00:00:00.000Today on the Matt Wells Show, Elizabeth Warren shares her favorite Bible verse.
00:00:04.140The only problem is that her positions, especially on abortion, seem to be completely in contradiction to that verse.
00:00:10.760Also, Beto comes out in favor of third trimester abortion, which is a required position on the Democrat Party now.
00:00:18.360And we'll talk about the groping of a child by a TSA agent.
00:00:21.880And finally, a kid wears a MAGA hat to a vigil for the mosque shooting victims.
00:00:26.920Some conservatives are rallying around him, treating him like a victim and a martyr because, you know, some liberals at the vigil were attacking him for it, yelling at him.
00:00:35.780Personally, I'm tired of the attention seeking, trolling behavior on both sides.
00:00:41.520And so we'll talk about that today as well on the Matt Wells Show.
00:00:48.440You guys, I don't know if you saw this yesterday.
00:00:51.340Anyway, Beto O'Rourke apparently inspires enthusiasm from some people.
00:02:15.980Are you for third trimester abortions or are you going to protect the lives of third trimester babies?
00:02:23.580Because, you know, there's really not a medical necessity for abortion.
00:02:28.440It's not a medical emergency procedure because typically third trimester abortions take up to three days to have.
00:02:35.160So you would, in that sense, if there was an emergency, the doctors would just do a C-section and you don't have to kill the baby in that essence.
00:02:43.180So are you for or against third trimester abortions?
00:02:45.920So the question is about abortion and reproductive rights.
00:02:50.340Okay, so he obviously doesn't want anything to do with the question, which is why it's fortunate for him that the media would never ask him a question like that.
00:03:09.440And they're not, they won't, they're not going to broach that subject again.
00:03:14.320Whoever this was asking the question clearly is not a member of the media, at least not the liberal mainstream media.
00:03:20.380But ultimately he comes out in support of third trimester abortions, of abortions of abortions that kill fully developed viable infants shortly before birth.
00:03:33.320And the way the question was framed made that clear.
00:03:37.400You know, the woman was saying, well, when you've got these abortions of babies that could just be born, you could deliver them via C-section and they would survive.
00:03:53.820And Beto says, well, it's the woman's choice.
00:03:56.180Now, if this question had been asked 15 years ago, he probably could have gotten away with saying something like, well, I support a woman's right to choose.
00:04:08.360However, there should be common sense regulations and we want it to be safe, legal and rare.
00:04:57.480It would greatly distress me to realize that lethal injections for infants is now not just an accepted or tolerated position,
00:05:07.260but a required position in the party that I belong to and vote for and support.
00:05:14.740Now, both political parties have all political parties have throughout history have had people who are member members of those parties and they go too far to an extreme on a certain issue one way or another.
00:05:31.320Every political party has decided to tolerate certain extreme or uncouth positions because they don't want to alienate that portion of the base.
00:05:46.640These are the deals with the devil that that all political parties make.
00:05:50.860But what we have to understand here is that the Democrats, they're not just tolerating the extremists in their rank who advocate for abortion through all stages of pregnancy.
00:06:21.460This is like a starting point now for Democrats is, yeah, well, obviously you have to be in favor of killing babies in the third trimester.
00:06:27.940That's just that's just, you know, square one.
00:06:36.180Now, speaking of heresy, Elizabeth Warren did a CNN town hall the other day.
00:06:41.840And I guess she was asked about her favorite Bible verse.
00:06:48.680And this is interesting because even though the Democratic Party is the party of Satan, and even though it has embraced Satanism, and it has embraced infanticide, and all of these forms of just the most, the darkest, most debauched evil you can imagine.
00:07:03.880Even in spite of all that, still, most Democrats feel the need to pretend to be Christian.
00:07:12.880We still haven't gotten to the point yet where Democrats will just be honest and say, you know, I don't read the favorite Bible verse.
00:07:21.300I don't read what you're talking about.
00:07:34.220So when they're asked about their favorite Bible verse, which is why, even though it's sort of a softball question, if you give that question to Republicans, now, that's the kind of question that the media, that the CNN will never ask.
00:07:47.880You know, a Republican is never going to be asked that kind of softball question on CNN.
00:07:51.640But for Democrats, I actually like the question because they are so awkward about answering it as you see them try to scramble, like, wait a second, can I think of one Bible verse?
00:10:04.540It really is incredible, the cognitive dissonance.
00:10:12.320Warren, ultimately, as she's kind of, you could tell she's sort of trying to come up with something.
00:10:19.760And ultimately, though, she says that her favorite verse has to do with the value of every single human life.
00:10:27.200And the obvious answer to that is, yes, but what about the human life in the womb, which clearly you think does not have value.
00:10:42.180So there is this, you see this with Democrats a lot, that they, and it seems, you would think at first, it seems almost odd.
00:10:52.020If you don't understand how Democrats operate, it would seem odd to you, that they actually will jump on any opportunity to extol the virtue of human life and the value of human life.
00:11:05.520You would think that they would avoid talking about that because they know that millions of babies have been, 60 million babies have been slaughtered in the womb and they're perfectly okay with that.
00:11:16.200So you'd think that they would try to avoid that subject.
00:11:18.540They would try to avoid the subject of the value of human life because the obvious follow-up question is, well, what about all the babies in the womb?
00:11:26.460And then they're going to have to explain why, oh, yeah, well, except not those.
00:11:31.860But they don't avoid talking about the value of human life, number one, because, well, she's on CNN and she knows that she will never get that follow-up question ever.
00:11:40.620But secondly, I think this is just, it's a kind of intellectual, moral defense mechanism where, you know, if you support the slaughter of millions of babies and you hold such a debased, awful position on something, well, you don't want to admit that to yourself.
00:12:09.620Like, you can't admit to yourself that you're the kind of person who's okay with that.
00:12:16.520So you have to keep telling yourself that, no, no, no, I value human life.
00:12:24.480And so you see Democrats constantly trying to convince themselves of that, constantly trying to ignore the massive pile of 60 million dead babies that they supported and facilitated and funded and cheered on as those babies were slaughtered.
00:12:43.240They're trying to ignore that, look over it and insist that, yes, I value human life.
00:12:50.100While we're on the subject of satanic evil, there's a new show on Hulu, a show aptly named Shrill, about an overweight journalist woman who, I guess, has a lot of sex and does other things.
00:13:04.520It's basically just a Lena Dunham show without Lena Dunham.
00:13:07.440But there is an episode of this show just released, an episode that was apparently produced with the loving assistance of Planned Parenthood, where the main character goes and has an abortion.
00:13:23.400And afterwards, she comes home and she explains to her roommate, I guess she goes to bed and she wakes up the next day and her roommate comes down.
00:13:34.640And asks her, how are you, how are you feeling?
00:14:11.800That's what a serial killer would say.
00:14:13.520They kill because it feels good and it makes them feel powerful.
00:14:17.940That's why that that's exactly the motive, the motivation behind serial murder.
00:14:22.740And there's also a real, the other thing that struck me about this is there's a real morbid irony to a woman claiming that she feels powerful after paying someone, likely a man, $400 to kill her baby.
00:17:21.280Did you really have to grope the child for two straight minutes in order to figure out that he's not a terrorist?
00:17:28.660Did it really not occur to you, maybe within, I don't know, 20 seconds that this kid probably not a terrorist?
00:17:34.800This is a government agent groping a child because the child is trying to board an airplane.
00:17:40.500That is the crime that this child committed.
00:17:45.160Now, that's really not the kind of thing that's supposed to happen in a free country.
00:17:49.020In any other situation, OK, in any other situation, you would have to commit a crime or be suspected of a crime to be subjected to a search that lengthy and and intimate.
00:18:00.720In fact, the Bill of Rights would seem to require that you be reasonably suspected of a crime in order for your privacy to be invaded to such an extent.
00:18:09.400But is the fact that you're boarding an airplane, is that evidence to justify reasonable suspicion?
00:18:19.860Well, let's think about it over the past 30 years, let's say over the past 30 years.
00:18:27.320I don't know how many people have boarded airplanes or tried to board airplanes in the United States, but it's certainly billions.
00:18:34.340I mean, over 30 years, billions of people in the United States have boarded or attempted to board an airplane.
00:18:42.180How many of those people were terrorists?
00:18:47.900Well, again, I don't have the exact number.
00:18:49.920I don't know if anyone could produce that exact number, but I mean, a couple dozen at most.
00:19:46.360We have a government agency setting up shop in our airports and subjecting every person who passes through to the sorts of searches that we usually reserve for inmates in a prison.
00:19:55.900But it can't be justified based on the idea that there's some sort of epidemic of terrorists trying to board airplanes because guess what?
00:20:05.400There's no epidemic and there never was.
00:20:59.080This was not a failure of private airport security.
00:21:03.740Remember that those guys, they took over an airplane with box cutters.
00:21:08.480Well, at the time, it was not illegal to take a box cutter on an airplane because nobody thought that anyone could take over.
00:21:17.440It was not illegal to take box cutters onto an airplane because nobody thought that anyone would be able to take over an airplane with a box cutter.
00:21:26.460So the point is, this was not really a failure of airport security.
00:21:29.800It was more a failure of government on many different levels.
00:22:36.320The point is, when you consider the extremely small likelihood that a terrorist is going to be walking through an airport,
00:22:48.900and it is a very, very, the chances are very, very slim, and the statistics prove that.
00:22:54.480So if those slim chances can justify creating this entire government agency and having the government take over airports and do all this,
00:23:07.740if it can justify that, then it would just as well be justified anywhere else where people gather or board public transportation or anything else.
00:23:20.400Now, I'm not saying that I want to have TSA and all those other places.
00:23:25.020But if it can't be justified at the train station or at a church or at a ball, you know, at a stadium,
00:23:32.300if it can't be justified there, then I don't see how you justify it at an airport.
00:23:36.320Now, I go to, you know, football stadiums all the time, and you do have security, but it's not government security.
00:25:18.200There's just no way that a person decided, oh, you know what, let me wear this Trump hat to a Canadian vigil for the victims of a racist white mass shooter in New Zealand.
00:25:29.720There's just no way that a person innocently just thought, oh, you know, yeah, let me see.
00:25:34.060What should I wear to that vigil for the mosque shooting?
00:25:50.760He wore the hat because he's a troll and he wanted to get exactly the kind of reaction he got.
00:25:55.820And I have no sympathy for the kinds of people who decide that vigils for mass shooting victims are good places for stunts like that.
00:26:05.360But, you know, I saw this video being passed around on Twitter, mostly by conservatives who were saying, oh, look at those mean leftists attacking that poor man.
00:26:32.580But I'm also you got these people who wear the stupid thing because they know they're going to get a reaction and they want a reaction and then they get the reaction that they want.
00:27:19.320If it was just stupidity, I wouldn't be as annoyed because people can't help being stupid.
00:27:23.720But all the people, you know, you know, the conservatives who buy into this, they know what they're doing.
00:27:33.060And so, you know, when I was talking about this yesterday on social media and there were a bunch of conservatives who told me that, well, how do you know?
00:27:45.660You don't know that he was trying to provoke a reaction.
00:27:48.380It could have just been, you know, you don't know that.
00:28:11.040The bad faith demonstrations, the trolling, the self-martyrdom.
00:28:15.920And everyone is constantly trying to take every opportunity to get attention and to, you know, be in a viral video and to provoke a reaction.
00:31:37.160Because that's the only other option here.
00:31:38.880If we're not going to give in professional baseball these kinds of $100 million contracts to the to the players, then all that means is that the owners are keeping more for themselves.
00:31:49.020And I don't think that that's any more just.
00:31:55.220Another thing to remember is that, yeah, these guys are playing a game.
00:33:24.740And I think that that's, you know, they could probably use a little bit more moderation because there is more to life than sports.
00:33:31.880But as long as you can keep it in proper perspective, I think that although it is a game, as I said, it is still a valuable thing to people.
00:33:43.160And finally, importantly, the fact is that professional athletes are the best in the world at what they do.
00:33:54.040And if you can be the best in the world at something, even if it's not, even if it's just a game, but if you can be the best in the world at something, at anything, then you'll probably be rich because of it.
00:34:06.240I mean, you'll if you're the best if you have a talent that puts you above everybody else on the planet.
00:34:13.700In that particular area, then you can probably parlay that into millions of dollars.
00:34:48.920So your son is really your daughter and your daughter is really your son, I guess is what they would is what they would tell you, whereas rational people would say your son is just a normal boy and your daughter is just a normal girl.
00:35:01.680From Joe says, I listen to your criticism of the Christian film genre.
00:35:04.960I have to say I agree with you 100 percent.
00:35:06.820However, when you mentioned some of the good ones in the genre, you never mentioned the Scorsese film Silence, which came out in 2016, featuring Liam Neeson, Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver.
00:35:15.220However, beyond being a great Christian film, I would say it was easily one of the best movies of 2016.
00:35:36.760Up until the last, like, 10 pages, because I don't want to give anything away, spoiler alert, but I mean, the book's been out for 50 years or something, so I don't think it is a spoiler.
00:35:53.860For me, maybe they changed the ending for the movie, but I don't think they did.
00:35:58.300But for me, it was all ruined by the fact that at the end, after all of that, the priest apostatizes and gives up his faith and then lives out his life basically in peace and then dies.
00:36:15.280And even that wouldn't be necessarily so bad, because the fact is, people did apostatize in the face of persecution, and so there's nothing wrong with portraying that in a movie.
00:36:28.160But the book, at least, seems to endorse apostasy, because there's that very strange scene towards the end of the book where the Japanese authorities are trying to get him to apostatize, and they're trying to get him to stomp on a picture of Jesus, if I remember correctly.
00:36:44.260And then he has this vision where Jesus is telling him, yes, stomp on it, yes, deny your faith, it's okay.
00:36:52.840And Jesus is encouraging him to do it, and then he does, and then he basically faces no repercussions, lives out his faith, marries a Japanese woman, and so on.
00:37:02.440I don't know, it was just a very, it was a great story, a great reflection on doubt and suffering and everything, and then it just goes off the rails.
00:37:12.200And so, that's why, that's my issue with it.
00:37:16.060From Leon says, hi Matt, listening to your discussion of Christian movies, I agree with most of what you say, but here's my question.
00:37:21.600Why doesn't the Christian movie industry produce more movies based on the Bible?
00:37:25.440I don't mean, I don't mean doing another Jesus movie.
00:37:27.480I mean, any of the hundreds of other stories that nobody has made into a film yet, seems like there's a lot of material there.
00:37:38.700I don't think the Christian movie industry really has the talent available, the acting and writing talent, or the money to do justice to an epic biblical tale.
00:37:50.120Now, Hollywood has the talent and the money to do it justice, but they don't have the interest or the theological understanding to do it justice.
00:37:58.000And that's why the Bible is not mined for more stories, even though, as you say, there are so many great stories in the Bible.
00:38:08.220And any Bible movie will make a gazillion dollars at the box office, so you would think it's a no-brainer.
00:38:13.680But for some reason, when it comes to Bible movies, you know, we get a Jesus movie every few years, we get a Moses movie every few decades, we've gotten a Noah movie, and that's kind of it.
00:38:29.560When there are so many other great stories that, you know, I don't even think, the Noah movie I thought was pretty terrible.
00:38:36.400But even if you were more biblically faithful with the Noah, I just don't see how you make that into a great movie.
00:38:44.320I don't think there's a lot of fodder there necessarily for a great movie.
00:38:47.480But there are stories in the Bible, a lot of them, that would make really interesting.
00:38:52.520And not just great movies for Christians or for Jews, but movies that I think anyone could enjoy just because they're interesting stories.
00:39:03.540But for the reasons I just said, I think Hollywood stays away from it.
00:39:10.500As a side note, I also feel the same way about, I was talking about this yesterday, I feel the same way about the Civil War.
00:39:17.480I mean, there should be 10 Civil War movies every year.
00:39:21.100There are just so many great stories, so many epic battles, so many fascinating characters, so much drama and tragedy and intrigue in the Civil War.
00:39:29.860But Hollywood basically leaves it alone, doesn't touch it, except for a few, you know, Civil War movies in the 90s.
00:39:36.700And then every once in a while we'll get a movie that's set in the Civil War era.
00:39:41.400But as far as an actual Civil War movie, no, we get 600 World War II movies, and many of them are great.
00:39:49.620But, I mean, there's just so much you could do with just a straight Civil War movie.
00:39:56.420Or make a movie about the Battle of Antietam.
00:39:59.380You take any battle, Bull Run, I mean, you take any battle.
00:40:02.640We've had a Gettysburg movie, but take any of these battles.
00:40:07.260Chancellorsville, I mean, any of these battles, make it into a movie, it would be a great movie.
00:40:11.120And we know the reason for that is that political correctness won't allow it.
00:40:16.380It's the same reason we don't get Bible movies, political correctness.
00:40:19.380And I think Hollywood knows that, you know, if they try to make a Civil War movie and make it historically accurate and make it nuanced and mature and interesting,
00:40:33.760well, then that's going to require that you don't turn the Confederates into cartoon villains.
00:40:42.020You actually have to give them a nuanced, thoughtful treatment.
00:40:47.800And also, that's where a lot of the really interesting characters are.
00:40:51.480I mean, Stonewall Jackson, I think, is one of the most interesting men that the United States has ever produced.
00:40:56.400But, so, if you're going to make a movie, you'd want to capture those kinds of men in an interesting way.
00:41:06.220But if you do that, then you're going to have the PC mob coming after you and saying that you're, you know, an apologist for slavery and yada, yada, yada.
00:41:32.040I'm sure you know the story and you know why some people struggle with it, so I won't waste your time explaining that.
00:41:36.540What are your thoughts on the passage?
00:41:37.840Also, as a related question, do you think it's okay for Christians to struggle with biblical passages?
00:41:44.440Honestly, I would never say this out loud, but I just find this story and a few others in the Bible hard to believe for a number of reasons.
00:42:07.900Yes, it's okay for Christians to struggle with the Bible.
00:42:11.260No, that doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with you.
00:42:14.720It's not a spiritual weakness, I don't think.
00:42:17.040In fact, I'd say that maybe the opposite is the case.
00:42:20.800The people who don't grapple with these texts, who don't confront the challenges, they are the spiritually and intellectually weak ones.
00:42:28.340For instance, a while ago, I was, I remember I was talking to somebody, you know, kind of about this, and I mentioned the struggles I have with some Old Testament passages.
00:42:41.180Especially the ones where God orders the mass killings of women and children and prescribes slavery.
00:43:22.800But if you've honestly never struggled with this kind of stuff in the Old Testament, then either you haven't read it, which I think is likely for a lot of these people, or you have the intellectual curiosity of a jar of mayonnaise because, or you're not being honest because you think that it's shameful to admit your struggles.
00:43:43.080The fact is that anyone who seriously actually reads the Bible and applies their brain to it and really tries to understand what they're reading, anyone like that will encounter the obstacles that you've encountered, David, that I've encountered, and you encounter it because you're studying and you're trying to understand it and you're taking it seriously.
00:44:09.340It's the people who say, well, no problem.
00:45:42.080After reading that email from you yesterday, I, I, uh, was talking about this on Twitter and I was saying how I also have scratched my head over this passage.
00:45:50.840Um, but again, it's only tough when you think about it.
00:45:55.480If you don't think about it, then there's no problem.
00:45:58.720Um, there's never any problem with anything in life if you don't think about it.
00:46:01.900But after thinking, the way I see it, uh, the two issues that arise are first theological.
00:46:08.900Uh, so this says that a whole bunch of, of holy people from the, from the past, we assume Old Testament saints were raised from the dead immediately after the crucifixion.
00:46:20.760Uh, they didn't go into the town until after the resurrection.
00:46:23.700So says Matthew, but they were raised after the crucifixion.
00:46:27.340And, uh, this is significant because first of all, what the heck did they do for those two days?
00:46:32.300It says that they came out of their tomb.
00:46:34.700They didn't go into the holy city until two days.
00:46:36.800So what were they doing in between is an interesting question.
00:46:40.380But more importantly, theologically, how does this work?
00:46:43.200Uh, because Paul says in Corinthians, I think it is, that Jesus is the first fruits of the resurrection.
00:46:48.600Well, wouldn't this story make the, the Old Testament saints, the first fruits of the resurrection?
00:46:54.340Uh, because they, according to the text, they were raised first.
00:47:00.400And anyway, doesn't it kind of distract in some ways from the miracle of the resurrection?
00:47:06.160If Jesus's resurrection was just one of dozens of resurrections that weekend, it was, it was the last in a series of, of resurrections, apparently, according to, according to Matthew.
00:47:16.540Um, so that's the theological challenge.
00:47:19.800The historical challenge is that this would be a momentous occasion.
00:47:23.600I mean, many tombs are, are breaking open and many people are coming to life.
00:47:27.540Many people are seeing them walking around the city.
00:47:30.500Um, yet no other gospel writer noticed this, apparently.
00:47:39.620Uh, no historian of that time mentions it or has even heard of it.
00:47:43.740It just seems incredible that every gospel writer would make room to mention, for instance, Jesus cursing a fig tree.
00:47:51.580Uh, yet only one takes the time to mention that, hey, by the way, uh, there were a bunch of, uh, resurrected dead people walking around Jerusalem.
00:48:01.060Um, you know, it is, as you say, hard to believe in some ways.
00:48:11.240Well, over the years, Christian scholars have tried a few different moves here.
00:48:16.400Um, the first is, uh, well, not the first, but there are some who have tried to interpret it metaphorically and have said, well, maybe this was kind of a literary device that Matthew was using.
00:48:28.140Um, that, but I'm, I'm okay with interpreting things metaphorically if the text supports that interpretation, but the text does not support that.
00:48:37.200Because why would Matthew drop this weird metaphorical narrative right into the middle of the crucifixion and resurrection story about Jesus?
00:48:48.000So, I think you've got to put that to the side.
00:48:49.800The other thing people have suggested is that maybe the text was added in later.
00:48:53.820Um, I guess there is potentially some textual evidence that maybe that happened.
00:48:57.720I don't really know what the evidence is exactly.
00:49:00.760I do know that this story in Matthew appears in every complete manuscript of Matthew that we have.
00:49:07.160So, if there was, if there were a few manuscripts of Matthew from way back a long time ago that didn't have that story, uh, then you could start to think that, yeah, maybe this was added in later.
00:49:18.100And we do know that, uh, that did happen.
00:49:20.760The, the long ending of Mark, Mark 16, 9 through, uh, 20, whatever it was, is we know was added in later.
00:49:28.740Uh, the original Gospel of Mark ends with the women fleeing the tomb and telling no one, and that's the end.
00:49:35.700And, and, and the original, um, or not the original, but the earliest manuscripts of Mark, that's how it ends.
00:49:41.720The later manuscripts, all of a sudden, have this next part of that ending where it says that, uh, Jesus appeared and, and he told the disciples that they could drink poison and handle snakes and not be killed.
00:49:54.140But it pretty much everyone knows that someone later on added that in, which, you know, someone should probably let the pen, the Pentecostal snake handlers know about that because those people for years have been handling snakes and getting bit by rattlesnakes and dying because they didn't realize that that story is not original to the gospel.
00:50:11.100Um, so there's that, uh, the story about the woman caught in adultery and John, uh, early manuscripts of John don't have that story, um, which doesn't mean that the story isn't true.
00:50:25.160It could have been oral tradition that was passed down and then added in by a scribe later on.
00:50:31.480And there are plenty of scholars who think that's the case, but the point is, it's not crazy to think that maybe something like that is going on with Matthew.
00:51:03.000I would say, keep grappling with it, study it, think about it, pray about it.
00:51:07.760Um, and if you come to a better conclusion than what I just rambled off, which wouldn't be hard to do, then, uh, send me an email and let me know.
00:51:15.720And maybe, maybe, maybe teach me something about it the more you think about it and study it.
00:51:19.680But, uh, I would definitely pursue it and, uh, don't be afraid of it and don't feel shamed.
00:51:26.320And, and don't feel like, oh, I, you know, I, I, I should, I, I'm being too critical about this passage.