Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 208

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Monday. I hope everyone had an awesome weekend. If

00:00:05.240 you are watching this on YouTube, again, I am in a different spot. It looks a little

00:00:10.100 bit fancier, doesn't it, than usual? You can tell me how you guys like it. If you're not

00:00:15.420 watching on YouTube, you should definitely subscribe. The podcast comes out on YouTube

00:00:19.680 in the afternoon, whereas you can listen to it in the morning, but you can watch it in

00:00:23.260 the afternoon. Subscribe on YouTube. It's Allie Beth Stuckey. If you haven't done that

00:00:27.660 already, I would highly appreciate it. Today, we're going to talk about a couple things.

00:00:31.740 We're going to talk about the Iowa caucus, which happens today, February 3rd. We're going to

00:00:36.140 talk a little bit about that. Then, since I'm trying this new format of doing current events,

00:00:41.720 everything that's going on, or something that's going on, and then weaving in a biblical topic

00:00:48.200 within that, or doing it all in the same episode, rather than doing Theology Mondays, News Wednesdays,

00:00:54.920 I'm going to do a Most Misused. If you're new to the podcast, we started a series that has kind of

00:01:02.320 been broken up called Most Misused. We did Psalm 37.4, Delight Yourself in the Lord, and He will

00:01:08.340 give you the desires of your heart, a few weeks ago. Then, we also did Matthew 7.1, Judge not lest

00:01:13.360 you be judged. We took what is commonly said about those verses, and then what they actually mean

00:01:21.260 according to God's word. We're going to do that today with Philippians 4.13. Then, I am going to

00:01:27.360 answer a couple of your questions. I have a couple other topics that I might want to touch on

00:01:31.920 if we have time. As you guys know, I typically end up talking a lot more than I anticipated,

00:01:38.780 and we've run out of time. Today, we're going to talk about the Iowa caucus. This is the first contest

00:01:48.260 of the primaries. If you didn't know that the presidential primaries were happening,

00:01:52.100 then I haven't been doing my job very well, or you just haven't been listening to the podcast,

00:01:57.080 or you might be living under a rock. If so, welcome, Earthside. Welcome. There's a lot that's

00:02:03.380 happening. You're probably going to be highly disappointed, but that's okay. We are going to,

00:02:07.820 on this podcast, walk you through the things you need to know and try to leave you with a feeling

00:02:12.620 of encouragement and understanding. Even with the craziness of the Democratic presidential

00:02:17.360 primaries, that's what we're going to try to do. The person who wins the Iowa caucus typically picks

00:02:22.620 up a lot of momentum. All the polling points to Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders, self-avowed

00:02:29.220 socialist, you guys. He will correct someone and say that he's a Democratic socialist, but

00:02:34.720 that doesn't make it any better. That's just socialism that you choose, which maybe is better. I mean,

00:02:40.420 yes, better than tyrannical socialism, but socialism is tyrannical by nature. I actually did an entire

00:02:46.540 podcast episode this summer titled Socialism. So if you're just trying to understand really what

00:02:51.700 socialism is, you can go back and listen to that episode titled Socialism. I don't know the actual

00:02:56.560 number, but you can kind of give a background or get a background on what that is. He is a self-avowed,

00:03:03.000 full-blown socialist. He has been for a long time. And I don't know, like if he wins, not just the Iowa

00:03:08.620 caucus, but if he really does win that and then picks up the momentum and becomes the Democratic nominee,

00:03:13.960 which is very likely, by the way, Joe Biden is entrenched in all of this drama and he just hasn't

00:03:20.420 performed very well. Elizabeth Warren doesn't seem to be bringing the heat the way that I think we

00:03:27.900 probably thought that she would. And then we've got Pete Buttigieg that's kind of trailing that,

00:03:33.180 you know, I don't really think ultimately he's going to do anything, although I think that he has given

00:03:38.640 a few good performances at the debates and he is very well spoken. And even though he is

00:03:44.680 diametrically opposed to literally everything, I believe, I do see how someone finds Pete Buttigieg

00:03:51.380 likable and finds him compelling and even sees him as a moderate, even though he's not a moderate

00:03:56.220 at all, he's pretty good at presenting himself that way. And he's realized that that is the path

00:04:01.260 he has to carve out to distinguish himself from people like Elizabeth Warren and like Bernie Sanders.

00:04:05.980 But I don't think ultimately it's going to work for him. Not this go round now. He's probably going

00:04:10.220 to run again. He is very young. But for the presidential primary that is happening right

00:04:14.820 now, I think that it is probably going to be Bernie Sanders, which is just a little bit terrifying.

00:04:21.320 And by a little bit, I mean a lot. So we're talking about the guy that honeymooned in Soviet Russia.

00:04:29.320 He loved Hugo Chavez, huge fan of Hugo Chavez. He praised Venezuela just a few years ago before it

00:04:35.020 absolutely fell. He praised it as a model for the rest of the world. Venezuela is socialist.

00:04:40.480 Now, socialists in America will tell you, you know, it's not socialist. No country that has

00:04:45.140 claimed socialism that has failed is socialist to socialists. They will say, no, no, no, that socialism

00:04:51.040 wasn't the problem. It was some other random factor that made it not work. All of these failures

00:04:57.340 that you see associated to socialism has nothing to do with socialism at all. And yet Bernie Sanders

00:05:01.940 praised Venezuela just a few years ago saying that it was the model for the rest of the world that we

00:05:06.800 should all be following. He complimented bread lines at one time. You can look this up, say,

00:05:11.080 you know, bread lines are a good thing. At least people are getting some kind of sustenance. That's

00:05:17.120 what he would like. He worships Karl Marx. He is a Marxist. He thinks Marx was a wonderful,

00:05:24.600 compassionate guy and nothing could be further from the truth. You can look at the Communist

00:05:28.940 Manifesto and figure that out. We are talking about the guy who wants to, as of today, abolish

00:05:36.420 ICE, take away your health insurance, force you into Medicare for all. He wants to repeal the Hyde

00:05:43.240 Amendment. The Hyde Amendment says that your tax dollars cannot directly fund abortion, although

00:05:47.940 we know that funds are fungible. And so our tax money that is going to, that is going to Planned

00:05:55.280 Parenthood right now that is indirectly funding abortion anyway. But the Hyde Amendment says

00:05:59.960 that you have to or that the funds can't go directly, taxpayer funds can't go directly to

00:06:05.320 the Hyde Amendment. Well, he believes that we should repeal the Hyde Amendment. So we should be

00:06:09.860 directly funding abortion. Abortion should be free. He has tweeted before that abortion is health care.

00:06:15.200 Well, guess what? He says health care is a human right. And he believes because it's a human right

00:06:19.180 that health care should be paid for by the taxpayer. He calls that free. Of course,

00:06:23.140 we know that nothing is free. And so by deductive reasoning, he said it explicitly,

00:06:28.300 but by deductive reasoning, and if he thinks that abortion is health care and that health care is a

00:06:31.800 human right and that human rights should be paid for by the taxpayer, then he obviously believes

00:06:36.180 that abortion should be paid for by the taxpayer. We have talked about a million times on this podcast

00:06:40.800 what abortion is, how grotesque it is, that it is killing a human life painfully, brutally. Even if it

00:06:46.940 wasn't painful, it would still be morally wrong. And he believes that it's not only okay that a woman

00:06:52.480 should be able to choose to do that through all nine months of her pregnancy. So we're talking

00:06:56.100 about a living, moving, kicking, feeling baby. He believes that a woman should have a right to

00:07:01.780 terminate that child, to violently kill that child inside the womb for any reason whatsoever. And not

00:07:06.320 only that, Bernie Sanders believes that you should pay for it. This is the guy. And by the way, this is

00:07:12.120 all the Democratic nominees. You're not going to find a Democratic nominee that is going to, besides

00:07:16.600 Tulsi Gabbard, that is going to temper their views on abortion at all. They're just going to say it's

00:07:22.120 the woman's choice. It's the woman's choice. What they are doing is endorsing the brutal murder of

00:07:27.860 babies inside the womb and endorsing the view that you should have to pay for it no matter how morally

00:07:34.140 opposed. Now, no matter how religiously opposed you are, you should have to pay for it. So it's not

00:07:38.680 just Bernie Sanders, although I do think he's going to be the nominee. And so we should be cognizant of that

00:07:43.060 and fearful of that. But it's all the Democratic nominees, by the way. And they wonder, they wonder,

00:07:48.300 why do evangelical Christians support Republicans? Why do evangelical Christians support Donald Trump?

00:07:54.260 Well, because we believe that life starts at conception. And so any killing, any murder of an

00:08:00.480 innocent human being beyond that, yeah, I think that we're going to be against, especially for a

00:08:04.200 defenseless baby inside the womb. It's funny how Democrats can't look in the mirror and they can't say,

00:08:10.360 wow, you know what? We've really gotten more extreme. We've really changed our views because

00:08:14.440 they have. It used to be 20 years ago, safe, legal, and rare. 10 years ago, they were talking about

00:08:19.560 illegal immigration. Just a few years ago, they were talking about, or they had a little bit of a

00:08:25.320 different view on guns. They weren't talking about gun confiscation the way Beto O'Rourke and some other

00:08:30.940 candidates have now. So they have become more and more radical. And yet they look at conservatives who have

00:08:37.500 stayed the same on pretty much every issue. And they say, you've changed. You've changed. You've

00:08:42.700 become more radical. Actually, no, no, we haven't. We have stayed the same. We've always believed that

00:08:47.580 life starts at conception. Like we've, and I guess maybe with science and how technology has developed

00:08:52.600 and we can see it's such a, uh, an early point in gestation, how lifelike and not lifelike what a life

00:08:59.480 and what a human it is. Yes. Maybe our views on that have gotten stronger, but we haven't changed our

00:09:05.180 views on abortion. We haven't changed our views on guns. We haven't changed our views on immigration.

00:09:10.460 Conservatives have been pretty solid for a long time, except for maybe getting a little bit more

00:09:14.860 moderate in parts of the Republican party. But the left has moved so far left case in point, Bernie

00:09:20.780 Sanders, a self-proclaimed socialist, which really his views aren't that different from full-blown

00:09:27.520 communism. I can't see a whole lot of distinctions. I, I would love for someone to be able to explain

00:09:34.060 the difference to me between what Bernie Sanders believes and what a typical communist believes,

00:09:39.800 uh, case in point, Bernie Sanders, that guy is probably going to be the democratic nominee.

00:09:45.600 And even if he's not the democratic nominee, like he is, uh, almost leading the field right now. He's

00:09:50.940 at least leading the field, uh, in Iowa. And so for Democrats to not be able to take a look in the

00:09:58.120 mirror and say, you know what guys, we have gone so far to the left. No wonder most of the country,

00:10:04.060 or half the country at least isn't on board with us. No wonder there is such fierce resistance to

00:10:10.220 us. No wonder we can't attract any evangelicals. No wonder at least eight in 10 white evangelicals

00:10:16.440 or self-identified white evangelicals are supporting Donald Trump. Someone whose morals for the most

00:10:21.380 part, we don't agree with because the left gives us absolutely no option whatsoever. They've become

00:10:26.300 so radical economically, morally, everything. They've become so radical that there is no chance in

00:10:34.240 heck that someone who identifies as any part conservative or who, uh, is an evangelical

00:10:41.940 Christian. Someone who reads and believes in their Bible can look at someone like Bernie Sanders and get

00:10:46.160 on board with that. Like there's no self-awareness. There's no self-reflection. Instead, they continue to

00:10:51.840 look at this side of the country, the right side of the country and say, Oh, you guys are backwards.

00:10:57.160 You guys are so far behind. You guys are on the wrong side of history. Really? We're on the wrong

00:11:02.520 side of history because like our definition of, for example, gender has been the definition of gender

00:11:09.000 for all of human existence. And just like 30 seconds ago, you guys decided via a tenured professor

00:11:16.820 that gender doesn't actually matter, that it doesn't correspond with sex, that it has nothing to do with

00:11:21.780 sex whatsoever. And all of a sudden we're on the wrong side of history. Like you guys redefined

00:11:27.020 marriage just a few years ago. The definition that a lot of conservatives, not all conservatives now,

00:11:32.860 but a lot of conservatives or especially Christians have of marriage between a man and a woman has been

00:11:38.020 the definition of marriage for millennia. But now all of a sudden, because the left has changed so

00:11:43.800 drastically in the past, even just five to 10 years, and they're on a crazy train that is going a

00:11:49.720 million miles a minute. And they have no idea where it's headed. They have no destination whatsoever.

00:11:54.300 They look at the people standing on the sidelines, watching the crazy train go by. So that's you and

00:11:58.940 me and say, you're on the wrong side of history. You better jump on this crazy train, even though

00:12:02.940 it's about to go off a cliff. Um, that's the absolute hypocrisy of it. That is the craziness of it.

00:12:09.900 And the fact that Bernie Sanders is possibly going to be the nominee, uh, shows all of that. It shows

00:12:18.080 just how crazy and just how far left, uh, the democratic party has gone. Remember leftism doesn't

00:12:26.040 govern. Leftism is good for activism. Leftism is good for making people angry. Leftism is good for

00:12:32.880 riling people up. Leftism is good at making people passionate, insane. There needs to be some kind

00:12:39.880 of change. Leftism is not good for governing. Leftism is not effective for governing. When we

00:12:45.220 look at leftist governments, there's a reason why they have failed. There's a reason why communism and

00:12:50.120 socialism have failed and not just failed, not just like, Oh, that was a good old college try. Now

00:12:54.960 we're going to move on to capitalism, but has resulted in the suffering and death of tens of millions of

00:13:02.240 people over the last century is because leftism doesn't work as a governing principle. It just doesn't

00:13:08.720 work. It creates tribalism. It creates identity politics and it creates ultimately a human

00:13:15.300 suffering. Rights are taken away. Liberties are trampled on, uh, in a fight for what they deem to

00:13:21.740 be equality. And it's really not. It's what Thomas Sowell calls cosmic justice. We've talked a lot about

00:13:27.520 that and I won't even get into all of that right now. Uh, but it is fueled by the craziness of

00:13:34.000 intersectionality and it just, well, at least in America, not all communism and socialism has been

00:13:40.280 fueled by that kind of stuff, obviously, but how it is right now in 2020, that is what it is. There is

00:13:46.800 all kinds of strife, uh, between the different classes, between the different generations, between

00:13:53.680 the difference, uh, between the different races, between genders. And all of that is because of this

00:14:00.260 Marxist ideology that is being peddled by people like Bernie Sanders. But, uh, the people who support

00:14:07.540 Bernie Sanders are okay with the fact that leftism isn't necessarily a good governing principle or that

00:14:15.580 it's not a governing principle. He, and here's how we can see that through Bernie Sanders. When someone

00:14:21.280 asks him, for example, how are you going to pay for Medicare for all? Uh, how are you going to pay for

00:14:26.500 single payer healthcare? Like how is this going to work? He says, I don't know. No one knows. No one

00:14:31.240 knows how much it's going to cost. I don't know. You don't know. No one knows. And people who support

00:14:36.660 Bernie Sanders just don't care. Why? Because again, leftism is good for making people angry. Leftism is

00:14:43.260 good for saying, yeah, we need change. Stick it to the man. We should eat the rich. Billionaires are the

00:14:49.380 problem. It's really good at pointing out perceived problems. What it actually is doing is just building

00:14:55.320 resentment towards people that you feel are more privileged than you. It's really good at pitting

00:15:00.380 people against each other. It's really good at fostering tribalism. It's really good at creating

00:15:04.600 class warfare and things like that. It's not actually good at solving problems. So it can point

00:15:09.500 out problems. It can get people angry about problems, but leftism, uh, just as an ideology

00:15:14.980 doesn't function as, uh, a governing ideology. It just, it just doesn't. And that's why people who

00:15:22.900 support it, who are leftists are okay with Bernie Sanders, not actually having a plan, just being

00:15:28.080 able to yell at the sky, like he's done for the past a hundred years that he's been in the Senate

00:15:32.900 to yell at the sky and just say, this is a problem. These people are the reason why you haven't been

00:15:38.220 able to get ahead. These people are the reason why you're not privileged. These people are the reason

00:15:42.060 why you keep failing. That makes people feel good who do feel like they have been trampled on, who do

00:15:48.420 feel like they've been taken advantage of. Those are real feelings. And some people actually have

00:15:52.620 people who feel like they have been oppressed and some people actually have been oppressed.

00:15:56.680 Some people feel like they've been oppressed who haven't been oppressed, but those who feel like

00:15:59.940 they've gotten a bad hand in life for someone to identify like Bernie Sanders to identify, uh,

00:16:06.340 you know, this boogeyman, the rich, the billionaire, the corporatist that has, uh, stepped on your back.

00:16:12.820 That makes you feel good. And you feel like someone like Bernie Sanders is going to fight for you.

00:16:16.380 Well, let me break it to you. Bernie Sanders has never fully accomplished. He's never actually

00:16:21.080 accomplished anything in his life except for becoming a millionaire while being a so-called

00:16:25.740 public servant. And if you go back to some old videos that he has said that he's fighting for

00:16:30.880 the working person, he will say that millionaires are the reason for all of your problems. Well,

00:16:36.500 now guess what? Bernie Sanders himself is a millionaire. So now what is it? It's billionaires

00:16:41.480 are the problem, but what has he actually ever done to fight for the people that he's

00:16:46.220 that he's fighting for besides get rich himself? Uh, what has he actually accomplished? Yes. Joe

00:16:52.400 Rogan, for example, said that he was going to, uh, he was probably going to vote for Bernie because

00:16:57.760 Bernie has been consistent. Well, consistency in itself is not a virtue. Consistency alone is not

00:17:06.360 a virtue. You can be consistently dumb. You can be consistently deranged. You can be consistently

00:17:11.560 wrong. And consistently wrong is what Bernie Sanders has been the entirety of his career. So

00:17:17.080 him being consistent, consistently wrong about the virtues of socialism isn't something that we

00:17:23.460 should applaud. Isn't something that we should say, yeah, I'm going to vote for him because he's

00:17:26.940 been consistent. Yeah. He's been consistent in a bad way. That is not virtuous. That's not something

00:17:32.180 that's honorable. That's certainly not a reason, uh, to vote for someone. So this is the person

00:17:38.460 that in my opinion, it's probably going to win the nomination is probably going to be the nominee.

00:17:45.460 It's going to be a really interesting, right? Bernie Sanders, uh, versus Donald Trump. Like they really

00:17:51.200 are the counterparts for each other. Like you see why you see why they're against one another. They are

00:17:59.340 both, um, anti-establishment, or at least they purport to be anti-establishment. They,

00:18:04.800 both of them are populous in a way, or their rhetoric is populous. Like they claim to be

00:18:10.620 fighting for the regular guy, for the working man. They claim to want to put power in the hands of the

00:18:16.320 people. Like they claim to be the people on their own respective sides who see the workers and see the

00:18:23.220 common folk that everyone else that the elites are ignoring. They both claim to be that, which is

00:18:28.640 also funny in this day and age that, uh, in a time where the left, the woke are emphasizing diversity

00:18:36.600 and emphasizing, uh, identity politics. Like we've got two very rich white guys, probably whether it's

00:18:44.280 Biden or whether it is, uh, Bernie Sanders, we're still going to have two rich white guys, which I

00:18:49.800 don't care about, but we're told we have to care about competing and telling everyone, Oh no, I get your

00:18:55.080 problems. And I do believe that you can be empathetic no matter what your gender is and no matter what

00:19:00.960 your skin color is, but the left, the woke left tells us, no, no, no, no, you can't. And yet here

00:19:05.700 we are with a completely undiverse, according to the leftist standards field, uh, on the democratic

00:19:11.940 side. And obviously according to them on the Republican side as well. Uh, so it'll be interesting.

00:19:17.260 It'll be an interesting showdown. Ultimately are Americans ready for socialism? I don't think so.

00:19:22.860 So you've even got people on MSNBC saying that Bernie Sanders is going to be dangerous for the

00:19:27.100 country, but if he is the nominee, they'll, they'll rally behind him. What's going to happen

00:19:31.980 is that in the same way that Trump is surrounded by an administration who has really the people

00:19:37.440 around Trump are the people who have been pushing the policies that conservatives like. And I think

00:19:41.720 the same will be true for Bernie Sanders, uh, that he's going to be surrounded by people that are going

00:19:47.780 to direct him, uh, in whatever direction, probably the establishment Democrats want him to go in.

00:19:54.440 So it'll all be very interesting, but it's happening. It's starting Iowa caucus today.

00:20:00.520 Uh, there's going to be so much to talk about again. I've said this so many times, but I can't

00:20:04.980 believe, I can't believe that it's already here. Like I remember so distinctly 2015, 2016 and watching

00:20:12.260 all of those debates. And I remember my husband waking me up at like 3 AM on election night saying

00:20:18.020 Trump won and me not being able to believe it. And every day since then Democrats have said they

00:20:22.860 are going to impeach him. And here we are. And of course, that's the reason why people aren't really

00:20:27.260 paying attention. Okay. Now we're going to shift into a part of what we would typically do on theology

00:20:33.900 Monday. Well, actually let me say something that'll help us transition, uh, help us transition.

00:20:40.120 So I read this article that is, that was from AP news. The Democrats are trying to court the

00:20:46.620 evangelical vote. And we kind of touched on this a little bit earlier in the episode. Uh, but, uh,

00:20:52.540 they are trying to court the evangelical vote. We've heard Pete Buttigieg say a lot, you know,

00:20:57.140 I don't understand how you can be a Christian and be a Republican or at least vote for Donald Trump.

00:21:01.720 And so there are some Christians, I think, just to be honest, that would vote for someone like Joe Biden,

00:21:06.960 maybe progressive Christians, uh, self-proclaimed progressive Christians would probably vote for,

00:21:13.460 uh, Pete Buttigieg. I would guess, but again, this abortion issue, and I think socialism in general

00:21:22.100 is such a turnoff for most evangelicals. Like we already established, most evangelicals vote for

00:21:27.760 Donald Trump. Most white evangelicals specifically are voting for Donald Trump. But I just don't think

00:21:32.860 with the current democratic platform that that is going to change. So this AP news analysis,

00:21:38.100 while I think it's interesting and while I appreciated listening or reading it, I don't

00:21:42.400 think is, uh, I don't think it's going to go in that direction. I think that we are pretty much

00:21:48.860 unconvincible as of now. There's, I mean, I just don't see how we can read and believe our Bibles

00:21:54.980 and turn to the left and say, yeah, I can, I can vote for that platform. Now you would probably

00:22:01.040 be able to convince an evangelical Christian not to vote for Donald Trump. And I can listen to those

00:22:05.280 arguments. I'm sympathetic to those arguments. Someone who says they're not going to vote for

00:22:09.080 either candidate or they're not going to vote. Do I think you should exercise your right to vote?

00:22:12.940 Absolutely. Uh, but you might be able to convince an evangelical Christian not to vote for Trump,

00:22:17.320 but to vote for a Democrat, someone who reads and believes in their Bible as the inerrant word of

00:22:23.300 God, that's going to be very difficult, very difficult to get them on board with that. So now speaking

00:22:30.680 of Christians, uh, maybe that was a little bit of a smooth transition. Not really. We're going to

00:22:37.560 talk about Philippians, uh, 413 and how this is misused and what it actually means. And, um, I

00:22:42.980 don't know if I'm going to actually have time to get into questions today, but if I have one to take

00:22:47.260 from Instagram, then I will try to do that. Okay. Let us get into this most misused because you guys,

00:22:54.400 I really liked this segment and I saw a couple of comments on YouTube saying, Hey, like I really

00:22:59.360 liked theology Mondays and I don't want you to stop doing theology Mondays. And like I said,

00:23:03.940 if I get enough of that feedback, we can go back. But my goal is someone surmised that the reason why

00:23:10.700 I'm doing that is because I'm being tempted to not speak unpopular biblical truth. And that is

00:23:15.580 totally not the reason at all. My goal is to offer as much value to you guys as possible. So

00:23:20.680 that every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, like you feel like you are abreast on the things that are

00:23:26.080 happening, but also that you're getting a biblical encouragement and that you are, uh, getting to,

00:23:32.720 that your worldview is being shaped by a Christian perspective, not just on the news, uh, in politics,

00:23:40.460 but also on cultural lies that we are hearing, whether it's about a specific Bible verse or about

00:23:45.780 self-love or something like that. So my goal is not to take away any value. It's to add value to your

00:23:51.740 life. But as always, I'm sensitive to you guys's comments. I always try to do what is in your best

00:23:58.260 interest and what you guys like. So, uh, continue to send me that, that feedback. And one of you guys,

00:24:04.860 I also saw on YouTube asked where you can send questions. You can, uh, sometimes I read my YouTube

00:24:10.880 comments, but not that often. You can ask a question there, or you can send it to me via Instagram.

00:24:17.420 Uh, you can also email me as well. That is a good way to do it. Okay. Philippians 4.13. Most of you

00:24:23.760 who are raised in the church know this verse. If you don't, don't worry about it. And if you weren't

00:24:27.520 raised in the church, no worries if you don't know what this is. But if you were raised, especially in

00:24:32.880 the evangelical church, if you went to a Christian school, if you played on like a Christian soccer

00:24:36.780 team, you know, Philippians 4.13. And that is, I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

00:24:42.120 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Another, another version I use ESV,

00:24:47.080 but another version might say I can do all things through, uh, him who gives me strength. So this is

00:24:52.920 a verse typically used, uh, by athletes. I would say that's the content before a game. It is, uh, used

00:25:00.380 maybe to say like, I'm going to make this amount of money. I'm going to achieve this goal. I'm going

00:25:04.520 to get the job that I want to get. I'm going to win the competition that I want to win. Uh, I'm going

00:25:08.940 to lift this weight that I want to lift. Uh, it has become the biblical way of saying whatever I put

00:25:15.400 my mind to, I can do. And this is not new. This verse has been used like this for, I mean, my entire

00:25:21.640 life. I remember as a child, uh, you know, using this in a context of sports or something like that,

00:25:28.540 but let's look at the actual context, uh, context of this verse. So Paul is speaking in this, uh,

00:25:35.860 passage or not just in this passage, but in this book of the Bible to the church at Philippi,

00:25:39.800 thanking them in this chapter for being concerned for him, sending him gifts to help meet his needs.

00:25:45.720 And so he says in 4, 11 through 13, Philippians 4, 11 through 13, not that I'm speaking of being in

00:25:53.480 need for, I have learned to whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low and I

00:25:58.540 know how to abound in any and every circumstance. He says, I have learned the secret of facing plenty

00:26:04.860 and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who gives me strength. I love

00:26:09.400 that. I've learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger. Isn't that what we're all looking for?

00:26:13.540 Isn't that what everyone is looking for by the way, in all of these, uh, self-help, uh, books or in a

00:26:19.260 lot of them, like how do we be content? How do we be at peace? How can we be okay through trials?

00:26:25.080 And Paul says, I have learned the secrets and being content in all of these situations. I can do

00:26:31.240 all things through Christ who strengthens me. So what Paul is speaking of here is the ability to

00:26:35.560 be sustained by Jesus Christ, by the Holy spirit through adversity. He is speaking of contentment.

00:26:41.440 He is seeing, he is saying that whatever befalls me, whatever I go through, whatever

00:26:45.680 circumstance I find myself in, whether I have everything or nothing, I can endure. I am going

00:26:51.760 to be ultimately okay because Christ is my sustenance. Yes. Uh, so God may give us the talent

00:26:59.060 to play soccer. Well, he might give us the ability and, uh, the physical capability to

00:27:06.520 lift a weight or to finish a marathon. But this verse is not about Philippians 4, 13 is not about

00:27:13.380 God promising that he will, uh, help you meet your definitions of success. That is not what

00:27:18.880 Philippians 4, 13 is about the interpretation of this verse that, uh, that takes it to mean that

00:27:23.880 Jesus will carry us onto whatever task we set our mind to views him not as God, but as a genie.

00:27:31.200 So let me repeat that the interpretation, the traditional interpretation of this verse

00:27:35.560 that takes it to mean that Jesus will carry you onto whatever task you set your mind to, uh,

00:27:42.480 views him not as God, but as a genie. This is the same kind of point that we were making when we

00:27:46.780 talked about Psalm 37, four. Uh, remember the question that we always ask ourselves that we talk

00:27:51.700 about on this podcast a lot. Remember the question we always ask ourselves when we are looking at the

00:27:55.580 Bible. Does my interpretation of this verse or passage glorify me or does it glorify God? Does

00:28:01.800 it make me the heroine or does it make God the hero? Am I placing myself at the center of this

00:28:07.680 narrative or am I placing Jesus at the center of this narrative who belongs by the way at the center

00:28:12.760 of the biblical narrative always and unconditionally? Uh, if your interpretation, if your theology,

00:28:18.880 if any of our theology is focused on us, uh, God doing things for us, uh, God being our wingman,

00:28:26.460 God being our genie, then there is a serious shift in our thinking that we have to do that is required

00:28:33.260 of us. Um, it is easy to take this verse to mean that God is our fuel and that we're at the steering

00:28:39.460 wheel. So we're driving the car. God is the fuel. We get to decide which way we're going to,

00:28:43.980 which way we're going to go. We get to decide, uh, our direction, but that is not the reality of

00:28:50.040 our relationship, uh, with God. If we are submitting to him as the Lord of our lives,

00:28:56.320 the reality is, uh, for Christians, God is driving the car. Like he is the map. He is the fuel. He is

00:29:03.320 the car. He is all of it. Uh, he is the one that is deciding where we go, how fast we go. He is the one

00:29:10.120 that is in control of our lives. Uh, so the point of this verse, Philippians 4, 13 is not that God is

00:29:16.040 going to help us score that goal or get that promotion or whatever it is we set our minds to.

00:29:21.400 Not that these are always bad goals, by the way, but that's not what this verse is about. Uh, the

00:29:26.200 point is much better and much bigger than that. So when we shift ourselves out of the center of this,

00:29:31.460 when we stop making God genie and start recognizing him as God, and we place him where he belongs,

00:29:36.300 or we recognize where he actually is in the center of the biblical narrative, the reality of this verse

00:29:41.620 is that it means that Christ is so faithful, that Christ is so sufficient, that he is so near to us.

00:29:47.920 He is so enough for us that no matter what we have or don't have, no matter what we go through

00:29:53.400 in this life, we can get through it. And not only that, but we can be content through it.

00:29:57.880 Like not just we're miserable through it, not just we're complaining through it, but we can be

00:30:01.240 content through it. Uh, we can go on, we can move forward and we can even have joy in that.

00:30:06.480 Uh, so that is what this verse means. And as always, it is so much better than our very trivial

00:30:12.240 and than our very self-centered interpretations of this. I mean, an amazing thing happens when we

00:30:19.000 go to scripture to look for the glory of God, when we go to scripture to see how God glorifies himself,

00:30:25.100 when we go to scripture and we say, what can we learn about God? That doesn't mean that there's no

00:30:29.040 practical application for us. That doesn't mean that we don't see ourselves at all in the biblical

00:30:32.820 narrative. That doesn't mean that we, uh, aren't looking to God to say, uh, okay, what are you

00:30:40.340 commanding of me or doing for me in this particular passage or in this particular verse? Uh, because

00:30:46.060 obviously we have a lot to do with the Bible and it, uh, has a very serious implication for our lives,

00:30:53.640 but when we go to the Bible to seek God, rather to seek ourselves, uh, we will find truth. And when

00:31:01.980 we place ourselves in the center of the narrative, it is very hard to find actual biblical,

00:31:08.360 sanctifying truth. Okay. That is all I have time for today. I'm sorry that I don't have time for

00:31:13.940 more questions. Sometimes it's just really hard to fit it in. And I want to make sure that this,

00:31:18.420 the length of this podcast is, is something that is working for you guys. Thank you so much

00:31:23.500 for listening. We will be back here on Wednesday.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - February 03, 2020

Ep 208 ｜ Bernie vs. Trump

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