your relationships are not worth the temporary pleasure that you are getting from

00:44:58.760 these books. The second thing is that I think that we like to see women or women like to see

00:45:05.180 women as warriors with magical powers who embody fictionalized feminine strength while also needing

00:45:11.720 saving by a hot guy. Again, best of both worlds. Feyre is a strong, independent woman who don't 0.87

00:45:17.620 need no man, and she needs a man to tell her that. And she needs a man to save her and make sure that

00:45:22.900 she knows that. The truth is, is that there is such thing as strength that is unique to women.

00:45:28.960 We see that in characters throughout the Bible that were included by the men who wrote through

00:45:34.900 the power of the Holy Spirit, the Bible. We always hear that the Bible is so patriarchal

00:45:38.960 and impressive of women. And it was just written by a bunch of like patriarchal men who just wanted

00:45:45.120 power and all of that. Okay. Well then why was Rahab included? Like, why do we, why do we read

00:45:50.480 about Deborah? Why do we read about Mary? Why do we read about Martha? Why do we read about Lois?

00:45:55.740 Why do we read about all of these incredible women who contributed to God's plan of redemption 0.91

00:46:00.680 by his will and contributed to the advancement of the gospel and the new Testament? I mean, 0.97

00:46:07.360 really like, why would we have such an account of Mary who had this incredible special privilege

00:46:12.740 that is only unique to women to be able to bear the life of our Emmanuel? How incredible is that?

00:46:21.620 So there is such thing as feminine strength. Again, I would tell you, if you're looking for it, 0.67

00:46:25.680 go to scripture. Go to the fact that God made us in his image, male and female, and that we are

00:46:31.660 innately worthy and valuable because of that. Really what we see in these books and so many

00:46:38.020 books is that this character's value, it comes from her own self-discovery. It comes from her

00:46:44.320 own self-fulfillment. It even comes from her ability to attract hot guys, like these fictional

00:46:50.780 immortal characters. The feminine strength that we have as women comes from the Lord. It comes 0.81

00:46:57.840 from being image bearers. It comes from the incredible power that we have to be able to

00:47:02.420 nurture and nourish life. That is actually so much more trustworthy and more grounded than what we see

00:47:11.140 in these fictional characters. When you think about the book of Esther, and I don't have to

00:47:17.620 read this entire passage, but in Esther 4, she has kind of her famous speech as she's talking to her

00:47:24.620 uncle Mordecai about her plan to help rescue the Jews. She said, I will go to the king though it

00:47:31.740 is against the law. And if I perish, I perish. If you want stories of real courage about women

00:47:38.720 who derived their power, not from themselves, not from any man, but from the Lord, then read the

00:47:44.720 Bible. Mary, of course, as we said, the mother of Jesus has been an archetype of humility and

00:47:51.400 devotion and strength, obedience to the Lord when it would have been really hard. Luke 1 38 and Mary

00:47:56.900 said, behold, I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word. And the angel

00:48:02.420 departed from her. So just incredible courage, incredible bravery by the woman that the Lord

00:48:10.020 has ordained throughout history. The third reason is really not that deep. I think that their

00:48:16.240 readers, Christian or not, they like the sexual content. I think they like the romantic content,

00:48:22.500 the idea that there are fated mates where two lovers are destined to be together. They're

00:48:28.060 similar to soulmates. You're imprinting on the person. There's a soul tie, which Taylor Swift

00:48:32.180 talked about in one of her songs. But for several reasons, neither ACOTAR nor any other romance

00:48:38.460 novel can provide the wisdom and guidance that women actually need for a healthy pursuit of love

00:48:44.540 because you're looking at a counterfeit of biblical love 0.79

00:48:47.840 and of covenantal love.

00:48:49.360 Real love is built through ordinary

00:48:51.040 yet spirit-filled faithfulness

00:48:53.220 between a man and a woman who choose commitment

00:48:55.240 and sacrifice and purity,

00:48:57.760 sex within marriage and only within marriage,

00:49:00.240 which is the only sexual union in God's eyes. 0.93

00:49:04.180 We see that in Song of Solomon,

00:49:05.820 how this romance and attraction

00:49:07.540 and the sex between husband and wife is beautiful.

00:49:10.920 It's a gift.

00:49:12.160 You know, when people say that, you know,

00:49:13.900 Christianity is boring, that we demonize, you know, physical pleasure. No, that's not true.

00:49:21.600 We just believe that anything is enjoyed properly only within its context, its proper context. When

00:49:29.580 something is used wrongly, well, then it's not used well and it ends up being broken. Literally

00:49:34.660 think of any object that you, if I tried to use the printer as an air fryer, it's not going to

00:49:41.600 work. It's not going to work. It's the same thing with sex. It's the same thing with love. It works

00:49:47.180 best within the proper context. And the God who is love, first John four, eight created marriage

00:49:52.900 and Genesis one, he says that the proper channel of love is between one man and one woman in the

00:50:00.020 context of marriage. And that's not just where it's most protective. That's where it's most

00:50:03.900 fruitful. That's where it's most beautiful. That's where it's most enjoyable because it's safest

00:50:08.340 there. It's most loving there. You're most known there. This concept of soulmates or fated mates

00:50:16.420 is not found in the Bible. That doesn't mean that I think that you should just settle for someone

00:50:22.320 who says that they're a Christian. As I've said many times, I think you should love the person.

00:50:26.420 I think you should want to be around them. I think you should be attracted to them. I think

00:50:29.260 that there should be, especially at the beginning, like, oh my goodness, I cannot wait to be with

00:50:37.220 this person tomorrow. I can't go one second without seeing this person. Like there is part

00:50:41.480 of that that is really fun, but that is actually not the foundation of marriage. What is the

00:50:46.860 foundation of marriage is a very serious and solemn covenant. In Matthew 19, when Jesus is

00:50:52.940 answering a question from the Pharisees about divorce, he says, what therefore God has joined

00:50:57.260 together, let not man separate. A man and a woman coming together in marriage have been joined

00:51:02.920 together by God, who is the more powerful force and the lesser force of man should not separate

00:51:09.080 that union. That's how important it is. And God gives two clear reasons for divorce, adultery,

00:51:17.020 abandonment. And so it's not, hey, you deserve sunshine. Hey, your husband should be more like

00:51:25.240 Reese. Matthew 19, 9. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality

00:51:30.800 and marries another commits adultery. That's very serious. 1 Corinthians 7, 15. But if the

00:51:35.580 unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases, the brother or sister is not enslaved.

00:51:40.240 God has called you to peace. We could go on and on about that. We've actually talked about that

00:51:45.040 before in a previous episode, like what the Bible really says about divorce and the reasons for

00:51:49.260 divorce. But we can see, since we read the Bible asking, okay, what pleases God most? What glorifies

00:51:55.720 God most, we can see that actually God's heart is marriage. God's heart is reconciliation. Again,

00:52:04.760 not that a woman should stay in an abusive marriage. That's not at all what I'm arguing,

00:52:09.260 but God's desire is commitment. And he is not expecting your commitment to be dependent upon

00:52:16.160 the perfection of your spouse. So what I would say to Christian women is that I understand very

00:52:23.420 much as someone who loves to read and loves fiction, why these books are attractive and why

00:52:29.020 it's so easy to just say, well, who cares? They're popular. I can skip over that stuff. That stuff

00:52:34.660 doesn't affect me. You're a human. It does affect you. Of course it affects you. It affects all of

00:52:39.940 us. That's not a defect. That is just a part of being a human being with a brain. Things are

00:52:46.200 supposed to affect us. That's exactly why we read in Philippians 4. Hey, think about lovely things.

00:52:53.420 think about the excellent things. Think about the things that are only worthy of praise. And that

00:52:59.880 doesn't mean that we don't talk about difficult stuff. We talk about difficult stuff on this

00:53:03.400 podcast. And there is a balance in knowing what's going on in the world, understanding that suffering

00:53:08.240 exists, that hard things exist, that injustice exists. And we are called to be agents of justice

00:53:15.060 and clarity and courage and all of those things. Think about the abolitionists. They certainly had

00:53:19.540 to think about some things that were not lovely when they looked at the oppression of the slaves.

00:53:23.420 that then gave them the courage to use the gospel to abolish slavery. We think about things like

00:53:29.200 abortion that are so awful. We have to know what that stuff is in order to have the moral fortitude

00:53:36.580 to fight against it. But what we dwell on, even when we're thinking about evil things that exist

00:53:43.580 in the world, what we are dwelling on is God's good opposition to those things. We are dwelling

00:53:49.140 on God's holiness and his hatred of evil. We are dwelling on the contrast between God's light,

00:53:55.480 his righteousness, and the evil of this world that Christians are also called to oppose.

00:54:00.580 We cannot be, and I'm speaking to myself too, as someone who not only loves to read, 0.92

00:54:04.320 but I also love TV shows. I also love movies. I love culture. I love engaging in these things.

00:54:11.160 We have to be so careful not to be consistently entertained by the things that Jesus died for.

00:54:19.140 entertained by the things that he calls sin. So when we are dwelling on what is good, right,

00:54:25.620 and true, we have to think about what we're consuming, what we are entertained by, what we

00:54:29.740 are paying money to consume. And I would say that these books don't fall into the category of the

00:54:36.220 things that Christians should be dwelling on. All right. Now we've got a short conversation 0.99

00:54:40.940 with my friend, Kosti Hinn, who will be at Share the Arrows as a speaker. And he has a background

00:54:47.780 in the prosperity gospel.

00:54:50.300 His uncle is Benny Hinn,

00:54:51.420 one of the most prominent prosperity gospel health

00:54:55.280 and wealth preachers in the world for decades.

00:54:58.440 And of course, Kosti has believed the gospel

00:55:01.560 and repented of all of that.

00:55:02.800 He's an incredible pastor, evangelist, apologist, and author.

00:55:07.760 And he's going to be talking about Catherine Crick

00:55:10.480 and some of just her popularity

00:55:13.440 and the reaction to her in just a second.

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00:56:25.480 Kosti, thanks so much for taking the time to join us.

00:56:28.620 I've been wanting to talk to you about this Catherine Crick phenomenon.

00:56:33.660 She has been going viral all over social media.

00:56:37.560 this woman who claims to have been an ordained apostle, can heal people, can exercise demons 0.65

00:56:44.940 just from being in someone's mere presence at Barnes and Noble. Now, I've gotten a lot of

00:56:52.220 pushback, as you have so often over the years, for saying, you know what, this doesn't actually

00:56:57.440 seem biblical. The response seems to be from people, well, she's doing these amazing things,

00:57:02.140 how can you deny it? So how should we think about someone like this who clearly

00:57:06.500 has gained a ton of popularity from what she's doing?

00:57:12.560 Yeah, for starters, I'm never worried about somebody trying to do the Lord's work or good

00:57:18.940 missions work or people who want to share the gospel. And maybe we have some differences,

00:57:23.620 like if you have a Baptist and a Pentecostal, we might believe some different things about

00:57:28.080 spiritual gifts, but we both believe the same gospel, and we sort of both know where the

00:57:33.040 biblical boundary lines are on some of these things. And so usually what people jump on right

00:57:37.140 away is, well, you know, they're just doing nice things. You're being a legalist and a Pharisee

00:57:42.300 and all these things. It's like, no, actually, when you look at the biblical framework,

00:57:47.300 we're not having a debate over speaking in tongues or some difference on, you know,

00:57:52.300 Baptist and Pentecostal theology. We're talking about somebody who calls himself a literal

00:57:56.340 apostle. Right when I hear that word, my spiritual radar goes up. I want to do as 1 John tells us,

00:58:04.440 I want to test the spirits. And so I'm going to think, okay, you're calling yourself an apostle.

00:58:09.040 This is a very high and lofty position in the body of Christ. And then I want to do

00:58:14.460 biblical critical thinking. And this is what I want people to do. Don't just fire off in the

00:58:20.140 comment section and go, oh, you're just hating on people who are doing the Lord's work. Slow down.

00:58:24.580 What does the Bible say about an apostle?

00:58:27.260 Well, they've been an eyewitness to Jesus Christ.

00:58:31.300 They have been given the ability to do signs and wonders, and they were established and

00:58:36.120 confirmed in the early church.

00:58:37.840 And then you look at the Bible and you see no affirmation that there'll be more apostles

00:58:42.680 coming or to look for new apostles.

00:58:45.100 You only see warnings about false apostles.

00:58:47.760 And Paul the Apostle does that with the Corinthians because they were getting very showy and very

00:58:52.600 full of themselves and self-righteous and prideful over the use of spiritual gifts. And this is

00:58:56.620 exactly what happens. You get the Catherine Cricks, you get the Bill Johnson, who's the 0.74

00:59:01.700 apostle of Bethel, you get the lead prophet of, you know, Chris Vallotton and all of these different

00:59:06.760 people, and it's around the world, not just in the U.S., who have this position. They call

00:59:11.280 themselves an apostle or a prophet. You got to go to Scripture. And what Paul says to the Corinthians

00:59:17.160 is there are going to be these false apostles and deceitful workers. He does this in 2 Corinthians

00:59:22.420 chapter 11. And he says they're going to disguise themselves as workers of righteousness. And no

00:59:28.840 wonder, because the devil disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is going to look good.

00:59:34.140 It's not going to look evil. It's going to be easy for someone to get sucked in if they don't

00:59:38.000 have discernment and say, oh, Allie Beth, you're such a Pharisee. Oh, Kosti, calm down. This woman 0.57

00:59:43.080 is doing beautiful. Look at how wonderful she is. And she's so sweet, must love the Lord.

00:59:46.740 you need to slow down and think biblically. Ephesians 2.20 says that the apostles were the

00:59:53.500 foundation of the church. So we don't have new apostles. I still have apostles. Their names are

00:59:58.400 Peter, James, John, and the rest, and they're foundational. Ephesians 2.20 then goes on to

01:00:04.340 expand that Christ is the cornerstone. So this is all very easy to understand. And we as a people

01:00:10.140 now, the church, are being built up as a holy temple on top of that. So you don't go back and

01:00:16.300 jack up the foundation and redo it when Christ has built it, it's perfect. The apostles were and are

01:00:23.300 established. They gave us the scriptures. And I have a deep concern with self-appointed

01:00:30.580 apostles today. They are deceivers. They are not obeying scripture. And if you look at the evidence, 0.79

01:00:40.100 they are playing a game that has long been played throughout the ages. This is nothing new. It just

01:00:45.660 has long brunette hair and expensive outfits. That's it. 1.00

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01:01:49.320 When you point out that the interactions that Crick has with so many of these people,

01:01:55.820 a lot of them are women at the Barnes and Noble, these women who say, you know, I need

01:02:00.760 help exercising this demon from my child. Um, she'll say things like, okay, well you need to

01:02:06.660 sow a seed of you need to sow a seed of faith it's because you haven't given enough money you

01:02:12.040 haven't done enough you haven't prayed hard enough you haven't sacrificed enough or this is partial

01:02:16.460 deliverance and you see them flailing on the ground when someone like you or like me or any

01:02:22.500 of the other people who have said you know that just doesn't seem to be what we saw with exorcism

01:02:28.040 in scripture her defenders will pull out like a verse or they'll be like well well actually if you

01:02:35.680 look at this verse, it does say this. Or if you look at this verse, it does say this. And something

01:02:40.440 I've seen over and over again is, okay, by criticizing Crick in these instances, you're

01:02:45.780 committing blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. I've gotten several messages saying you're

01:02:50.160 committing blasphemy against the Holy Spirit for calling this out. So break that down for us,

01:02:54.520 because that's very serious. No Christian wants to think, oh my gosh, am I really speaking against

01:03:01.040 the Holy Spirit by saying, I don't think this lines up with Scripture. Yeah. Fires me up. A few

01:03:08.460 things. I've recently preached, I'm going through the Gospel of Matthew at our church, and I just

01:03:14.920 preached that text not more than several weeks back. The blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is so clear

01:03:21.000 as the outright and ultimate rejection of the Spirit's conviction concerning Christ,

01:03:27.160 and to reject Jesus Christ. The Pharisees committed that sin because they looked at Christ

01:03:32.260 and said, you are doing the work of the devil. Meanwhile, he was bringing them the kingdom and

01:03:39.200 clearly preaching the gospel with evidence, and they were rejecting him. And so what is the

01:03:45.460 ultimate blasphemy of the Holy Spirit? Why is it the unforgivable sin or the unpardonable sin?

01:03:50.220 It's because they were rejecting Christ with a hard heart all the way through until their dying

01:03:54.480 day. There's no coming back from that. There's only one unforgivable sin. It is to reject Jesus

01:03:59.580 Christ because then you go to hell, you cannot be forgiven, and you are now damned that you're

01:04:06.000 condemned. That's why Romans 8.1 says there's now no condemnation for those who are in Christ.

01:04:10.620 Otherwise, you're condemned. So it's not the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit to use discernment

01:04:14.860 and to say that person's a false teacher or casting out demons or doing what you're doing

01:04:20.120 at Barnes and Nobles is not evidence of the Spirit's work. People say, oh, how dare you?

01:04:25.120 Well, actually, I'm in line with my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, because in Matthew 7,

01:04:30.520 he warns that many people one day, in verses 22 and 23, are going to say, Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord,

01:04:37.880 I did this, this, this, and one of those is I casted out demons in your name. And Jesus says

01:04:43.280 to them, depart from me. I never knew you. Literally, we never relate. You knew me. I don't

01:04:49.640 know you. You workers of lawlessness, what is that? That's outside of the bounds of what God

01:04:56.200 has called you to do and commanded you to do. And so when you're outside of Scripture and you're

01:05:00.860 leveraging the Bible for manipulation, deceit, or what Peter says, if you just read the letter of

01:05:09.300 2 Peter and you just lay it out really clear, that 1 Peter is great too, but if you just want

01:05:15.860 to understand what Peter's getting at across the whole. He says that in their greed, they will

01:05:22.680 exploit you with false words, and they have a sensuality about them, and they have a smoothness.

01:05:28.140 So you're not committing the work of blaspheming the Holy Spirit when you call out the truth.

01:05:34.240 Also, casting out demons or praying for people who are demonized or demon-possessed is not

01:05:39.860 evidence that you're some apostle. And I just wrote a book. It's coming out. I haven't told

01:05:45.440 anyone this. It's kind of a secret, so now it's out. But in the new year, it'll come out in the

01:05:50.180 new year. It's literally called Not Today, Satan. And it's how to kill sin and win at spiritual war

01:05:56.260 because that phrase people have used, I wanted to write a book that gives you a real biblical

01:06:00.680 understanding of spiritual warfare because we have people who have no theology of warfare and

01:06:05.760 they get sucked into this. And then others who are like, well, what do I do then with the demonic

01:06:09.980 and with these things? And I wanted to give people kind of a roadmap for that.

01:06:14.020 Catherine Crick is playing on the ignorance, the naivety, but also the desperation, Allie.

01:06:20.420 You remember the people coming to Jesus, and they would plead, and to the apostles,

01:06:24.860 and their children and friends were tormented by demons.

01:06:29.180 Never once are you going to be told, give a gift.

01:06:33.140 Jesus doesn't say, yeah, pay for my hotel, my suite this weekend in Galilee.

01:06:37.600 You only see that from false teachers.

01:06:39.440 and you remember the apostles when the man is crying out crying out they say silver and gold

01:06:45.220 have i none he he wants money he's crying out alms for the poor here silver and gold have i none

01:06:50.760 but that which i have give i thee in the name of jesus christ rise and walk and we used to sing

01:06:59.520 this song as kids i don't know if anybody watching will remember this but we used to sing this song

01:07:04.400 in kids' church, and it would be that miracle, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and

01:07:09.920 walk. And then we would sing this part after, and he was walking and leaping and praising God,

01:07:14.020 walking and leaping and praising God. And we would sing, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth,

01:07:18.800 rise up and walk. And as a kid, it was ingrained in my mind, ironically, as I grew up in the

01:07:23.280 prosperity gospel, that these guys couldn't give them money. They weren't going to give them money.

01:07:27.240 There was no transaction involved. But man, you're going to have Christ heal you through his apostles,

01:07:32.800 and it's free. And that's a model of the gospel. The gospel is free. You don't need to pay to make

01:07:39.180 God do something. You don't need to pay for demonic deliverance. Deliverance comes through

01:07:43.580 conversion and the work of the Spirit. When he moves in, all the demons get evicted. That's what

01:07:49.060 the Bible teaches. You don't have to pay for it. You surrender to Christ. The gospel is free.

01:07:54.400 Deliverance is free. And that's my main concern with Catherine Crick. People want to talk about

01:07:58.860 spiritual gifts and get all into the other debates. No problem. I love my Pentecostal

01:08:03.060 friends. She is a false teacher. And I have dear, beloved Pentecostal friends who are calling that 1.00

01:08:08.900 out too. And that tells you something. We're unified on what is darkness and it's not the light.

01:08:16.860 Totally. Totally. Kosti, thank you so much. Such good insight. And your book, when does it come out?

01:08:22.420 i think zonderman has it slated for like january 19th or something like that it's the new year

01:08:29.680 yeah okay cool okay cool we'll have to have you back on to talk about that at some point but so

01:08:35.880 excited about that all of your books contain so much good practical biblical wisdom costy thank

01:08:41.760 you see you on october 10th in dallas texas for share the arrows we're so excited to have you

01:08:47.500 can't wait see you soon ali

01:08:52.420 What scared is that the

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - August 31, 2026

Ep 1390 ｜ ‘A Court of Thorns & Roses’ is Bad for Your Marriage. My Warning

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