00:15:59.860So you see that connection of what we're talking about, that you've got to be able to rule
00:16:03.500yourself before you could ever rule a nation.
00:16:06.260Yeah. If you see on our podcast graphic, you'll notice two Latin phrases that really serve as foundation stones, just as directions, mottos, things that are sitting under our feet we're always trying to stand on top of.
00:16:21.300And one of them is this Latin phrase, vincit qui se vincit, which literally means he conquers who conquers himself. And it's just, I think, one of the best brief encapsulations of this whole idea that right now is raging through like Jordan Peterson popular culture.
00:16:41.820I think a lot of people are starting to see this, that in all of the governments that God has built into the world, you can't rule any of them well.
00:16:50.440You won't see good fruit unless at the beginning you have the government of self in order, right?
00:16:56.020The government of family, the government of church, the government of state, things that we're going to talk quite a bit about and probably critique and criticize and hash out different disputes and controversies within these different governments that are happening in the world or in the world.
00:17:11.820world of the church and culture. And a lot of the, we're going to bring critiques, but all of them
00:17:18.180are going to be built on from the ground up, unless you have men who are born again, who have
00:17:24.080new hearts, who have the spirit of God in those new hearts, and therefore are able to master their
00:17:29.780own spirits. You can't have health, fruit, legacy in any of those governments, unless you have those
00:17:39.100kind of men there. And so, you know, foundationally, though we'll be taking up a wide range of topics
00:17:44.320in the podcast, that should always be under our feet, that what we're not aiming for is the
00:17:50.580rearrangement of dead things, right? Like, I like, again, we're going to, I'm going to quote Douglas
00:17:55.520Wilson again here, even though we opened with a Doug quote. Basically, we're just self-sorting
00:18:00.540all of our listeners right here by quoting Douglas Wilson twice. He says, without the new, this is in
00:18:05.060his book against the church, he said, without the new birth, all the doctrinal and liturgical work
00:18:09.800in the world is just the reorganization of dead materials instead of what is described in the
00:18:16.020Bible as being, which is the organization and discipleship of living materials. So if you're
00:18:22.780not a self-ruled man, the only other thing you can be is a man who is ruled by some pantheon of
00:18:27.280various demonic idols, your own lusts, your own flesh from the ground up that just won't do.
00:18:34.120Yeah, and I think it's a really good point because so often what happens is when we talk
00:18:38.380about transforming the culture, people think, oh, so you're going to round up non-Christians
00:18:43.480and put them in jail or something like this, and we're going to preach the gospel.
00:19:40.040And so he'll go on elsewhere to say that really self-rule fundamentally means obeying God's law from the heart.
00:19:47.700So that for us is when we talk about cultural transformation, that's at the heart of it.
00:19:51.820Right. We're not talking about a man who is autonomous from God, who has seized the throne of heaven and is a self-ruled man.
00:20:00.300Absolutely not. We're talking about a man. The only possible way that a creature can properly rule himself is to be at peace with how God made him to relate to God. That's his glory. If a creature attempts to ascend to the throne of heaven and dethrone him and sit there, he's not a self-ruled man.
00:20:20.880he's actually satan he's satan and he he'll find that even if he has the illusion of being
00:20:27.280in charge man he finds out really quick by the end of the day when the man comes around
00:20:31.420that illusion will be evaporating oh quickly like like a little drop of water on a hot frying pan
00:20:38.300it's just gone there will be no illusion when he appears before the lord i think that's huge you
00:20:43.560know you know we'll get into this a lot more in detail as we go forward but i was teaching the
00:20:48.100kids in chapel the other day from the book of james and the warning that he offers and and this
00:20:53.520is happening in churches because the streams of culture flow out of the sanctuary he says uh be
00:21:00.220ware lest you're just hearers of the word and not doers and there's this antinomian spirit
00:21:05.460throughout the church where it's hands off like don't don't tell anybody what to do and a lot of
00:21:12.400that is from the culture that we have in the united states i think in western culture but but
00:21:17.360But that's really interesting that in the churches, even from the pulpits, there is this de-emphasizing of being self-ruled and just hearing the word and not actually doing it.
00:21:30.960Not that I'm saying you're justified by your works or any such nonsense like that, but only through justification can you obey.
00:21:39.060And so be saved, come to the Lord Jesus, come and eat freely.
00:21:43.280And now you're no longer a slave to sin.
00:21:45.460you are now a slave to righteousness and you are free to do these things come be knighted come get
00:21:51.160your sword come get your armor so that you can actually do anything useful so you're not a don
00:21:55.400quixote you know running around tilting at windmill windmills or whatever his name is and
00:21:59.780is it non quixote it is main character yeah you you got it i got it dan's reading it's not
00:22:04.420quixote yeah no i'm sorry i just nailed that test yeah man it it reminds me though also of just the
00:22:11.440way our culture we've trained people to think which is um everything is systemic um right when
00:22:16.940something bad happens people are always like well this is really about us as a society it's the
00:22:21.880system everybody it has to be systemic in their worldview um and i'm not saying that certain
00:22:27.960things aren't like culturally pervasive but the reality is scripture calls you to take responsibility
00:22:33.260of your own life that's right and and then move in concentric circles outside of that so that then
00:22:39.600you're going to household, you're going to community, and then you're going to government.
00:22:44.060So really, if we have a society with terrible government at the civil level, it's really
00:22:49.820because we probably have had it at the personal level. There's one verse I want to ask Dan about
00:22:54.400because I hear him talk about it all the time. Oh boy. Yeah. Pop quiz, Dan, you didn't know this
00:22:59.060was coming. Proverbs 25, 28, a man without self-control is like a city broken into and left
00:23:04.940without walls. So, Pastor Dan, what does this mean? And especially for men, why is it so important
00:23:10.220that we have self-control, i.e. walls? Yeah, especially, well, for any Christian, any person,
00:23:17.320it's amplified with men because of the realm of responsibility that men have versus women.
00:23:22.940But essentially what this verse is saying is that this person who is personified in this city,
00:23:28.860a city that has no walls is easily overcome if you look at the ancient world cities were a spot
00:23:37.460of safety for multiple reasons it's easily defensible first of all that's why the walls
00:23:42.500but also it wasn't just armies that would attack they also had their goods there's food storage
00:23:48.600and things like that in inside this city and so this city that didn't have walls was indefensible
00:23:56.280anything that came up against it whether it be a band of robbers or an entire army it would fall
00:24:03.680and so like a man without self-rule uh any and or self-control anything that comes up against it is
00:24:12.160going to knock it over yeah it's going to knock it over so going back to joseph if he had no
00:24:18.460self-control and potiphar's wife tries to seduce him he falls easy end of story game over he could
00:24:24.200be bitter against his brothers you know there's there's you could see at any point why this
00:24:29.420proverb is so apt instead the man with self-control is like a city with walls that it's really hard
00:24:37.880to penetrate yeah it reminds me of a proverb that's not in scriptures it says fear the wrath
00:24:43.200of a quiet man it's similar like that's why i'm afraid of you dan that's right wow thank you
00:24:49.860I strike fear in my friends and enemies, I guess. And so that is why it's important to have this
00:24:57.460self-rule because it's really hard to penetrate. Yeah. And even if you think about it, you're
00:25:03.220easily plundered and you're also easily manipulated. You're going to be dragged around by every alpha
00:25:08.000guru and strong leader. You're going to be tossed to and fro by everybody who has confidence and
00:25:14.560can every snake oil salesman, which is yet another reason why when we're thinking about
00:25:20.300approaching all sorts of cultural issues and teaching on them and discussing them and taking
00:25:23.900them apart and putting them back together, it's so important that we right from the get-go point
00:25:29.400out that there's a type of man, particularly a type of young man, who is puffed up with knowledge
00:25:35.280and he's not actually self-ruled. He doesn't have real mastery, but he's puffed up with knowledge.
00:25:40.080And so what he ends up doing is just he's manipulated by all sorts of other teachers and then he just starts throwing rocks at everybody. And he's just like on continual screeds online, criticizing everybody, tearing everybody down. But he hasn't actually ruled himself well, produced fruit that you would look at and say, yeah, I should imitate that guy.
00:26:00.080And so it's really important when we're doing the kind of work in this podcast that we're aiming to do in bringing criticism of culture and systems and leaders and all sorts of things and offering better ways that we start from the beginning by saying, it's not enough just to know things in your head.
00:26:18.320You actually have to rule your own spirit well, and really that brings us to the second part of this saying that we're not just making self-ruled men, but we're making self-ruled men who rule well.
00:26:34.300Well, pardon the interruption, and I'll get right to the point here.
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00:27:19.980Well, thanks, guys, and back to the show.
00:27:23.100So if the trunk of the tree is the self-ruled man, the branches are going to spread out in all sorts of directions from there.
00:27:31.100Basically asking the question, what does a godly self-ruled man do?
00:27:35.260right well he he makes things he sells things he builds houses he marries a woman he makes
00:27:40.940but kids he disciples those kids he starts businesses in schools and homeschool co-ops and
00:27:46.700he begins a legacy that's going to reach well past his death he might go fight wars he might
00:27:52.400write books he might make music he might farm livestock or make grow crops he might make things
00:27:58.740out of wood or even silicon chips and you know the digital economy and so what we're getting at
00:28:05.160is that when we say that we're aiming in this podcast to make self-ruled men, we're not saying
00:28:09.380that this is just a podcast about masculinity. It's a lot bigger than that, right? And hopefully
00:28:15.880you'll see that by the end of this first episode here is that we're aiming to take up as self-ruled
00:28:22.940men, a far ranging swath of topics and issues that are all strung together and built on that
00:28:30.380self-ruled, spirit-ruled man. But ultimately, what we're talking about are godly kings who
00:28:36.500are ruled by the king who can go out into every area of life and rule well there and rule well
00:28:43.940basically right where the Lord has deployed that, everybody listening, right where the Lord has
00:28:49.500deployed you. We want this podcast to help in whatever small or big way to help you rule well
00:28:56.060right there. So when we talk about ruling well, we're really talking about men being Christians
00:29:02.620everywhere they go, right? Bringing a maximalist Christian faith into every corner of life
00:29:08.900and culture building there and that sort of thing. So question for you guys,
00:29:13.540what is the vision for Christian culture that we're bringing in this podcast? If you were to
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00:30:00.540Yeah, I think one of the initial things is, you know, we talk about a lot is all of Christ for
00:30:05.740all of life. Really taking this concept of God's law, God's word is the reflection
00:30:11.160of how the universe is structured metaphysically.
00:30:15.540And so when we talk about, you know, patriarchy
00:38:31.700shows us just relentlessly in the Old and New Testament,
00:38:34.440these themes that just absolutely permeate the scriptures,
00:38:38.640are things like my people, when they're called by my name, when they worship me, and when they
00:38:43.340obey me, and when they follow, when my law is a lamp unto their feet, and when they eat my words
00:38:50.400like food, then they will not be the tail. They will be the head. They will not be the tail. They
00:38:55.240will not be wagged by the nations and by the pagans. In fact, actually, by the time I'm done,
00:39:01.420the nations are going to be streaming to you, to the holy mountain of God. They're going to be
00:39:06.920coming to you and they're going to be saying, teach us. Is that the church you see right now?
00:39:12.940Largely? No. We see a church that's actually like, we should be the tail though.
00:39:18.220Like we want to be, we want to be the tail. Make us, wag us harder nations. Yeah. And
00:39:25.060I'm getting worked up, but the thing that I think that does is it forces you. This is like
00:39:32.880the not to offend all my amillennial brothers but it just forces you to do violence to the
00:39:38.860old testament texts and promises and spiritualize them until they are fundamentally meaningless and
00:39:43.780with respect to their grammar yeah and so you're like we are victorious right now the nations are
00:39:49.980streaming to us spiritually and you're like well yeah but but is man spirit or is man embodied
00:39:57.120spirit it almost to me it always felt like a jesus juke yeah you know where it's like well
00:40:02.400yeah you will conquer spiritually yeah it's like okay finish this all right ned flanders
00:40:08.460before i sign up yeah finish this sentence exactly so i think really that brings us to
00:40:13.980some of the cultural the views of cultural engagement that we reject on the on that
00:40:19.640foundation what are some of the ways that we've been taught to engage culture that we would say
00:40:25.860not only is that not you know some people would say well there's some good tools on your tool
00:40:31.200belt. And we're like, no, that's actually not even a good tool in your tool belt at all. Get rid of
00:40:34.760that tool. We shouldn't be approaching things that way. Yeah, I think it's interesting because
00:40:40.460there's some positions that we'll talk about, whether it's radical two kingdoms or you've
00:40:45.700mentioned all mill. There's some topics that have names like that. But then there's other
00:40:51.700approaches that I think are at least equally as prevalent. And I talk about them a lot, but like
00:40:57.540the gospel coalition would be one of them. Um, one of the things that I have people say to me a
00:41:02.580lot and it's related to them is what, you know, brother, what about your cultural capital? I heard
00:41:08.480somebody today on Twitter, uh, they were saying to me, they said, you know, you're, you're supporting
00:41:12.760patriarchy and I'm just not sure that you're aware of how patriarchy is impacting your witness.
00:41:19.180And it was actually a really helpful comment because it made me think about, well, my form
00:41:24.000of cultural engagement. At the core of my cultural engagement is the question, is it true? Is it
00:41:32.040biblically true? And if it's biblically true, then I'm going to proclaim that. I'm going to act like
00:41:37.520it's true. That's why patriarchy, that's why a number of things that we do. But again, it's
00:41:43.320helpful to see that the TGC crowd, mainline evangelicalism, I think a lot of them would
00:41:48.180call themselves probably just new covenant theology. They're not really sure what that
00:41:52.400means. It's pretty watered down. But the cultural engagement is basically like, let's find neutral
00:41:57.760ground with the culture. Let's try to prove to them how cool we are. And we need to improve our
00:42:02.640witness, which means when Russell Moore goes to David French's book club, he wants David to think
00:42:07.860he's cool. And it's like you just end up whittling down slowly like, well, it would hurt our cultural
00:42:12.980capital. We'd have to make too big of a withdrawal from the bank account to talk about patriarchy or
00:42:17.340anthropology or human sexuality or any other number of topics that they really hate today.
00:42:22.820Right. So we're just going to focus on the core things where we have some overlap and we're in
00:42:26.900the really important things like being forgiven of your sin. And is that really important?
00:42:31.840It just slowly erodes though. But yeah, you end up basically you've given up all you said,
00:42:37.140that's not a hill worth dying on. That's not a hill worth dying on. That's not a hill worth
00:42:41.060dying on. And pretty soon you actually just, you're on their hill. Yeah. And you don't have
00:42:46.360a hill to defend anymore you're just on there you're on babel you're on babel the tower with
00:42:51.060them and you're in the club but you're not salt you're not light you're not bringing any kind of
00:42:57.640distinct christian witness that would confront their specific idolatries and their specific
00:43:03.740the sins with names attached to it yes you're talking about being the tail being wagged and
00:43:08.900that's that's the example of it you have what is called the permissible narrative and you see this
00:43:14.740in politics, you see this, like this is a permissible narrative. That is not a permissible
00:43:19.160narrative. Yeah. Whoa. And so the, the idea of like, well, I'm going to have a seat at the
00:43:24.100pagans table and I'm going to try to keep it. It's like, well, if you find yourself sitting
00:43:28.000at certain tables, you want to make sure that you're not invited back and that you proclaim
00:43:32.300the Lord Jesus. We need a lot more John the Baptist and a lot less of the TGC. Eric gets
00:43:38.220this all the time. Like, you know, in the, in the DMS, Eric, you know, brother, I really love what
00:43:42.180you're doing. I can't retweet anything you say, mind you, because I would immediately be fired
00:43:46.400or disowned by my entire friend group. But I secretly really agree with you. Eric gets it
00:43:51.680all the time. Oh, it's totally true. And I think it really gets to some of the things we're not.
00:43:56.260We're not winsome. Wait, we're not? No. I'm sorry, Brian. I'm going to have to make some calls.
00:44:03.020I'm making calls. We're not winsome. We're not nuanced. It's not a strategy of cultural
00:44:08.600appeasement um you know one of the other things i'll say is recently re-listening i'm a glutton
00:44:14.680for punishment so i was listening to the second time uh christianity today's rise and fall of
00:44:20.320mars hill church wow you should get a medal yeah yeah i basically should red badge of courage
00:44:25.700basically for taking that beat down from the feminists and josh harris and all the apostates
00:44:31.020but it's interesting as i was listening to that i was thinking kind of the core of all of it for
00:44:36.460this, you know, big, fast, and famous model, whether you're Mark Driscoll or, ironically,
00:44:40.880CT, they're really doing the same thing. What you have to do is what Dan's talking about. You have
00:44:46.220to go the Overton window approach. Yeah. Well, what's the acceptable range of discourse? Let's
00:44:51.280stick with that. And then, again, vis-a-vis Tim Keller, let's talk in language that the culture
00:44:56.580can handle. It really gets down to pragmatism versus, I think, bold proclamation of truth.
00:45:03.840So one of the other things that we'll unpack, and correct me if I'm wrong here, if we believe, as we do, that part of our strategy has to be poking the idols in the eye, we're just accepting from the beginning that our strategy of cultural engagement is going to be offensive, and it's sometimes going to lead to people not liking us.
00:45:23.580yeah i think it so we're our goal is to follow in the footsteps of the lord jesus who is our king
00:45:30.520and he went out of his way to poke in the eye the idols of his day yeah the pharisees he would
00:45:38.820the number of times he was accused of breaking the sabbath of being a glutton and a drunkard
00:45:44.960associating with the wrong sorts of people and he's essentially like oh yeah well watch i'm
00:45:50.300going to do even harder. I'm not even going to wash my hands when I eat and I'm going to dip my
00:45:55.180hand in the bowl with you. I'm going to heal someone on the Sabbath. Yeah. He was double
00:45:59.240dipping. I know they're watching. Yeah. No kidding. Yeah. I mean, so that that's the strategy
00:46:03.960that the Lord Jesus took. And I think that's okay. And, and you can kind of get a barometer
00:46:07.720for this based on who these big Eva types are, what they're talking about and who they're talking
00:46:13.260about, who they prop up as a, as a good example and, and who they'll avoid just based on that
00:46:19.820tweet that we had discussed from brian where he said something very boring and orthodox that at
00:46:25.680any point in christian history you'd go yes and amen why are you talking this is really boring
00:46:30.880yeah and now everybody's just like explodes and then you have extremely nuanced pieces from
00:46:36.260certain prominent uh uh female uh persons in in the big evil world saying that they've thought
00:46:45.220deeply about this and how immodest it is to talk about immodesty and let me redefine the entire
00:46:50.600concept of modesty and really what they're trying to do i think when you break it all down they're
00:46:55.660trying to distance themselves from us so that they can close the distance between the elites
00:47:01.180right who happen to be let's face it there's more of you know right now in america they're popular
00:47:06.460um so you can have a lot more of those i think it's also helpful correct me if i'm wrong like
00:47:11.360just to let people know, this is sort of my MO, but we're talking about being post-mill, correct?
00:47:17.460Right. And we were, it's even, we're going to get there in the outline. Let's do it right now.
00:47:22.580Because one of the questions I think is important for us to answer is that, okay, we're talking
00:47:27.120about making self-ruled men who rule well everywhere they go. We're going to be talking
00:47:30.120about culture, vocation, business, the church, just economics, all kinds of areas, education.
00:47:36.280And so you really need to ask though, are we optimistic or pessimistic about the future of
00:47:41.080the church. Because if we're very pessimistic about it, then we shouldn't be building cathedrals,
00:47:47.860we should be building bunkers. So which is it? Are we optimistic or are we pessimistic?
00:47:53.440Yeah, I would say we're definitely optimistic in the face of everything. This is sort of what
00:47:58.520cultural engagement faith looks like, is looking at the world and seeing there's a lot of problems,
00:48:04.560but we trust in the promise of Jesus. We know that the glory of the Lord is going to fill the
00:48:08.620earth from sea to sea from coast to coast everywhere you go um and i i would say this
00:48:13.380is kind of the crux of the issue particularly we'll dig into this but between rod drear's book
00:48:19.360the the benedict option and what we're espousing um rod is actually not the retreatist i think
00:48:26.680people criticize him for being right but what he definitely is is pessimistic about the future of
00:48:31.480the church yeah um i and that would actually be my rub with uh his book um there's a lot of good
00:48:38.060stuff there. But the real rub is he just doesn't think we're going to win. So that has been the
00:48:43.600cultural catalyst in my own heart for 20 years now. How can we believe that we're going to just
00:48:50.240lose and slowly get our butts kicked and expect anybody, Dan, to be excited about that mission?
00:48:56.660Yeah, I am shocked now that I've come around to this post-millennial theology at the loser
00:49:04.860mindset that I was just discipled in that essentially it was like, Hey, go out, be a
00:49:12.280Christian, uh, and you're going to lose. And eventually there's just going to be a remnant
00:49:17.880of the church and then just hold on brother for the, for the rapture or for whatever it is.
00:49:24.240When culture gets worse, you're actually celebrating because you think, well, that
00:49:27.040means Jesus is almost back. Yeah. The end is near. Why would you, why would you spend a whole
00:49:31.240lot of time and energy doing something like, I don't know, starting a Christian school,
00:49:36.540you know, where you're, where you're used to time. Yeah. Why would you do that? You don't expect it
00:49:40.760to last past 10. And some dispensationalists have started Christian schools. I don't, I want to say
00:49:45.700like nobody has done anything good who's dispensational or had a pessimistic view.
00:49:51.240In fact, I think as an aside here, one of the things that's important to note is that when we
00:49:56.180talk about all of this, our strategy for cultural engagement, our optimism for the future of the
00:50:01.000church, that there will be another Christendom at some point in the future, is that we're not
00:50:08.560saying that you shouldn't let your reasonableness be known to all men. We're not saying that you
00:50:12.980should just be shock jocks. We're not saying any of that. What we're saying is that when you obey
00:50:18.540all of the scriptures, what will result is that you will be hated by a whole lot of people pretty
00:50:25.460regularly. If you just apply all of scripture to all of life, the whole scripture to the whole
00:50:29.840domain of human existence, and two, expect that to actually work, three, attacking the pagan gods
00:50:35.860because our God is putting them under his feet, then two things are going to happen. You're going
00:50:40.480to be hated and rejected and reviled and slandered, and your God is going to actually use that
00:50:46.020very thing to win. And both of those things are going to happen. At the same time, both of those
00:50:53.140things are going to happen. Really, the last part of this, we're already talking about it,
00:50:57.200let's bring it in here. We say that we're making self-ruled men who rule well. So that's every
00:51:00.760domain of human existence. Again, the whole of scripture to the whole domain of human existence.
00:51:06.840And then we're doing that, expecting that to actually work, attacking the pagan gods along
00:51:11.980the way because our God is putting them under his feet. And so we say that we're not just making
00:51:16.800self-ruled men to rule well, but who will rule well and actually win the world because we believe
00:51:23.940that that is actually the task that God has given us, that the mission of God is aimed at the
00:51:31.720winning of the world, that we would conquer and colonize and baptize and disciple the nations,
00:51:37.660that we would evangelize the nations, see all of the tribes and families of the earth turn to and
00:51:42.420worship the Lord. And so that's really the final piece that explains where we're pointing here,
00:51:48.300that you wouldn't be able to understand our project
00:51:51.360if you didn't understand that about us, right?
00:51:54.180That we're not just trying to rearrange
00:51:57.540a few deck chairs on the Titanic here.
00:52:42.740And then the next step out is the family. What is your family for? You're supposed to produce something in that. Primarily, it's going to be your main form of evangelism by having kids, which you will then weaponize to use against the enemy by making more self-ruled men and women that are fruitful and multiply and take dominion over all of the earth, whether that's being a carpenter or a plumber or a CEO or an accountant.
00:53:11.820and they're going to do it for the glory of God
00:55:00.420To learn how to be a virtuous man or a virtuous woman.
00:55:04.000And then as they grow up, they're going to get sent on sorties out, you know, out of the bunker to go, go, go get your, your sword, you know, go get some blood on your sword, come back and let's talk about how it went. Right. So, so really like when we, when we talk about offense, defense, retreat attack, it's not that we don't, you know, that we're going to say always attack or always offense, never defense, never retreat. You're going to win. You're going to lose every football game. If you don't play some defense, you can't just be like offense all the time.
00:55:34.000right in fact a lot of the the failings of evangelical culture are failings of defense
00:55:38.660just straightforward let's defend our children so so eric when when you're thinking through that
00:55:45.020dynamic and uh cultural engagement offense defense what comes to mind for you yeah i mean
00:55:51.380immediately i think of something that we would talk about in football um in high school and
00:55:56.540afterwards but really the three phases of the game so there's actually a third phase here
00:56:00.500which is special teams um so i think you know offense defense special teams typically to win
00:56:06.960a game you've got to manage all three phases um one of the things like the benedict option
00:56:11.720um they're really good at i think talking about some of the defensive strategies which are actually
00:56:16.120i i thought were really good in the book i learned a lot yeah yeah you know we we need to protect
00:56:21.140christian culture christian literature yeah and the benedict option just being like in defense of
00:56:26.120a monastery a monastery sort of model right yeah uh being a monk i think even that though is hard
00:56:31.800because people misunderstand what the monks were trying to do um they were actually trying to
00:56:36.140preserve christian culture right um it wasn't necessarily like pure retreatism yeah and all
00:56:41.120and they i mean if you look at like the um oh now it's it's less there was a famous uh monastery
00:56:47.180where they would they were amazing they they built fish farming systems that would sustainably grow
00:56:54.240fit like they it created this whole culture there it wasn't it wasn't pure retreat sorry to interrupt
00:56:59.660yeah no that's exactly right and then you have um you know more of what i think what we're trying
00:57:04.860to add to this is sort of the boniface option of like going out in the culture i'm sure we'll talk
00:57:09.380more about what that is but going out in the culture chopping down the idols i would argue
00:57:14.780in sort of a like you have to have a place to retreat recover rest train so that you can go
00:57:20.180back on the attack. I think the other thing that I would tend to point to in this cultural moment
00:57:24.740that I think a lot of people are missing is something of the Battle of Manassas in the
00:57:31.260Civil War with Stonewall Jackson. He really got this. Everybody's retreating from the battlefield.
00:57:37.240General B is retreating. And as everybody's fleeing from the Union Army, he looks out
00:57:41.880and the famous saying, he says, there stands Jackson like a stone wall.
00:57:45.340and he's in shock he's like what kind of maniacal man would stand in the middle of
00:57:53.280this cultural onslaught and he's actually attacking the enemy and it just struck me
00:57:59.560this is what god's people do this is what david and you know jonathan did this is what jonathan
00:58:04.540and his armored bearer did against the philistines um they went on the offensive when yeah when most
00:58:10.320people thought this is not the time to go on the Lord Jesus right facing down the hordes of demonic
00:58:16.020sin and death by himself on a cross right and so you would think like our culture even that within
00:58:22.540the church today would tell you no no no no no this is the time to retreat that's kind of they're
00:58:27.100they're playing the trumpets for retreat and and I think we have an actual real opportunity
00:58:32.820to be Stonewall Jackson in this moment this is why I've you know we've done the podcast I think
00:58:38.800is to say we could actually inspire some people to charge yeah to be like david he's not even a
00:58:46.220soldier he goes into battle and he's like who's this uncircumcised philistine come against the
00:58:50.820armies of the living god and then he goes out and slays the giant yeah with his own sword with yeah
00:58:56.820with his own with his own sword that's right that's right so i mean whether we we conquer by
00:59:03.120creating parallel institutions that ultimately defeat the pagan competitors or even retaking
00:59:09.740institutions, fundamentally Christianity, whether it's strategically retreating or not,
00:59:15.880is all of it's aimed at conquering. All of it. I mean, all of it's aimed at the dominion of Christ
00:59:21.940and the dominion of Christ, not just over the things between our ears, not just over our
00:59:27.600thoughts or over a spiritual kingdom. Yes to the spiritual kingdom, but the
00:59:33.120the dominion of Christ over all of it, everything.
01:00:54.500It's very much the Davidic warfare, slaying the giants, et cetera.
01:00:57.660And then in the Old Testament comes the reign of Solomon. And really, Solomon is like the consummation of this kingship. Right. And the thing about Solomon is he knows a little bit about everything. Right. He rules over everything. He gives wisdom to mothers. He has, you know, oversees the mining operations, the timber operations. He's building pools and gardens and everything.
01:01:19.660So it's really a picture of like, I think the kingly wisdom that we're aiming at when
01:01:24.520we're talking about ruling the world, it's not one dimensional, right?