The NXR Podcast - THEOLOGY APPLIED - Can A Christian Love Their Own People More Than Others？｜ with Samuel Sey

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00:00:18 All right, welcome to another episode of Theology Applied. I'm your host,

00:00:21 Pastor Joel Webin with Right Response Ministries, and I am very privileged to

00:00:24 have returning as a guest, Samuel Say. He is at slow to write. That's his

00:00:29 handle. That's what he goes by when it comes to Twitter. Also with his blog, you can follow the

00:00:34 things that he's writing. And he's actually going to be coming out. I think he talks about this at

00:00:37 the end of our episode a little bit, but he's in the near future, him and his wife are going to be

00:00:42 launching their own podcast. He's always been working through a writing format. He's a wonderful

00:00:48 writer, but we need video and we need audio and we need all the different formats and all the

00:00:54 different forms that we can get. So be on the lookout for that. Samuel Say and his wife launching

00:00:58 a new podcast in the near future. But if you want to hear Samuel say right now, well, then just stay

00:01:02 tuned because he's our special guest for this episode. Oh, hi. I didn't see you there. Thanks

00:01:08 for sticking around. I've got an important announcement to make. That's the Theonomy

00:01:12 and Post-Millennialism Conference, 2023, May 5th, 6th, and 7th, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday,

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00:01:24 Dr. James White, Dr. Joseph Boot, Dr. Gary DeMar, non-doctor, Pastor Joel Webin. But we also have

00:01:30 a bonus speaker, and that is Dale Partridge from Real Christianity. Perhaps you've heard of him.

00:01:36 If not, you should start listening to his podcast. It's fantastic. Dale Partridge is going to be

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00:02:00 rightresponseconference.com. Again, that's rightresponseconference.com. God bless.

00:02:08 Applying God's word to every aspect of life. This is Theology Applied.

00:02:14 all right i am joined i believe for maybe the second or third time i can't remember but

00:02:23 returning special guest uh friend we got to do a conference together a couple months ago but we

00:02:28 are joined by samuel say samuel thanks for coming on the show it's an honor thank you great to see

00:02:34 you all right so we got some uh questions what we're doing is we're trying something new we're

00:02:39 leading our audience you know ahead of recording these episodes and saying hey if you were in the

00:02:45 room with samuel say are there any questions that you would like to ask him and so i'm going to take

00:02:49 a few of these different questions that we got in obviously we're not going to ask all of them but

00:02:53 i got about four or five questions that i thought were good and so i'm going to just start with

00:02:58 these and then there's some things that i know you and i want to talk about one of them is candace

00:03:01 owens and dave rubin and that kind of situation going on um and you wrote an article about that

00:03:07 recently that's gotten a lot of attention i think you've got some good things to say so let's go

00:03:11 ahead and start with a couple questions first uh first one this is probably going to be the most

00:03:15 difficult um it's something that's serious it may even be uncomfortable for you to talk about but

00:03:20 backstreet or nsync um i am a huge which is why i'm guessing the person's asking me that

00:03:28 it is you know it might seem strange because i have a lot of these i guess hot takes on social

00:03:33 media but the biggest hot take i have is that n-sync should be nowhere near um as esteemed as

00:03:40 the greatest band of all time the bash boys um so absolutely i'm a bash boys fan over n-sync

00:03:47 all right so i thought i was talking to a fellow conservative but apparently i'm talking to 0.93

00:03:51 somebody who's gay so why are you gay the only reason why i got married was so that i could i 0.99

00:04:08 could get rid of those rumors okay yeah yeah so you can keep loving the backstreet boys but uh 0.98

00:04:13 let's say hey i'm i'm a heterosexual married man um okay so here's the next question this

00:04:18 one's a little bit more serious uh which place looks like it's headed in an even more depraved

00:04:22 direction first the u.s or canada yeah so the the person asking the uh the question has to be

00:04:30 american because because if if this person was a canadian there's no way to be asking that question

00:04:37 um sadly uh you know my nation canada is significantly um ahead of america when it

00:04:45 comes to the speed with which they are, you know, progressing or regressing towards just

00:04:53 more totalitarianism and evil. But absolutely, it's not even close, to be honest with you,

00:05:01 as bad as America is. America right now is where Canada was about 10, 15 years ago.

00:05:07 Right. So, yeah, it's, I mean, both nations are headed in very, very, you know, bad and

00:05:13 concerning directions but unfortunately canada is worse yes i would agree um with that you know i

00:05:21 think america is in a bad spot um but it's encouraging the sense that i think one of the

00:05:26 reasons why america is not as depraved as some other western nations um i mean it is in some

00:05:32 regards i mean some some of the the abortion uh legislation is you know like makes um european

00:05:39 countries look conservative yeah i mean like most european countries it's like you know 12 to 15

00:05:44 weeks maybe at most in some cases like 24 weeks um but you know america is very progressive and

00:05:51 and you know demented in regards to abortion laws but even with that you know there's there's this

00:05:57 silver lining of hope and it's not a small silver lining the fact that roe was overturned so i feel

00:06:02 like america is is in a i wouldn't say headed in a wrong direction i would say it's in a bad place

00:06:09 but actually i think there's a lot of hope for it actually heading in a better direction i actually

00:06:15 feel like we the left kind of overplayed its hand globally you know all in nations all around the

00:06:20 world but i feel like the u.s um a lot of people you know kind of were like no sir uh no and and

00:06:28 so now i feel like there's like some some pretty serious pushback and i'm curious to see what

00:06:33 happens um with well the election that we have coming up um absolutely 22. all right here's

00:06:38 another one for you this one might be a little too open-ended but here it goes how should

00:06:42 christians view their ancestry and should this inform how we raise our children so what uh in

00:06:50 other words what should be the role of our families traditions and culture in our parenting

00:06:55 yeah there's a lot there but hopefully i answer the question adequately uh i i'm assuming that

00:07:02 questioning is coming from a tweet that i had earlier today um where um i said something about

00:07:09 how i love my skin color i love that i'm black um you know because god made me fearfully and

00:07:15 wonderfully black and that i also love my ancestry and the same should be true for anybody anyone

00:07:20 should say the same thing too we all we're all fearfully and wonderfully made um so i can say

00:07:24 that i'm i can't say i'm proud that i'm black because i had nothing to do with it but i love

00:07:28 being black and that um you know you as well so obviously should love being you know white or

00:07:34 or whatever the actual skin color is it's not exactly white nor am i really black but nevertheless

00:07:38 um no one's perfectly white except for maybe like some swedish dudes you know and nobody's

00:07:44 perfectly black except for maybe wesley snipes you know what i mean you know so everybody else

00:07:50 is just somebody that you know there's a scale between like like i don't know greta thunberg

00:07:55 and wesley snipes and everybody else is somewhere in between yes yes no um i lost track now with

00:08:03 the question i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry no no that's not that was good that was good but i think

00:08:09 it's um how sorry yeah well you were just saying i'm happy to be black and so the question was like

00:08:14 how should christians view their ancestry right yeah and should this inform our parenting yeah

00:08:20 I think it's by rejoicing in God's grace and providence through which we were created or established, you know, in his image.

00:08:31 And that, you know, obviously, look, I rejoice that my great-great-great-grandfather, obviously, would be Adam and then Noah.

00:08:39 And then all the way through my Ghanaian or my tribe in Ghana would be the Akan tribe.

00:08:46 And then also within that tribe, also the Fanti tribe.

00:08:49 And that means a lot to me. And, you know, in Revelations 5, we know that God boasts that in heaven, there will be a multitude of people of different tribes.

00:08:59 We see the Apostle Paul, you know, rejoicing and boasting over the fact that not he's boasting in the Lord, obviously, but that he is grateful and that he is not ashamed that he's a Jew.

00:09:09 You know, so we should absolutely appreciate God's providence and his blessing through our ancestry, not in a way that would lead to, of course, supremacist thinking, obviously, for either camp, right?

00:09:23 Because unfortunately, there are some people out there who are black supremacists who believe that our black DNA or our melanin makes us superior to other so-called races, although there's no such thing as different races.

00:09:35 There's only one race.

00:09:36 Nevertheless, we can rejoice in God's providence and his creation in terms of how we teach our children or how we raise kids. 0.65

00:09:45 That's interesting. I'm not a parent.

00:09:47 But one of the things that I plan to do is since I am fascinated by my ancestry and my wife's ancestry, my wife is a white woman.

00:09:57 And her, you know, she has Dutch ancestry.

00:10:02 And I love that, especially because it was actually the Dutch who initially colonized Ghana, my people, before the British.

00:10:12 And I want to talk about that history.

00:10:14 I want to talk about God's providence and how God brought Christians, Dutch Christians, to come to Ghana to preach the gospel, which eventually led to my ancestors being saved.

00:10:23 And now my wife and I, though we have different histories, we have the same Lord.

00:10:28 I want to teach my children about that. 0.96

00:10:30 I want to teach my children that they are not really mixed, right, that they are one race. 1.00

00:10:36 You know, their skin color is not who they are.

00:10:39 It's just one of their features.

00:10:42 So I think in terms of how we raise children, just teach the history.

00:10:48 But yeah, letting them know that, of course, that again, because. 0.65

00:10:53 Sadly, today, we teach children today that, you know, you're white, you're black, you're this, and this shapes who you are, this shapes your standing socially. 0.99

00:11:02 All that stuff is, of course, junk.

00:11:05 Teach them the history, but primarily in that it's in the Word of God so that we can boast in the gospel where all of us one day will stand before God in different languages and in different tribes and ethnicities and rejoicing in the gospel.

00:11:20 Amen.

00:11:21 Yeah.

00:11:21 There's nothing inherently superior or inferior in regards to skin pigment or ethnicity, but

00:11:27 there is something to be said for cultures and cultures tend to form around certain tribes and

00:11:34 ethnic people and cultures, all skin pigment, all ethnicity is equal, but not all cultures

00:11:41 are equal. And so to be able to say, here's our ancestry and here's the culture of our ancestors 0.70

00:11:48 and be able to be proud, not in an arrogant way, but, you know, like I'm proud to be an American,

00:11:54 be able to be proud about the things in that culture that honor the Lord, the things that

00:11:59 align with the scripture, right? Because we're not standpoint epistemologists. It's not relativism.

00:12:06 We have a transcendent universal standard, God's word, God's law. And so to be able to say,

00:12:11 this is our ancestry and and here were the the problems um but here were some of the virtues

00:12:17 by god's grace you know because of the gospel coming to bear with our culture or even some

00:12:22 of the virtues by god's common grace these are because because all people are created in the

00:12:26 image of god and instinctively there's the conscience within and here's how some of our

00:12:30 ancestors got it right before even hearing the gospel in their outward deeds and behaviors and

00:12:35 some of these aspects of our culture and so we're proud about this and we we want to we want to uh

00:12:40 hold on to this and preserve this. We don't want it just to fade away. Because here's the thing,

00:12:45 like, one of the things that I've been thinking about is, like, what you're saying with Revelation

00:12:49 5 is, you know, God boasts, you know, of the diversity of heaven, every tribe, tongue,

00:12:56 and language, which really doesn't put, you know, a lot of emphasis on God's not so much boasting

00:13:02 about all the colors of the rainbow being represented in terms of ethnicity, but it's

00:13:07 more so uh language and tribe and ancestry and and culture um and language you know tongue and

00:13:15 these kinds of distinctives um and there is a variety um and and this is a good thing that god

00:13:22 celebrates and and so my point is um i think that um there is there is an argument to be made about

00:13:31 um about saying that uh there's a beauty in the distinctiveness of the one human race um there's

00:13:38 a beauty about the distinctions um the manifold wisdom of god as we see it between multiple

00:13:43 tribes like you know we have a story in the bible namely genesis chapter 11 where um where people

00:13:49 tried to forego uh the cultural man mandate of being fruitful multiplying and filling the earth

00:13:56 subduing the earth and they said you know let let us um make a name for ourselves and build a great

00:14:02 tower let's congregate here so that we are not spread out over the face of the earth um and

00:14:07 there's a sameness there and uh and god says that's not good and it's god's punishing first

00:14:14 and foremost their arrogance that they could ascend to heaven with this tower and be as god

00:14:18 that's that's predominant in in this narrative but but i think secondarily we could say but

00:14:24 there's also a problem um that god wanted um distinct peoples um and and so to say we want

00:14:32 to preserve um ancestry and and history and um cultures and these kinds of things and we want

00:14:39 to preserve those things within cultures that um vary um but are still in line with god's

00:14:45 transcendent standard because there are certain things about cultures and i know that this is

00:14:50 controversial but you know people say like that's where it gets into you know this this hatred of

00:14:54 whiteness you know it's like well the scientific method you know that's that's not uh that's not

00:14:59 universally moral or good or right that's just uh that's just a relative thing and and there are

00:15:05 other ways of of ascertaining truth and it's like no that that's called objectivity that's

00:15:10 you know or promptness right like i you know there are you know certain cultures where promptness

00:15:15 doesn't matter and there may be an argument to be made at some level um but if but if the lack

00:15:20 of promptness stems from ultimately just a disrespect of other people's time well then

00:15:25 that's not a virtue and and and we don't need to preserve those things we need to say hey you know

00:15:30 what out of respect for others let's let's be on time unless there's a reasonable argument to be

00:15:35 made to the contrary and so we're celebrating the distinctiveness of cultures but only insofar

00:15:41 is is those certain aspects of the culture are indeed virtues rather than vices and what

00:15:47 determines whether or not something is virtuous is the ultimate transcendent standard of god's

00:15:52 word what do you think yeah you know you you mentioned earlier that what you were saying

00:15:58 would be controversial well in light of that i guess let me add one more controversial all right

00:16:03 go for this you know there's something that i've been thinking a lot about uh i've always believed

00:16:08 this but especially after queen elizabeth's death and all the hot takes being said about the british

00:16:14 monarchies role in colonialism and everything and you know um in terms of some cultures while

00:16:21 we rejoice that you know we have different cultures we have different people therefore

00:16:25 different cultures um we then that means then it's a fact that some cultures are better than 0.96

00:16:31 others and i can tell you that look as as oppressive as the colonials were in some aspects

00:16:38 not completely, but in some aspects in Ghana, where my people truly did suffer in many ways.

00:16:45 I also rejoice that since they had a better culture, they stopped rampant paganism in Ghana,

00:16:53 where child sacrifices are almost completely, not entirely, but almost completely erased from

00:17:01 our culture. So while I rejoice over my ancestry, I can also acknowledge that because

00:17:08 my ancestors are also um sinful people like i am but since they did not believe the gospel and

00:17:14 they were pagans they had a certain culture that was evil and even even the western culture which

00:17:19 is also of course tainted by evil that they you know they you know they also um they had some 0.98

00:17:26 aspect of it was a better culture which is why now ghana is better off right you know surprisingly 0.97

00:17:32 even with colonialism, because God, of course, will sometimes use some evil to, you know, to

00:17:39 bring about good. And we know that, of course, throughout biblical history. But another thing

00:17:43 is this, you know, one of the things that when we talk about Revelations 5, and people always

00:17:51 abuse that text in ways that really upset me. And again, not to promote my blog here, but I'm

00:17:57 planning on writing a blog that I've been really kind of preparing for for several years.

00:18:02 But it's when people try to bring Revelations 5 into a local church.

00:18:08 And what I mean by that is they say that, yeah, see, Revelations 5, your church is supposed to look like that.

00:18:16 And I struggle to contain how much that angers me, because God is boasting, saying, see, look at all these people from all the different parts of the world throughout history that I have saved.

00:18:36 They have different languages, they have different ethnicities, and they are in heaven.

00:18:41 Right. 0.72

00:18:42 Your local church is not heaven.

00:18:44 It's not.

00:18:45 Right.

00:18:46 Right. The universal church is is is is is, you know, diverse, universal church is diverse, diverse.

00:18:55 Yes. But but but your local church doesn't have to be.

00:19:02 If it is, praise God. If it's not, praise God. Right.

00:19:06 I have left when I left Toronto eight months ago to come to the church that I'm in now.

00:19:12 i'm the second black person in my church it is very different from the church i was in where

00:19:19 the white people were basically the minority it's very different but you know what it's the same

00:19:23 gospel and we are worshiping in in in spirit and truth and that's all that matters so it troubles

00:19:30 me when people try to make their church a heaven basically in terms of wanting to boast in

00:19:36 themselves about how diverse their church is right and here's the thing like the hypocrisy is

00:19:42 is it's it's uh dense because we we wouldn't do that with any other nation right like we would

00:19:51 never go to ghana and say oh my this christian church in ghana it's you know it's kind of like

00:19:57 nothing but black people seems a little racist you know like we'd be like no you're it's gone 0.95

00:20:02 it dude like what like you know like if there's a you know like voti voti bacham and you know

00:20:07 conrad and bayway you know like i i imagine i haven't been but i imagine that predominantly

00:20:11 their church is going to be black because of where it's located in Zambia.

00:20:16 And so that like, and so when you come now, I understand that, that, you know, it falls

00:20:20 apart a little bit.

00:20:21 It's not a one-to-one ratio because America is much more ethnic, ethnically diverse.

00:20:27 But, but nobody's planting is my church. 0.67

00:20:30 Isn't America's church.

00:20:33 You know what I mean?

00:20:34 My church is a local church.

00:20:36 America is a pretty, pretty big map.

00:20:38 My church is a Georgetown, Texas church, right? So the diversity at a national level of America is not going to be reflected in my church because I don't have people commuting from 1,300 miles away.

00:20:54 So the question is, what is Georgia or Georgetown, not Georgia, but Georgetown, Texas, what does that look like? And are we an accurate reflection of where we actually are? But even with that, I would say that's a great thing. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but I also don't think there's something wrong with the absence of that.

00:21:16 So even if you are in a place that is, let's say it's 30% black and it's 20% Latino and it's 50% white, I don't think you have to have that exact ratio represented in your local church just because that's the ratio of your city. 0.55

00:21:32 You may, for whatever reason, still have a majority of Latinos and a minority of white or majority of white and minority of Latinos.

00:21:43 And part of that just is just naturally the way that relationships form the community that's there.

00:21:49 It's like it's the one gospel.

00:21:50 It's the one Christian faith passed down to the saints through the ages.

00:21:54 But there is a sense of just the makeup and the community and the culture of the church and the natural relationships and friendships that people have. 0.75

00:22:05 Like if you start, if you plant a church with 20 white people and they're inviting their friends and if the majority of their friends and family are also white people, then you're going to have majority white. 0.67

00:22:18 And here's the thing. It's always one way. It's so hypocritical because you can be in a place where the city is actually 80% white, but have black churches. And no one says a word about that. What are your thoughts on that, Samuel? 0.84

00:22:31 And about that, not even just that. So I was raised in what some would call a black church, you know, not just in Ghana, where obviously, I mean, in Toronto, which is one of the most multi-ethnic cities in the entire world.

00:22:48 where I think over half of the population were not born in Canada.

00:22:52 I was raised, you know, for 10 years, I was raised in what someone called a Black church,

00:22:57 but I would actually call it a West African church because it was primarily Ghanaian,

00:23:02 but you had different kinds of West Africans and even other African nations more towards

00:23:08 East or South or Central, and then Caribbean people are there too.

00:23:11 So someone were to just come into the church and say, oh, it's a Black church,

00:23:14 but we never called it that.

00:23:15 We just called it, well, it's an African church because you have different kinds of Black people in this church.

00:23:21 Well, in the same way, it applies to the so-called average white church, too, because as we said earlier, our ethnicity is not shaped by our skin color.

00:23:32 So you can have white people, you know, whatever that means, who have the same skin color, but they have different ethnicities.

00:23:39 They have different ancestry. So in a way, there's no such thing as a black church and no such thing as a white church. Right. Because we are not shaped. I am not like when I'm in heaven. I mean, it may sound strange how I would say it. But when I think of my ethnicity, it's not as a black person. It's as a Fanti or an Akan from Ghana. That's my tribal group. Right. 0.52

00:24:02 The same way a white person's ethnicity is not their skin color, it is their ancestry, and you have different white people who have different ethnicities. 0.66

00:24:15 So the whole thing is absurd. 0.63

00:24:16 So in a sense, every white church is ethnically diverse.

00:24:20 If we believe in what the Bible says in Revisions 5, we know that they're ethnically diverse because, again, our ethnicity is not shaped by skin color.

00:24:29 That's a really good point.

00:24:30 Yeah, I completely agree.

00:24:32 Let me ask you this. Okay, so I'm thinking of like Romans 9, where Paul, you know, he prefaces his argument by saying, you know, he just talks about his natural affection, I think is probably, I think the theological term that I would use, natural affections, which you have to be careful with that, right?

00:24:50 Because we also, you know, for those who aren't in Christ, for an unbeliever, you also have the sin nature.

00:24:57 So, not everything that's natural, naturally aligns with the things of God. 0.92

00:25:03 That's why we must be born again and have a new nature and become new creatures in Christ Jesus.

00:25:09 And so, but there is still an argument to be made from nature.

00:25:12 That's Romans chapter 1, right?

00:25:13 So, by natural revelation, the creation itself speaks.

00:25:17 It says something about God and it says something true about God, but it doesn't communicate

00:25:23 everything about God, right?

00:25:25 We need special revelation, not just natural revelation, but special revelation to understand

00:25:29 and comprehend the things of the gospel.

00:25:31 So there's natural revelation, but then there's also natural affections.

00:25:35 And Paul talks about his affections for his fellow Jewish people.

00:25:40 He says, my kinsmen, right?

00:25:42 My kinsmen, according to the flesh. 0.86

00:25:43 And he says, I would be willing to be cut off, eternally cut off for their sake. 0.97

00:25:50 And as far as I know, there's no other place in any of Paul's writings, which make up approximately two-thirds of the New Testament, where Paul clearly loves the Gentiles. 0.99

00:26:00 He loves the Corinthians.

00:26:01 He loves the Ephesians.

00:26:02 He loves the Philippians.

00:26:03 He loves all these different people.

00:26:06 But he never says of any other people group, I'd be willing to go to hell for them.

00:26:11 And he reserves that language exclusively for his kinsmen, according, and he even spells it out in case anybody was wondering. He's not making a spiritual argument. He says, my kinsmen, according to the flesh that he has. And it's, he has, what I'm saying is he has a particular affection and priority of loves, right?

00:26:32 Augustine talks about priority of loves and those for his, for his kinsmen, according to the flesh.

00:26:38 And I think, you know, when I think of racism, and maybe you can help me with it, just defining

00:26:41 the term. When I think of racism, I think of, you know, it is favorite. So, you know, like,

00:26:49 we're not called to show favoritism. James says, we shouldn't show it based off of socioeconomic

00:26:53 status, right? Favoring the rich rather than the poor, because the rich, the elites, they're

00:26:58 usually the ones who are throwing us in prison, you know, so, you know, and has God not chosen

00:27:02 the poor of this world to be rich in faith? And we're also not called to show favoritism

00:27:07 in terms of, you know, rich and poor. But also, I had another example. Let me just skip it. But

00:27:15 what I was going to say is, are there any forms of favoritism that are acceptable? Because what

00:27:23 i'm getting at is i think it's one thing to um to view someone negatively to think um to think

00:27:29 little of someone based off of some kind of outward appearance um but but i don't see the

00:27:35 apostle paul saying that i don't see the apostle paul saying that that um gentiles um i i have an

00:27:40 aversion towards gentiles or i have a lack of love towards gentiles this is the same paul who said

00:27:45 is often as you have opportunity in galatians as often as you have opportunity do good to all

00:27:50 out of a love for all but especially the household of faith so so what he's saying is there's a

00:27:56 priority of loves and it doesn't mean that we don't love someone it means we love everyone

00:28:01 but we still have to prioritize i love my wife more than other women i love my kids more than

00:28:06 my neighbor's kids and and and i love my country more than i love other countries and i think to

00:28:12 do anything else is actually ironically sin and and and it seems like like only in america and

00:28:19 only with white people in America, do we think it's a virtue to hate ourselves? Do you know?

00:28:26 And so Paul's prioritizing, I think of John Knox, right? Give me Scotland lest I die because he's

00:28:31 a Scotsman. He doesn't say give me Germany lest I die. Like, so is that racist that he's, he's 0.98

00:28:37 praying a special prayer for Scotland? What do you think? I'm smiling as you're, as you're saying

00:28:42 all that because the i'm enjoying this conversation this is good and i you know

00:28:49 it's interesting because i agree with everything you just said you know i might so what i'm going

00:28:57 to say might sound shocking to people but don't worry my wife knows this it's and it shouldn't

00:29:02 be controversial it shouldn't be weird whatsoever so as i said before my wife is a white woman

00:29:07 she knows generally the kind of woman that i was originally attracted to 0.64

00:29:16 right right like it you know it's which might surprise people who think that i'm an uncle tom 0.89

00:29:23 or something you know they're like well you have a white wife they sit but whatever um and not just

00:29:27 even a not just even a black woman but a ghanaian woman because that's my i grew up i'm a ghanaian

00:29:35 I grew up mostly around Ghanai. It's only natural, right? On top of that, my friends, this is, you know, to bring my Ghanai and Canadian, you know, nationality together. You know, now that I've moved to a small, you know, they call it a small city here, but it's a small town, man. It's not a city. It's a very small town.

00:29:56 And, you know, in Toronto, where there are a lot of Ghanaian Canadians there, and a Ghanaian Canadian, of course, has a lot of similarities with Ghanaians, but differences because they are also Canadian.

00:30:10 i miss ghanian canadians a lot and that are i will say it it's not racist it's not wrong

00:30:20 my favorite kind of person is a ghanian canadian because i'm a ghanian canadian and i have a

00:30:26 special love for ghanians and canadians when you combine the two i have a special love for ghanian

00:30:32 canadians right so it's there's so you know so the question being is it racist to have some kind of

00:30:41 a favoritism towards a certain kinds of person you know in in generally so as you said obviously

00:30:51 if it's to harm somebody else right if you are discriminating against somebody else if you're

00:30:58 impartiality against someone else where you're choosing not to love someone because of who they

00:31:04 are that's sin but at the same time you know so um as you said with um uh oh man how am i forgetting

00:31:13 his name uh the reformer john knox yeah there's nothing wrong with having a special love for

00:31:20 certain kinds of people again it's one thing racism is hate right it's hate towards another

00:31:25 person right you can love people more than others right if you love some people then you hate others

00:31:31 that's that's sinful that's racism and and to be a christian it seems that you have to love

00:31:36 some people more than others like i am commanded to love my wife more than others i'm commanded

00:31:42 to love my children more than others i'm commanded to honor my mother and father more than i honor

00:31:48 other mothers and fathers so it there has to be a place for that yeah and we're also called to

00:31:54 love christians more than non-christians that's right i was going to bring that up that is that

00:31:58 not favoritism right so so do all um as often as you have opportunity do good to all but especially

00:32:04 the the household of faith so the second half of that verse is you could read it as but prioritize

00:32:09 the household of faith and why does paul even feel the necessity to to bring um an order of

00:32:15 affections and priorities into play um because not not because of fallenness the sinfulness of man

00:32:21 but because of finitude, the creatureliness of men. Meaning as often as you have opportunity

00:32:27 to do good to all, but implicitly what Paul's saying is, but you're not going to have the

00:32:32 opportunity to do good to all. Why? Because you're a sinner? No, because you're a creature.

00:32:37 It's not fallenness, it's finitude. Christ who is head of the church is infinite, but his body,

00:32:43 the church here on earth is finite. Its resources are finite. It has a finite number of people,

00:32:48 a finite number of dollars, a finite number of hours in the day, and all these kinds of things.

00:32:53 And so we are told to prioritize. So you could literally say that in Galatians, Paul is saying,

00:32:58 show favoritism towards the people of God. So it's not just favoritism in any of its forms that

00:33:05 the Bible actually demonizes as sin, because there is a good kind of favoritism that's not

00:33:10 only permissible, but actually commanded. So I feel like what James is saying is not all favoritism

00:33:16 is sin, I think he's saying don't show sinful favoritism. And prioritizing someone based off

00:33:25 of economic status over someone else is a sinful form of favoritism. Yeah. Yeah. If I just naturally

00:33:34 love Ghanaians or Canadians more than Americans, for example, that's not sinful or wrong. But

00:33:41 if I am unwilling to love an American because they are an American, that's sinful. But if my

00:33:52 heart is just naturally, not because I think Canadians are better than Americans, not because 0.70

00:33:58 I think Ghanaians are better than Americans. If I just happen to have a special love for Ghanaians

00:34:06 than Canadians, where I'm saying, you know what,

00:34:09 these are the people that I just tend to relate better with.

00:34:14 There's nothing wrong with that.

00:34:16 And it's not because you're saying they're better people.

00:34:19 You're saying they're my people.

00:34:21 They're my people.

00:34:22 Exactly.

00:34:22 The difference is, of course, is that a lot of people can twist that

00:34:28 into having supremacist thinking or partiality.

00:34:33 Well, that's a very different thing, right?

00:34:35 where the apostle paul was preaching the gospel to the gentiles so he was not discriminated against

00:34:41 the gentiles whatsoever but again as you said he had a special love for the jews where he says that

00:34:46 he would be willing himself to be a curse because of his people that's a special love i mean if 0.68

00:34:52 you're willing to be you know to face the wrath of god for a certain group that's clearly a special

00:34:59 love not just love but a special love that's right where he does not have that kind of love 0.52

00:35:04 for a gentile again he loves the gentiles obviously in the gospel but he has a unique

00:35:10 special love for the jews the same way that i have a special now i'm not saying that i love

00:35:15 my people the way that the apostle paul loves his people right yeah but but i do love ghanians

00:35:22 and canadians just more because that's who i am right and over time you know so ghanians and

00:35:28 canadians but um you were born and and raised at least correct me if i'm wrong but i think the

00:35:33 the first, uh, nine years or 11 years of your life in Ghana? What was it?

00:35:38 10 years.

00:35:39 10?

00:35:40 10 years. Yeah. In Ghana. Yeah.

00:35:41 So your first 10 years, but, but I like what you're saying.

00:35:44 And I just want to point this out to our audience.

00:35:46 You're not saying my favorite kind of person is a Ghanaian.

00:35:49 You're saying my favorite kind of person is, um,

00:35:51 is a Canadian Ghanaian because you spent 10 years in Ghana,

00:35:55 but then you also spent how many years in Canada?

00:35:58 25 years.

00:36:00 25 years. And, and this is the point that I want to make. Um,

00:36:03 Now, and I'm saying this for our audience, I'm also saying this as a pastoral charge to you, Samuel, when we talk 10 years from now, I want to hear you say my favorite kind of person is an American Canadian Ghanaian, because I think there's something to say, these are my people because it's where I'm from.

00:36:24 But there's also, I think of Ruth, where she's, she's entering in now to a new people. And she says, from now on, your people will be my people and your God will be my God. And so it's like, all right, so you have a special place in your heart for Canadian Ghanaians, but you live in America now.

00:36:46 And so I want to see you eat an apple pie.

00:36:49 And I want to see, you know, but here's the thing.

00:36:52 Like, it's not just like a command to do it.

00:36:54 It's this that goes back to natural affections.

00:36:56 It's something that will happen over 10 years of living.

00:37:01 You know, like if you moved to Kansas and lived in some cornfield, you know, for over

00:37:06 to all of a sudden you're going to say, you know who some of my favorite people in all

00:37:10 the world are?

00:37:11 Corn fed, you know, hicks from the sticks, you know, in Kansas.

00:37:15 You know, God's country. That's where Superman was from. That's where he was born and raised. You know, like, how can you go wrong with Kansas? And I think that's natural and not only permissible, but I think there actually is a moral obligation of sorts to a certain extent to say, if I'm going to go to a place, these are going to be my people.

00:37:38 And it's not overnight. I'm sure Ruth had to work at it a little bit. She's making a pledge of allegiance, you might say, that probably progressively became more and more true in terms of her affections over time.

00:37:53 But it was something that it was a deliberate decision that she saw as only being as merely just logical.

00:38:03 It only made sense that I'm going to go and be among these people.

00:38:07 I'm going to benefit from them, from their economy, from their laws, from their culture.

00:38:11 I'm going to live among them.

00:38:14 You know, like if I'm in trouble, their doctors are going to help me when I'm sick.

00:38:19 Their police officers are going to come and help me if I'm in trouble, if there's an emergency.

00:38:23 these are going to be my people. And this is, I think, part of the case for Christian nationalism

00:38:30 is nations have gods. And secular humanism, that is a god. It's a false god. Pluralism is a god.

00:38:38 It's many gods. It's public atheism. And so every country in America, all the nations for that

00:38:44 matter, but since you and I are both here, America's god needs to be the triune god to

00:38:50 where people can, where we have immigration, but legal immigration. And I think it should be 0.81

00:38:54 mitigated. I don't think that America has an obligation to take 10 million, even if they're

00:39:00 legal, 10 million legal immigrants per year. I think that it's been way too high. I think there 0.96

00:39:05 needs to be some careful mitigation. There needs to be compassion, these kinds of things, but there

00:39:09 needs to be mitigation. There needs to be ethical laws. And I think it's even right to say that there

00:39:14 are some particular types of people that we're looking for. We need more doctors or we need,

00:39:17 every other nation does that except for America. Only in America are we self-sabotaging. And I

00:39:23 think it's because we've reached such a high tier of decadence. You can track global empires with

00:39:28 British, Roman. They hit a point where they were so successful and so decadent and so powerful

00:39:34 that it was actually no one from outside could touch them. There were no outside threats. So,

00:39:40 they all ended up ultimately imploding. And altruism was one of the downfalls and misguided

00:39:46 altruism, where they lowered all this loss of inhibition to where in the name of

00:39:55 compassion and empathy, they actually created their own demise. And so my point is, I think

00:40:03 there's something to be said for nations should worship the triune God. And when people come in 0.94

00:40:09 legally um there should be a certain expectation to assimilate and to say you will always be the

00:40:16 person that you came from and that heritage and that history matters but also um there needs to

00:40:23 be a sense in which i'm proud to be an american these are my people and um and this god this

00:40:30 triune god is is my god and i i don't i don't see how that is racist or white supremacist or

00:40:37 man if that's christian nationalism and we got some things to work out with with the whole

00:40:42 but if that is what christian nationalism is um i can stand on the word of god and defend it pretty

00:40:49 strongly absolutely i you know i always especially now that i'm married to a white woman who's not

00:40:56 or canadian i think a lot about god's providence in uh my ancestry or my nationality and i think

00:41:03 well, why did God make me a Ghanaian? Why did God make me a Canadian? And why has God,

00:41:09 is God, you know, about to make me an American now? I think the Apostle Paul's special love

00:41:17 for the Jews isn't just because they are his nationality, that is his nationality.

00:41:23 Because if he was an adopted Jew, we know how the Gentiles were supposed to act or assimilate

00:41:28 when they were to, you know, to, you know, embrace, you know, the Jewish faith, right? 0.57

00:41:34 The Old Testament, within the Old Testament covenants.

00:41:37 And so my point is, is that, you know, I have a special love for Ghanaians,

00:41:43 not just because I'm Ghanian, but because Ghanaians were my neighbors.

00:41:47 I have a special love for Canadians, not just because I'm Canadian,

00:41:51 but because Canadians were my neighbors.

00:41:53 And I'm going to have already, I am having a special love for Americans

00:41:57 because Americans are my neighbors.

00:42:01 My wife is American.

00:42:03 Lord willing, my children will be American.

00:42:06 My neighbors, you know, now my in-laws are American.

00:42:11 So there is a natural, of course, everyone, of course, is our neighbor, right?

00:42:16 But there is a unique, special love and really a commandment from God

00:42:21 for us to love the people that he has surrounded us with.

00:42:24 So that there means then that there's nothing wrong with wanting your nation to to to thrive on God's blessing.

00:42:34 There's nothing wrong with wanting your nation to be a Christian nation.

00:42:39 So now, of course, people, you know, some of the concerns we have with that term is because of the white nationalism aspects that people try to tie into it.

00:42:48 But that's really just, of course, people wanting to use that to scare people away from.

00:42:53 i've mentioned how yeah i believe that we should you know we should of course live under christian

00:42:57 principles in our in america people say what you're christian nationalist if you want to call

00:43:01 me that whatever i don't care i just you know i just want of course my neighbors to love god as

00:43:07 well right amen um yeah i you know thinking about again with um the apostle paul you know like my

00:43:15 kinsmen according to the flesh there was a special love because he goes on and and kind of fleshes

00:43:21 that out and talks about you know is there any uh advantage in being a jew much in every way

00:43:25 god god chooses unconditionally he's choosing gentiles and all these different but but there

00:43:30 is a certain advantage in in being um the history and having the patriarchs and uh the oracles and

00:43:36 the prophets and these kinds of things and so part of his affection for the jews has to do with

00:43:41 the fact that the jews were god's chosen people under the old covenant um but but it's but he

00:43:47 doesn't just say that he also says they're my kinsmen according to the flesh um i i love them

00:43:52 because i'm not just because god chose them but because i'm a part of them you know i belong to

00:43:57 them these are uh my people there's a certain connection a certain belonging a certain moral

00:44:02 obligation um with that i just i'm thinking i'm playing the devil's advocate for a second because

00:44:07 i think somebody could try to counter with um like um the good samaritan right because because

00:44:13 one of the things about the good Samaritan is he goes out of his way, um, to help someone who is

00:44:18 not, um, his people. When, when the other guys who, uh, the person who is in need was their people,

00:44:24 they actually did have that natural bond. Um, they ignored him and passed by. And, you know,

00:44:29 so Jesus is like, who was a good neighbor? Well, it's the guy who you wouldn't naturally expect to

00:44:34 even be a neighbor because, because they're from other tribes, you know, that they're not, 1.00

00:44:39 They don't belong to each other in terms of their kinship.

00:44:44 But these other two guys who did have that tie, they walked by.

00:44:48 And I guess what I would say to someone who's saying, well, see, look, like Jesus overrides, you know, the whole principle that you guys are talking about seems to be irrelevant in the mind of Jesus.

00:44:57 I guess what I would say is that the Samaritan who stops to help this man who had been beaten by thieves and left for dead, he stops because there's an argument for proximity.

00:45:10 So not just natural relations.

00:45:12 I think there's an argument for natural relations.

00:45:14 We've made that with Paul.

00:45:15 We've made that argument with prioritizing Christians as spiritual.

00:45:19 So there's spiritual, there's natural.

00:45:21 But then there's also proximity.

00:45:24 The reason why there was a moral obligation for all three men, the two that passed by and the Samaritan, is because they were there.

00:45:32 They were right there.

00:45:34 Now, if we were to change the parable, and let's say there was only enough resources in time, let's say time was of the essence.

00:45:41 It was two guys, not just one, but two guys were left for debt, robbed and beaten and left for debt.

00:45:47 And one was the guy that we already find in the parable, but the other one was a Samaritan.

00:45:53 And the Samaritan, and they only had a few minutes to live, and you only had time and resources to save one.

00:46:01 If the Samaritan picked his fellow Samaritan, I don't think that Jesus would chastise him for it.

00:46:08 Meaning what I'm saying is, I don't think that the argument that's being made in the parable is, there are no tribal distinctions.

00:46:17 There are no different cultures.

00:46:19 There are no nationalities.

00:46:22 I don't think Jesus is making that argument.

00:46:24 I think Jesus is saying, whoever you are, one thing that morally binds you to another person is the people that you're with.

00:46:33 Even if you're with someone who is not your people, simply by your presence, your proximity, you have a moral obligation to love them.

00:46:44 What do you think about that?

00:46:45 yeah i actually had the um you know the samaritan in mind as i was speaking because i because i

00:46:51 wanted to address that because i had a feeling like you did that that would be um a pushback

00:46:57 to that but as we've been saying all along we're not saying we shouldn't love other people right

00:47:04 we're simply saying there's nothing wrong with a natural love for people who are like us right

00:47:11 When I say like us, I mean our people, right?

00:47:14 I'm not saying, again, we should have supremacist thinking whatsoever.

00:47:16 But the same way that I am to love my family in a special way more than I would love somebody else who isn't my neighbor or who isn't my family, it applies to the Samaritan as well, too, where the parable is not saying, you know, well, in that parable, the Samaritan is receiving help and love from someone.

00:47:41 and we we support that right so you and i are not saying that well if somebody so for example

00:47:46 if someone's a nigerian for example i wouldn't say well forget you you're not ghanian so i'm

00:47:50 not going to help you no i am going to i'm commanded to help that one of course if i can

00:47:56 will you help that nigerian prince who keeps emailing you will you help

00:48:00 you mean princess 0.57

00:48:05 no but yeah i you know so yeah so if if you know you know um with if that if the person in the jew

00:48:18 in that in that um in that parable were to refuse to help the samaritan that would be sin

00:48:25 And for the record, flip it. It's the Samaritan helps the Jew. 0.69

00:48:29 Sorry, sorry. Go ahead. 1.00

00:48:31 Sorry, of course. Yeah. Yeah. I'm forgetting that.

00:48:34 But yeah, so if the Samaritan failed to help the Jew, then it is sin.

00:48:41 But, you know, but that's not, you know, that has nothing to do with what we're really saying here.

00:48:45 What we're just saying here is that there is a special kind of favoritism that we may have.

00:48:51 In the same way, if God forbid, if I'm in this position here, but, you know, if there's a, if my wife is, if someone, you know, were to kidnap someone in my family and I can only save one, I'm going to choose my family.

00:49:09 Yes.

00:49:10 That's not because I hate the other person.

00:49:12 Right.

00:49:13 Exactly.

00:49:13 But that's special love for family.

00:49:16 And I like what you said.

00:49:17 Racism is hatred.

00:49:19 Right.

00:49:19 it's it's uh it's disdain it's aversion it's it's um it's demeaning it's derogatory it's looking

00:49:26 down on someone looking down your nose viewing them as innately inferior and that's that's not

00:49:33 what we're talking about we're not talking about because you are not my own because you are not my

00:49:37 kin or whatever um i hate you no it's um i love you and if i'm walking by you and you're beaten

00:49:43 and left for dead i have a moral obligation simply by proximity because all people are my neighbors

00:49:49 All people. The Bible teaches universal creatorhood in regards to God and universal neighborhood in regards to brothers.

00:49:58 Now, the Bible doesn't teach universal fatherhood.

00:50:01 God is only the father of those who are united to his beloved son through faith.

00:50:07 And the Bible also doesn't teach universal brotherhood.

00:50:10 We are only brothers, truly, in the truest sense, spiritually, with fellow believers in the Lord Jesus Christ.

00:50:18 But everyone is my neighbor. And if I'm with proximity right next to my neighbor and he's dying and I can help him without neglecting my other loves, like my family, you know, then I actually am morally bound by God's law to love my neighbor and to help him.

00:50:41 And so we're not talking about the scenarios that we're discussing is not indifference, calculated, deliberate indifference out of hatred towards a certain type of person because they're not like us.

00:50:55 But we are talking about that the reality is, again, it goes back to the argument I made earlier.

00:51:01 We're not God.

00:51:02 We're not the infinite creator.

00:51:04 We are finite creatures.

00:51:05 And we're all a lot more finite, I think, than we sometimes would like to admit.

00:51:10 And so we only have so much time of the day.

00:51:13 We only have so many years in our lives.

00:51:15 We only have so much money in our bank accounts.

00:51:18 We only have so many giftings, so many abilities, so many this, so many that.

00:51:22 It's all limited.

00:51:23 It's all finite.

00:51:25 And so we have to choose.

00:51:26 There's 8.2 billion people on the planet, right?

00:51:28 We have to choose.

00:51:29 We have to make a choice.

00:51:30 As individuals, we have to make choices. 0.81

00:51:32 Nations have to make choices, right?

00:51:34 And that's what America has done for quite a while now is, you know, we would rather,

00:51:39 But, like, everyone is a Christian nationalist if we're talking about Ukraine.

00:51:45 Yeah.

00:51:45 You know what I mean?

00:51:46 Like, seriously, like, everyone was a Christian nationalist when they were honoring, you know, in England, when they were honoring the queen.

00:51:53 Right?

00:51:53 I mean, like, look at the language of, you know, when it comes to the ordination of Queen Elizabeth and now Charles.

00:52:00 Like, this is religious language, right?

00:52:03 You're the defender of the faith.

00:52:05 And everyone's like, wow, that's really cool.

00:52:07 You know, and then, but when you talk about America prioritizing America or America being Christian or like, it's just, people just hate America. And you know what I really think it is? I think it's envy, man. I don't think it's slavery. I don't think it's our history. I don't think it's those things. And this is why virtually every nation has had slaves. You know what I mean? And a lot of places have had slavery with more barbaric practices. And correct me if I'm wrong, because I know you know this more than me.

00:52:34 So fact check me, you know, like Politico, you can fact check me on it, you know, but I think the United States took 3% of the African slave trade, but a lot of it went to fellow African nations and European nations and South American nations.

00:52:48 And then when you look at nations that ended slavery and chronological order of who ended it first, you know, which would have been Great Britain.

00:52:56 But then following from that, like we weren't, you know, we weren't the last nation by any stretch.

00:53:00 We were one of the first nations to abolish slavery.

00:53:04 We took fewer slaves than other nations did.

00:53:08 There were barbaric masters in America, but there were barbaric masters other places. 0.62

00:53:12 And you could argue that in some ways it was more tempered by Christians because their conscience ultimately led towards abolishing slavery outright.

00:53:21 But even while there were slaves, there were many masters, not all, but many masters were like, yeah, we need to not treat them inhumanely in this regard, at least not like to this level.

00:53:32 And there were problems and all those kinds of things.

00:53:34 But my point is people don't hate America because it's the worst nation in terms of slavery.

00:53:39 I think people hate America because of envy.

00:53:42 I think people hate America because of its success, not because of its sinful past, but its opulence and prosperity and successful present. 0.81

00:53:52 I think that if Ghana, for instance, captured slaves and bought slaves and traded slaves, and if Ghana for the last 100 years had been one of the richest nations in the world, I think we'd see a lot of news programs and articles about how wicked Ghana is. 0.64

00:54:09 I think people don't care about other nations that have been more barbaric because they haven't been successful. And America's success ultimately, I think, came not because of slavery, but actually, I would say it came by the blessing of God despite the sin of slavery. What do you think about that?

00:54:27 It's very interesting because, you know, as a Ghanaian, you know, where my people were brutally enslaved by other more powerful tribes.

00:54:44 And, you know, Ghana, actually the group of the tribe in Ghana, this is the Ashantis, who were very dominant and extremely involved in the slave trade.

00:54:54 They did not, I mean, they still refuse as a tribe, Ashanti tribe, they refuse to acknowledge their role in slavery, where the majority, a strong number of people in the Caribbean were enslaved by, as in a strong number of people in the Caribbean are from, their ancestors were enslaved by the Ashantis. 0.83

00:55:15 They still refuse to admit their role. But the nation of Ghana has in 1998 formally apologized for their role of slavery. Now, remember, 1998. 0.76

00:55:27 Wow. A little late to the game. That's like guys who are just now realizing that maybe we shouldn't have locked down forever for COVID. 900 days late.

00:55:35 Exactly. And it was around that same time where the other African nations admitted their role again, not the tribes themselves, but the nation said, yeah, we apologize for our role in slavery.

00:55:48 Now, again, that's around the 1980s, 1990s. It was 19, not 19, it was the 1860s where Americans died fighting for slavery. No one really wants to talk about that.

00:56:03 Right. It took more than 130 years for a nation like Ghana to say, yeah, we should not have benefited from slavery. 0.89

00:56:13 Where in fact, yeah, there is, you know, the movie, The Woman King or. 0.99

00:56:17 Oh, my gosh. What a joke. I haven't watched it, but I've read some.

00:56:22 Oh, my goodness. Talk about rewriting history.

00:56:25 I've not. I wanted to watch the movie, but it would irritate me, I'm sure.

00:56:29 so i'm trying to wait for a while before i watch it but like there was britain had to go to war

00:56:36 with uh with that nation um you know that well that tribe from that movie uh i think it's a

00:56:43 tribe in benin i think um they had to go to war with them because they were so angry that the

00:56:49 british banned um the slave trade they went to war with the british that's how that's anyway i'm

00:56:55 kind of going off topic here but i know that's good that's good man yeah i think you know i agree

00:57:00 with you in many you know that it's not america's history with a slave trade or with any other

00:57:06 injustice that people hate i actually think it actually ties into christian nationalism

00:57:10 you know when you think about the west especially you know the so-called new world whether it is

00:57:17 canada or america i think these two nations especially they really are the bastions of so-called

00:57:23 um christian nationalism in a sense now what i mean by that is this england is not what he used

00:57:32 to be in many ways um you know it was it was the puritans that came to that came to america

00:57:39 and many christians also in canada that uniquely right britain was not always a christian nation

00:57:47 right they became reformed later on they became christian i suppose generally later on but

00:57:53 america and canada were were uniquely built on christianity in ways that other nations weren't

00:57:59 even europe and i think that that history where christianity is is it's so um entrenched in in

00:58:09 in these nations being built in the ways that the other european nations who became christian

00:58:15 later on were not um you know did not have the same kind of history i think that is part of why

00:58:20 people hate america and canada uniquely more than any other nation including britain or or any other

00:58:28 you know nation in europe france italy whatever because of that unique history so they try to um

00:58:35 to to destroy that rich history of christianity by saying well yeah you can claim christianity

00:58:42 but look at what they were doing all they can say well it's actually the christianity 0.88

00:58:45 that made them support slavery, even though it was that very Christianity that actually made

00:58:52 America ban slavery a lot faster than any other nation in the world. 0.69

00:58:57 I think that's a really good point. I think so. Yeah, I don't think it's because America is

00:59:03 uniquely sinful in its past. We're not saying that America doesn't have sin in its past,

00:59:08 but uniquely sinful. Every nation has sin in its past, just like every individual person has sin

00:59:15 in their past um so the question was was america uniquely sinful did they did we have a unique

00:59:21 category of sin like meaning like we're the only ones who own slaves no okay well well then if

00:59:27 other nations shared in this category of sin were we uniquely high in terms of our degree of sin in

00:59:33 that category no no like so so it's neither so i i really think it is envy of success and prosperity

00:59:40 and and i think it's also what you're saying i think it's um a roundabout attack on on christ

00:59:46 and i think that's what a lot of this stuff is whether it's patriarchy um well instead of just

00:59:52 coming out right instead of a straight line and just saying we hate jesus um why don't why don't

00:59:59 you just hit all the things that that um that are loosely tied to him that represent christ you know

01:00:06 So it's like, instead of saying we hate Jesus, you say we hate Western culture that was shaped by Jesus.

01:00:13 We hate men. 0.99

01:00:16 We hate whiteness. 1.00

01:00:18 We hate heterosexual marriage. 0.99

01:00:20 We hate the scientific method.

01:00:24 But if you were to draw a line from all these things that have been very popular lately to hate, and you tried to find a common denominator, 0.58

01:00:35 it's not whiteness yeah it's jesus yeah it's jesus and that doesn't mean all these things

01:00:41 have represented jesus perfectly without fault or sin but they all share that despite their

01:00:47 imperfections they all share christ as the center and i think that's what the attack is really about

01:00:53 what do you think i that i completely agree um man there's so much i want to say that i i so

01:01:00 So what you're saying made me think about something that I mentioned in my, I wrote a review on white fragility a few years ago.

01:01:08 And in there, I didn't spend too much on it, but I said, like, this is antichrist.

01:01:14 And people, you know, they think, oh, this is just bad, but they don't realize how antichrist critical race theory is.

01:01:20 So in that book, Robin DiAngelo says that one of the most white supremacist or racist things people say today is that racism has to be, racism is always intentional.

01:01:33 Well, what they're saying there is, well, the Bible, God says racism is always intentional because it is partiality.

01:01:41 As James 2, verse 4 says, it is an evil thought, right?

01:01:47 So what they're saying there is, well, if you believe what the Bible says about sin, if you believe what the Bible says about partiality, you are racist, which means, of course, that God is racist.

01:01:59 Yeah, that's a good point.

01:02:01 You know what?

01:02:02 It's amazing how now the term they keep using is Christian nationalism, whereas I said before, it was white nationalism.

01:02:09 Because when they were really saying white nationalism, what they really meant is Christianity is a problem.

01:02:16 That's right. 0.91

01:02:16 And not just that, the term white privilege. Well, now it's being said more and more often, Christian privilege. There's a book I have here called White Christian Privilege. She starts off by talking about white Christian privilege, but then by the end of the book, she's really more addressing Christian privilege.

01:02:36 Right.

01:02:36 So all of this stuff is really an attack on Christianity. 0.95

01:02:41 You're right.

01:02:42 And they're finally now just coming out and just saying it, just, you know, saying the quiet part out loud.

01:02:46 Right. 0.64

01:02:46 It's really and I love like Christian privileges. 0.54

01:02:49 It's hilarious because it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:02:52 Christian privilege. 0.84

01:02:53 Yeah, I believe in that.

01:02:54 We got a word for that.

01:02:55 It's called blessing.

01:02:57 Blessing.

01:02:58 That's right.

01:02:58 Yeah.

01:02:58 There is a privilege to being a follower of Christ.

01:03:03 Right.

01:03:03 That when we follow Christ, is there persecution?

01:03:06 Yes.

01:03:06 Is there a challenge?

01:03:08 Yes.

01:03:08 Is there a difficulty?

01:03:09 Yes.

01:03:10 But there's also immense blessing when we follow Christ.

01:03:16 And here's the irony.

01:03:16 I think a lot of the church is not properly equipped to fight this particular fight.

01:03:23 Because the pagans, if I can say it like this, the pagans actually have, now they hate it, they disdain it, right?

01:03:31 So just like they have kind of the theology of demons, right?

01:03:35 demons have decent trinitarian doctrine uh but they hate it and shudder right you know even the 0.76

01:03:40 demons know that god is one but shut so um so the pagan has i think has they have their fingers on 0.51

01:03:47 the pulse accurately um of of some biblical doctrine some sound biblical doctrine but they 0.69

01:03:53 you know they're in terms of their hearts and their affection they despise it they hate it

01:03:57 the christian um doesn't necessarily hate the things of god the christian would would actually

01:04:02 rejoice and love the things of God, but is just so thoroughly confused doctrine. And so what I'm

01:04:08 saying is this, the opponents of Christ, opponents of the Christian faith, they actually are drawing

01:04:16 a clearer correlation between obedience to God, bringing about blessing in this life, where I

01:04:23 think many Christians coming off the heels of the prosperity gospel and certain abuses of that

01:04:30 principles, certain things that are in fact, you know, bonafide heresy. Christians, I think, 0.77

01:04:37 have overcompensated, overreacted to the prosperity gospel to where we have lost many 0.98

01:04:43 American evangelical Christians in overcompensating against the prosperity gospel. They've completely

01:04:49 erased any correlation between obedience and blessing in this life. And what I want to argue

01:04:58 you is that biblically speaking, I think that it's not guaranteed, but ordinarily we can expect

01:05:05 tangible blessings even in this life, always guaranteed eternal blessing, but ordinarily

01:05:12 temporal blessings in this life by following Christ. For instance, if I obey Christ's commands

01:05:18 to keep my wedding vows to my wife, will statistics tell me that my children have a

01:05:24 better chance not going to prison a better chance getting a job so my children will be privileged

01:05:30 because of their father's obedience you know that christian privilege so that author is absolutely

01:05:37 right in what they're articulating wrong to despise it christians um are right in the sense

01:05:44 that if they were aware of what the bible actually taught by virtue of being christians i think they

01:05:49 they would like it but they're they christians are just right now i it just we're so um theologically

01:05:57 anemic and and so and it's because of of i think this uh um such a a fear of being labeled as a

01:06:06 racist such a fear of you know is it like that like the father you know the christian father

01:06:11 who is like um it's like i i bet your kids went to bed uh tonight with with um with uh sheets and 0.97

01:06:18 and uh clean comforters and full bellies you monster it's like yeah no my my kids did go to

01:06:24 bed um in in nice beds with nice uh pjs on after eating a nice dinner that their mother made and

01:06:32 i'm not apologizing for that well i i can tell you this too in that you know growing up in poverty

01:06:39 you know you and i have had you know this talk before well um that's because my father wasn't

01:06:46 a Christian and he left the family. My mom is a Christian, but my father's not there and we have

01:06:51 poverty. With that being said, Ghana is, you know, I mentioned the influence that the Europeans had

01:07:03 in Ghana. Ghana's one of the few nations in West Africa that was colonized by the British instead

01:07:10 of the the uh the french and other or other groups and the british one of the good things they did

01:07:16 was they really established the gospel in ghana ghana is one of the better african nations when

01:07:24 it comes to economy and having very very very little history with war and actually there was

01:07:31 a study i think done surprisingly i think by christianity today and they're woken you know

01:07:36 left now, but they did a study where they showed that the African nations where the British

01:07:41 colonized, where they were, you know, they were, you know, where the gospel was really being

01:07:47 preached there, they're significantly better off at every level than the other African nations that

01:07:53 were not colonized by the Christian, by, you know, so-called, you know, Christian nations.

01:08:00 So even in that, so, you know, while you have some individuals, right, in some nations who

01:08:05 the christians who will um who might be poor but that would be because of different circumstances

01:08:11 like my you know like mine where my father's not there or you know others or other other reasons

01:08:16 but there is a general truth you know as i was you know my wife and i have been going through

01:08:21 the book of proverbs as we're studying this this book i'm like if by the grace of god we obey the

01:08:28 you know we obey this wisdom literature god will bless us yes blessing always comes from wisdom

01:08:36 right by the grace of god so there is that general truth now of course some christians will have

01:08:42 persecution and things like that but generally there is a unique blessing that christians have

01:08:50 when we obey god in all these things whether it comes to being a good steward i mean for example

01:08:54 the parable of the talents right if we've been a good steward of what god has called for us to

01:08:59 be responsible for he will bless us um and you know in his own way yes um let me look up a bible

01:09:08 verse real quick um because it really addresses what we're talking about about blessing obviously

01:09:15 so what we're saying is that there's a guaranteed blessing for obedience in the life to come

01:09:20 But ordinarily, as a general rule, there are tangible blessings even in this life for obedience.

01:09:26 There's persecution for obedience often, but there's also blessing.

01:09:31 And to be more specific in terms of, okay, but what's the determining factor between when blessing leads to persecution versus when blessing leads to tangible temporal, I'm sorry, when obedience results in persecution versus when obedience results in temporal blessing in this life?

01:09:47 I would say one of the determining factors between the two is, well, is Christendom.

01:09:55 I think that, you know, so if you're a first century Christian in Rome, a lot of your obedience, I would say, if I was a pastor in that context, I would say ordinarily obedience will result in persecution.

01:10:09 but we're not christians in first century rome um you know because because a few centuries later

01:10:17 when when you've got constantine and it was and think about that man you think about just the rate

01:10:22 of of multiplication um within a few centuries you go from from the vast minority being christians

01:10:31 to uh it's now taking over the world you have a christian empire and i know there's a lot of

01:10:37 controversy about constantine and all this but i believe he was a christian and and personally

01:10:42 from what i've read and what i've you know looked into he was baptized at the end of his life because

01:10:46 it was a common belief at that time that baptism was going to wash your sins away and so you kind

01:10:51 of want it you know kind of like uh within catholicism you know last last rites you know

01:10:55 you wanted you wanted to be as close to your deathbed as possible but it wasn't because he

01:10:59 just finally converted right before his death um that he converted many many years prior

01:11:04 um but was saving his baptism yes that is a a superstitious and and unbiblical view of baptism

01:11:11 um but you know it's you know we we have we're not arguing that um athanasius wasn't a christian

01:11:18 and he had some you know like so we we've we've gotten better as as time goes on we're progressing

01:11:24 and i like you know some guys will say you know like when you think of david like he's a man after

01:11:28 god's own heart and he's wearing a um a necklace of foreskins philistine foreskins around his neck

01:11:35 200 of them you know like um like like the bar is raising as time goes on as the mustard seed

01:11:40 is growing into a tree as the leaven works through the whole batch of dough and and that's happening

01:11:45 with individuals but it's also happening with nations and so the point is like when constantine's

01:11:49 in power um guess what um obedience ordinary leads to blessing uh when nero's in power

01:11:56 obedience ordinary leads to persecution. And I think in America, historically, 0.72

01:12:03 obedience has led to blessing not only guaranteed in the life to come, but ordinarily in this life

01:12:10 as well, because America has been a context of Christendom. It has had that kind of rewarding

01:12:19 virtue and punishing vice. As things shift, though, politically, culturally, that affects

01:12:26 legislation, that affects, as there's a shift in morality evolving from God's standard to man's

01:12:34 humanistic standard, then things change. But I think that what we can say is it's not a,

01:12:39 I guess what I'm saying is I would not say it is a timeless principle at all times and in all

01:12:45 places that obedience will bring about blessing in this life it always brings about blessing in

01:12:50 the life to come but it does not always bring about blessing in this life as a universal and

01:12:55 timeless principle but i think that that for the west ordinarily it does over the past few centuries

01:13:03 but some of that is starting to erode and that's what we've seen in cancel culture those and and

01:13:08 it's not like oh cancel culture is bad because um because you know i'm i'm you know a a classic

01:13:14 liberal and everybody should be able to do whatever they want. No, no. We've always had

01:13:19 cancel culture. I think cancel culture is good. We just want to cancel evil. We want to cancel

01:13:23 sin. There's always been standards for what curriculum is in schools or what you can say

01:13:30 in public. It's not that we're seeing an erosion of freedom. I know it looks like that. In some

01:13:41 essence it is that but what we're actually seeing is um you know people say oh we used to have the

01:13:46 moral majority no we we still have the moral majority but morality has shifted morality has

01:13:52 has changed to where now the things that used to be rewarded are punished and the things that used

01:13:58 to be punished um are are being praised and there's this reversal with degradation going on

01:14:05 in our culture at large and and so right now i think we're living in a time where it's kind of

01:14:09 a toss-up it's you know obedience in this life it's kind of 50 50 it might bring the hammer it

01:14:14 might bring canceling it might bring losing your job but it also might bring blessing because we

01:14:19 still have the remnants you know the residue of christendom in in the west and in america and and

01:14:25 in terms of which which way we fall what side of the fence we fall on and where we ultimately land

01:14:30 i think is uh the verdict still out go ahead oh i i'm not even sure what to i completely agree with

01:14:37 you i you know as you're speaking you know um maybe the only thing that comes to mind is and

01:14:43 again we know that um you know general truths um are not always going to be um you know some

01:14:53 individuals will maybe will sometimes have unique situations right but as you're saying this you

01:14:58 know in terms of um how it's not timeless where in certain areas um christians you know who are

01:15:05 being faithful uh will you know will not maybe experience that kind of temporal blessings i was

01:15:11 thinking of my mom actually where i mentioned before where we were in ghana my mom has always

01:15:15 worked extremely hard but we were extremely poor then we come to canada where there is a a different

01:15:23 culture there is differences here where the same thing she was doing in ghana she is now uh i want

01:15:29 to say wealthy but she's now doing she's nowhere near poor now so um you know anyway so what you

01:15:35 were saying there may you know it's very true that i think a lot of people today are not thinking

01:15:38 about or teaching because again i you know being raised in the prosperity gospel church i think a

01:15:43 lot of people are hesitant to believe these things but yet the you know the bible does say this a

01:15:50 righteous man leaves an inheritance for his children right either that's a general truth

01:15:56 Either that's a proverb that we can believe in, or God is a liar.

01:16:01 And we know that God is not a liar, right?

01:16:03 Yep, I completely agree.

01:16:05 This is the verse that I was thinking of.

01:16:06 It's Luke chapter 18, verses 29 and 30.

01:16:09 It says, And he said to them, being Christ,

01:16:12 Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children

01:16:19 for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times more in this life

01:16:25 and in the age to come eternal life and i feel like there's a lot of

01:16:31 i don't know how to say this um i don't american gospel may not know what to do with that verse

01:16:39 tgc might not know what to do with that verse i don't know if russell moore would know what

01:16:44 to do with that verse um and i like american gospel the second the second two not so much

01:16:52 But even American gospel, I think that, you know, like, I don't know if, I think we're needing more thorough, more rich.

01:17:03 We need deeper doctrine.

01:17:05 I think we've been dealing with some things up here, like, well, let's refute Benny Hinn.

01:17:12 Amen.

01:17:12 Benny Hinn's a heretic, and that false gospel leads millions of people to hell. 0.99

01:17:17 It matters. 0.67

01:17:18 I don't want to make light of that.

01:17:19 um but man the the church in america we need deeper doctrine than just a rebuttal to benny

01:17:27 benny him what we need we need there are so many things that we've got to figure we need to figure

01:17:32 out a christian politic we need to figure out christian ethics we need to figure i feel like

01:17:40 you know when you think of christendom and these kind of in church history for the first thousand

01:17:43 years we're just trying to figure out who jesus is right the two natures of christ the hypostatic

01:17:48 union who's jesus um and it took about a thousand years to figure that out and the next thousand

01:17:53 years um what what is the gospel what is justification by grace alone through faith

01:17:58 alone in christ alone you know according to the scripture alone to the glory of god alone

01:18:02 um and that took about a thousand years and you know and and by god's grace we figured that one

01:18:06 out and and we can never drift past the gospel we got to keep preaching the gospel we have to

01:18:11 preach the gospel as a defense and offense against any false gospel. But I think, if I had to guess,

01:18:21 I think the next thousand years, I think that the church, and I'd like to think that America will

01:18:27 lead the way, but maybe not. America may not last another thousand years. It may not last another

01:18:32 50 years. But I think that the church of some nation somewhere, somehow in the providence of

01:18:38 god is going to have to nail out not just doctrine of god theology proper and not just justification

01:18:44 by grace through faith in christ um but i think we're going to have to start nailing out a christian

01:18:49 ethic a christian politic and i and i think there's a group of guys right now who like are

01:18:56 are rising up and dealing with this guy's like you know stephen wolf with his his book that just

01:19:02 came out recently you know the the case for christian nationalism there's some spicy stuff

01:19:06 in here i i don't know you know if i i don't know but um but he's on to something he's on to

01:19:12 something doug wilson is on to something with his meet the press you know um nbc thing where they

01:19:18 try to you know blast him and and you know um there are people who are working on this right

01:19:23 now and uh and i think like we've got to be able to we've got to be able to combat benny hinn but

01:19:28 also say in the same breath um as for me and my house we will serve the lord and there is

01:19:35 son, there is a benefit to serving the Lord. When you look at the Proverbs written to sons

01:19:41 and say, it's not just you do these things and you'll get thrown to lions, but you'll get to

01:19:47 be with Jesus. It's very earthly, not worldly, but earthly in the sense that it's down to earth.

01:19:56 It's the knit and the grit. You live this way and there are consequences and you live that way

01:20:02 and there are blessings and you do this and you do that. And, and so, and some guys did work on

01:20:07 this. Gary North, um, you know, wrote a lot of stuff with economics and you've got guys like

01:20:13 Bonson, you know, who sadly died just way too early. And then you've, you've got guys like

01:20:18 Rush Dooney who's spicy and there's, there's some controversy, but I think some of these guys were

01:20:23 onto something. And in some sense they were like prophetic. Now, some of them went weird,

01:20:27 like you know like they they went off the deep end and um not the guys that i just named but

01:20:33 some other guys um but but my point is i think that they were on to something you look at the

01:20:39 reconstructionist movement and things like that in the 70s and 80s and the 90s um and and i think

01:20:44 in some ways people just didn't believe it like in some ways like for for people to listen sometimes

01:20:50 things just they have to get bad before they get good they have to like they have to and i think

01:20:55 we're finally living in a time where things have gotten so totalitarian, like so much worse. And

01:21:00 nobody would ever imagine drag queen story out. Nobody would ever imagine being locked down in 1.00

01:21:08 your house and churches told that they can't meet for months and mandated vaccines or you lose your

01:21:12 job. And we're finally getting to this point where there's enough madness and secular humanism

01:21:20 has finally borne its fruit and enough bad fruit to where I think you actually have a market for

01:21:27 the first time. I think Rush Dooney just didn't have a market, but now there's a market for Rush

01:21:32 Dooney. There's a bunch of guys, myself included, who are like, all right, I'll read his book

01:21:36 because I've tasted the fruit over here and it's putrid. And so anyways, I'm just saying that I

01:21:46 think you know we we got to be able to do something with verses like that in this life not

01:21:51 receive who will not receive many times more in this life and in the age to come and that doesn't

01:21:58 mean that that just by there's a different the prosperity gospel says believe in jesus just just

01:22:03 have faith and you'll be rich this is this is not saying just have faith and you'll be rich this

01:22:08 means follow jesus and the principles of christ and there's blessing and and i we got to be able

01:22:14 would say that without being called prosperity gospel heretics yeah absolutely but i think you

01:22:20 know the the difference between the prosperity gospel and what that text is saying is we will

01:22:26 be blessed we just don't know how that how that blessing will be right so so for some people the

01:22:34 blessing might end up being wealth for others the blessing would um would would would happen in

01:22:41 different ways um you know so so i think you know but again i think a lot of people do not address

01:22:47 this stuff indeed because of the prosperity gospel and i think many others i just not even

01:22:52 think about that at all whatsoever even um ignoring the prosperity gospel so yeah go ahead

01:22:58 no no i'm sorry i was just my nose is stuffed up no i but i i agree with you entirely like we don't

01:23:05 we don't get to dictate what form the blessing comes in and you're right the blessing could

01:23:08 come in peace and joy and these kinds of fruits of the spirit and you know and a wonderful marriage

01:23:12 and a wonderful this and wonderful that and you live in a shanty and financially you're poor

01:23:16 that's that's true from that verse yeah so i won't hang my hat entirely exclusively on that verse

01:23:23 but to go back to the verses that you mentioned namely the entire book of proverbs we have verses

01:23:28 that don't leave it um an open-ended um question as to what form the blessing might come maybe it'll

01:23:34 come as an emotional blessing or spiritual now we have multiple verses to talk about like if you

01:23:38 cast your bread seven times upon the waters which to me looks like um a principle of of um economic

01:23:46 investing through diversity and if you do that um you'll have the joy joy joy joy down in your heart

01:23:53 no you have cash yeah yeah yeah and even when and even with that too i think um i don't want

01:24:01 people to misunderstand what that means in that some people i'm trying to think um so for example

01:24:08 now so moving from toronto where the idea of wealth and you know the kind of job people have

01:24:17 is very different from um you know where people in this area that i am in ohio the kind of jobs

01:24:23 they have right where um a lot of people are just farmers or just doing you know similar kind of

01:24:30 jobs where they have wealth, but that wealth looks different than what that wealth will look like for

01:24:37 somebody who's working in business and everything else. So it's kind of like, again, I mentioned

01:24:42 the parable of the talents. The person with the five talents doubled it and had 10. The other

01:24:48 person with the two talents doubled it and had four. They both created wealth, but some were

01:24:55 richer than others. So in the same way, there will be Christians out there who may not have 1.00

01:25:03 anywhere near as much money as other Christians, but with what God gave them, the career, 0.72

01:25:10 the job that God gave them, they were able to steward that in such a way that they may not be 0.97

01:25:15 living gloriously. They might be struggling to pay their bills, but they are being good stewards

01:25:22 of their money god has blessed them in such a way that they can still leave an inheritance or uh

01:25:28 yeah leave an inheritance to their children no matter how small that is so wealth looks very

01:25:33 different to um to some people based on different scenarios in terms of what kind of jobs they have

01:25:39 where they live uh or even the nation they live in no you're right the degree of wealth varies

01:25:45 based off of the starting point and and because god is not a marxist because god is not egalitarian

01:25:51 we don't all have the same starting point not only does god not determine equity and equal

01:25:57 outcomes uh god doesn't even do equal opportunity yeah um he he gets to decide like he creates

01:26:04 right i mean i think of what what god says to moses in the burning bush where he's telling

01:26:09 moses moses keeps making excuses you know like i can't do it you know and yet like i'm of you

01:26:14 know i'm slow of speech and then god responds by saying uh who makes man mute or dumb or blind

01:26:21 is it not i the lord he doesn't say like um he doesn't say you know sin entered the world and

01:26:27 some people are born you know with disabilities or um that that is true but it's also simultaneously

01:26:33 true that god makes him and he doesn't even just say i allow this to happen no like god made the

01:26:40 the deaf the mute and the blind um and and then god made somebody else with with sight and speech

01:26:46 And so is that not disparity? And behold, is it not the Lord who has done it? And so you're absolutely right. The master reserves the right to give to one talent, another two, another five.

01:27:03 And then based off of what the Lord has given, the starting point, there will be different degrees of potential for multiplication.

01:27:13 But the point is, and I think you agree with this, that if we're faithful, if we don't bury the talent in the sand, then we can, by obeying the law of God and following his principles ordinarily in a place that is not terribly hostile towards the things of God, we should expect that through obedience, two will turn to four and five will turn to ten.

01:27:42 Now, there are some contexts, and that's why the context matters, because I think if you apply the principles of Christ in North Korea, it just may not work.

01:27:57 So I am, again, talking predominantly to people in the West, in Canada, in America, and sadly the tide is turning. 0.58

01:28:06 Now I think there's a lot of hope that we can push back.

01:28:08 But right now there's, you know, it's switching of rewarding vice and punishing virtue rather than, you know, but again, in the West, because of the remnants of Christendom, because the gospel came to bear on these places and influenced these laws and these policies, there is a reward, not just eternally, but a temporal earthly reward for righteousness.

01:28:33 Righteousness ordinarily gets rewarded.

01:28:36 And somebody could be just as faithful as someone else and still not in terms of total amount, still not even have half of what the other person has because they started with less.

01:28:48 But if we're faithful, we're not saying if we're faithful, you will be equally rich to everyone else.

01:28:54 That's not the argument we're making.

01:28:55 We're saying if you're faithful in some of these contexts that God over 2,000 years of Christendom has in church history has created by his providence, if you're faithful there, I think you should ordinarily expect not only the well done good and faithful servant in the life to come, which is of infinitely more value, but also some tangible measure of reward here as we seek to multiply our talents and what the Lord gave us to begin with.

01:29:24 Amen.

01:29:25 yeah i agree so yeah and so i i just feel like we got to get to work and we got to talk about

01:29:30 christian economics and we got to talk about christian um ethics and christian politics

01:29:35 and christian legislation and christian because at the end of the day that jesus is if you're not

01:29:40 for me you're against me there is no neutral ground it's it's christian everything or or

01:29:47 there's no neutral so it's either christian this christian that or it's um or it's it's secular

01:29:55 satanic this satanic that i i i don't want to live in a satanic nation so yeah i think christian

01:30:03 nation is kind of my only option yeah no i um you know you mentioned a lot of the people who have

01:30:10 been so influential in addressing these things and you know i just talking about just you know

01:30:16 Christian ethics when it comes to wealth. Um, you know, it's funny,

01:30:19 I've been talking about the parable of talents a lot of times when it,

01:30:22 you know, to destroy, well, to destroy, maybe that sounds arrogant,

01:30:24 but to, to really attack the, um, you know,

01:30:29 the Marxist thinking within the church when it comes to, um, you know,

01:30:33 suggesting that, you know, uh, disparities is,

01:30:37 is always an evidence of discrimination saying, no, Oh, that's not true.

01:30:41 But honestly, until a few years ago,

01:30:45 I had not thought about it in terms of what it means for me towards godliness until a friend of mine really just said, you know, just who's into financing and things like that.

01:30:57 He just talked to me in terms of how he is trying to prepare himself.

01:31:00 He was not married at the time, just preparing himself to be able to lead a wife and lead, you know, lead his family, lead his children and talked about investing.

01:31:09 And honestly, I had no idea.

01:31:10 I knew nothing about this stuff.

01:31:12 And part of that, honestly, was a cultural thing. 0.51

01:31:15 Um, Ghanaians, Africans are not known for investments, um, the way that the West is.

01:31:20 Um, so, you know, I started doing, doing that more and just realizing that, yeah, God has

01:31:26 called me to be a steward.

01:31:27 And again, I don't know what that will mean.

01:31:29 I'm not in control in the sense of what that would mean, but I'm called to be faithful.

01:31:33 I'm called to be wise and prudent.

01:31:35 I'm called to work hard and invest and think about the future so that I can take care of

01:31:40 my family.

01:31:41 And then when I do pass away, I can leave an inheritance from my children, whatever that would be.

01:31:48 But also, really, in terms of people who've been influential, I'm grateful for, you know, I'm not a, you know, well, again, I keep saying, some would say I'm a theonomist, but I wouldn't call myself that, but I understand why they would.

01:31:58 but i am grateful for a lot of the theonomists who've been addressing this issue i'm also

01:32:03 grateful for vadi bocum and john mccarth and other people out there who are really addressing

01:32:07 the issue of ethics in in so many different ways um you know and i'm i'm grateful so i'm grateful

01:32:14 for these men and even you know not even but people like yourself who's addressing this issue

01:32:19 i'm saying even not because you're lesser but saying that i thought you i didn't think you

01:32:23 were gonna say me i thought when you when you said the word even i thought he's gonna say doug

01:32:26 wilson even i'm even grateful for doug wilson that's what i thought i thought he's gonna say

01:32:35 that was even i'm so grateful i'm even grateful for him

01:32:39 no i i i you know we've had this talk before i appreciate a lot of what he's what uh what he's

01:32:48 done uh i've learned a lot really um you know from him as well too um it's impossible right now

01:32:54 to be a christian especially a young christian and not to be influenced by doug wilson in some

01:32:58 capacity yeah although you know my dude my two dudes are vaude bocom and john mccarthy they've

01:33:03 had a massive impact on me yeah although i am not um a disby premill um but you know i am i'm a mill

01:33:11 although you post well then you got you're right you're right there with uh voting then if you're

01:33:17 all mill if you know if you're i know you're baptist so you're baptist you're covenantal

01:33:21 you know a baptist covenant theology are you sabbatarian no hop on board with the sabbath

01:33:28 and uh and they just affirm the 1689 instance i bet you the sabbath is probably the only thing

01:33:34 in the 1689 that you're not currently able to affirm so hop on board with that and then you'll

01:33:39 be voters twin yeah i i thought about that a lot uh because i actually grew up not grew up i spent

01:33:44 some time in a dutch reform church they are sabbatarians so um so i thought about that

01:33:50 deeply but yeah i gotta do some more thinking on that but as of right now i'm not yeah that's all

01:33:55 right all you have to do if you just live you know like if you live into your 80s or your 90s

01:34:00 you'll be a sabbatarian because the christian nationalists we're going to take over the nation

01:34:04 and we will put you in the stocks if you don't observe the sabbath we're going to bring back 0.95

01:34:10 blasphemy laws sabbath laws and i'm saying it like i'm joking but i'm a little bit serious we'll have 0.93

01:34:16 to deal with you know what the consequences are but i i think there's something there so

01:34:19 steven wolf i bet you steven wolf talks about i haven't this is a brick man i i was hoping

01:34:24 i was really really hoping for an 80 page book because i because uh because you know as you and

01:34:31 i you know we talked beforehand i'm i'm gonna try to review get the book and review it oh yeah i'd

01:34:36 love to hear your thoughts and and yeah i guess i'm gonna have to spend like a week and a half

01:34:41 probably because i take a long time to read a book and then especially when i'm making notes to review

01:34:46 yeah so i'm gonna try and get my hands on it very soon so i can review it

01:34:50 slow to write slow to read there you go

01:34:53 it's fascinating you know to me with you know the theonomy issue

01:34:57 um you know the theonomy debate whatever happening because

01:35:00 again i'm not a theonomist but i like a lot of theonomists you know i like you

01:35:05 a lot of our mutual friends are theonomists

01:35:06 you know uh we mentioned joe boot uh you know yeah i love joe boot

01:35:11 so it's really weird uh i mean i am in i am in the

01:35:15 theonomist space the christian libertarian space and you know the the grace to you camp as well

01:35:22 so i'm kind of everywhere really um i'm not trying to be ecumenical in a sense but i guess i kind of

01:35:27 am you know uh and even with the abortion issue i have i have friends who are catholics that i

01:35:33 that i am also you know working with when it comes to the abortion issue as well too so i'm

01:35:37 kind of everywhere so well i think we've got a partner wherever we can partner i like some guys

01:35:42 are like well we can't part with catholics no what we can't do is what billy graham was doing

01:35:46 uh we can't do the evangelical and catholics you know united ecumenical like on the gospel

01:35:52 we can't we can't unite with right so so like i can't we can't be ecumenical and unite with 0.65

01:35:59 a catholic on the gospel for the same reason i can't unite with a purple-haired feminist on 0.97

01:36:04 abortion why because they want to kill babies and the catholic doesn't know the gospel so you can't 1.00

01:36:10 You can't partner with someone on the very issue you disagree with, but that doesn't

01:36:14 mean that you have to agree on every single issue there is under the sun in order to partner

01:36:20 at all.

01:36:20 You can partner in God's common grace on the issues where you do agree without compromise.

01:36:26 And you can say, man, like, so one of the things that guys are arguing with, you know,

01:36:31 whether it's Andrew Torba, and I know that that's controversial, but I read his book.

01:36:34 I like it.

01:36:35 I like Andrew Torba, whether it's Stephen Wolf or, you know, whether it's Doug Wilson,

01:36:39 A lot of what these guys are saying, I think of Brian Sauvé in the King's Hall, you know, those guys, Eric Kahn.

01:36:43 A lot of the Christian nationalist conversation right now that I'm privileged to get to be a part of because it's exciting and it's exciting.

01:36:53 And a lot of the conversation, though, is we need a big tent.

01:36:56 This is not going to work unless there's a big tent.

01:36:59 And not everybody's going to agree on every little thing.

01:37:02 So not everybody's going to be theonomic.

01:37:04 A.D. Robles was talking about that just today.

01:37:06 He had a video where he was saying, yeah, I want you to be a Christian nationalist.

01:37:11 And I know a lot of you guys aren't going to be theonomist, but you can still be under this tent.

01:37:16 And so I think it's going to have to be Presbyterian and Baptist and Anglican and this and that.

01:37:22 And it's going to have to be, but it has to be, here's the thing, it has to be nationalist and it has to be Christian.

01:37:28 It has to be Christian, distinctly Christian.

01:37:30 So it's not what it won't be, which I said, oh my goodness, I'm just now remembering.

01:37:35 but we never got into it.

01:37:37 What it won't be is partnering with Dave Rubin.

01:37:42 That's the only way to bring it back.

01:37:43 You want to just give me the two-minute version on Candace Owens coming out 0.87

01:37:48 and defending Dave Rubin?

01:37:50 That's good.

01:37:50 Yeah, I completely forgot about it.

01:37:52 Me too, until just right now.

01:37:53 Yeah, so I think it was around March, Dave Rubin announced with his partner,

01:38:00 Dave Rubin being a so-called gay conservative,

01:38:03 He announced that him and his partner are going to have two children through surrogate mothers.

01:38:11 And then some conservatives, including The Blaze and especially Candace Owen, supported him.

01:38:18 And especially as we used to Candace Owen, some of her fans said, hey, what are you doing?

01:38:23 And back in March, I read an article saying that conservatives are part of the problem.

01:38:29 And then just last month, Candace Owens finally responded to her, you know, critics, her conservative critics on why she was supporting Dave Rubin.

01:38:38 And she basically just said, you know, she doesn't see anything with it.

01:38:43 She was even attacking. She didn't really defend herself. She was really attacking people like us who would say that this is wrong.

01:38:48 And she used really leftist reasoning, saying that, well, how could you shame, shame the children?

01:38:54 No, we're just saying that this is not conservative.

01:38:59 But anyway, I wrote an article last month saying that conservatives are still part of the problem.

01:39:03 And, you know, my point was just to really reiterate the fact that, look, we can say that conservatives, as you said, we can partner with anyone on certain issues to, you know, to get our, to get the truth across, to get justice across.

01:39:20 But really, they are not our allies, right?

01:39:24 You know, we have to remember that these people are still against Christ.

01:39:29 You said before, you're either with him or you're against him. Conservatives, I call them the

01:39:36 Christless conservatives, are against him. They're simply, on some levels, they've not revealed their

01:39:44 complete hatred. Look, I'll say frankly, Candace Owens is not a Christian. She hates Christ.

01:39:49 She does. She says certain things that makes it very clear that she's not a Christian, 0.97

01:39:53 though she claims she is so if you hate christ well i'm glad that you're publicly not sharing

01:40:01 how much you hate christ but with some you know with support for you know you know support for

01:40:08 dave rubin really harming his children by not giving them a mother harming his children i said

01:40:14 in the article that i was raised by a single mother that is not how god and that's not how

01:40:19 was supposed to be of course right that was hard but i am thankful that i was raised at least by

01:40:26 a good mother instead of being raised by two parents of the same sex that's that's that is

01:40:31 i think my wording was um it's um it's not ideal to be raised by a single mother but it's an 1.00

01:40:37 abomination to be raised by same-sex parents and for any so any so conservative to support that 0.93

01:40:43 is also an abomination so they are not our allies and we have to remember that so we need 0.99

01:40:49 to really partner with other believers who may not think like us in every single way but realizing 0.99

01:40:54 that we only have each other we don't have even the conservatives and it's only a matter of time

01:40:59 because they care more about politics than the truth out of these conservatives it's only a

01:41:05 matter of time where they say hey guys you are part of the problem here you're helping us lose

01:41:10 votes therefore right to cancel you guys too no no you're absolutely right because when it really

01:41:16 comes down to it it's like what are you fighting for like are you fighting for you're not fighting

01:41:21 for christian nationalism i'll tell you that like that what you're fighting for is um you're fighting

01:41:27 for us to uh to go all the way back to um 2011 obama like i'd like to i'd like to go a little

01:41:35 bit further back than that like i want to go all the way back to like 80 30 you know christ calvary

01:41:42 the cross like that that's where you know that's where i want to be um and it's like no i'm not

01:41:47 interested in um in turning back the time machine you know 11 years that's that's not you know like

01:41:54 obama said that marriage is between a man and a woman you know before a second term like so so

01:42:01 yeah like oh yeah we need to fight against trans and kids and we need to fight against medical 0.64

01:42:05 tyranny and we need to fight against blm and we need to fight against and i'm super grateful for 0.62

01:42:10 that because some of these guys are fighting better than christians to be fair i want to say

01:42:13 that like i think matt walsh has put up more of a fight on these issues than most christians have

01:42:20 he's displayed more courage he's he's displayed more creativity and strategy um i like the what

01:42:28 is a woman yeah like i agree with jason whitlock i would have liked to see some more jesus in that

01:42:33 um but he did more damage with that than than just about any you know protestant christian that i

01:42:40 know and i like to think that matt walsh is a christian because here's the deal if you're a

01:42:45 good catholic you're a bad christian that's what makes me sad for michael knowles because i like

01:42:51 michael knowles but he's a really good catholic you know he knows his catholic doctrine but if

01:42:55 you're a bad catholic you don't even really know what catholics believe you've got potential to

01:43:01 be a good christian protestant and i think that's matt wall so anyways all that being said my point 0.78

01:43:06 though is like these guys are i think they're fighting these battles better and and and and

01:43:10 we could learn not only can we partner we can honor and and and learn uh from them but the

01:43:16 problem is that they're gonna um we can partner with them all the way back to 2011 and then we're

01:43:21 on our own from there because they don't they're not really interested in going any further back

01:43:25 than that you know and so so you're absolutely right uh but as we continue going all the way

01:43:31 back to christ um we can still keep being ecumenical with each other as as brothers um and

01:43:38 and and it you know like we i do think that this christian nationalist movement i think is going

01:43:43 to be a thing and uh and and i think it does need to be a big tent it needs to include um every

01:43:51 every different tribe within you know the big tent of christ um that like yeah we're on the

01:43:57 same team we're fighting for the the same stuff it needs to be ecumenical um it guys need to

01:44:02 not quibble and um and be unnecessarily quarrelsome and fighting about um you know minor

01:44:09 things um i think we need to to be able to link arms and across the aisle on those kinds of things

01:44:15 but that's but we need to know where that where that stops it's like we're ecumenical uh being

01:44:21 ecumenical where where that ends and and it ends um with with people who hate jesus yeah and that

01:44:28 i think that's what you're saying is like um yeah it ends when somebody is uh saying hey it's it's

01:44:35 great that uh that two dudes are adopting two little girls like okay we're not on this same

01:44:41 team. Yeah, I completely

01:44:43 agree. All right, man. Any final

01:44:45 words, Samuel? I really appreciate you coming on.

01:44:47 Oh, no, I've enjoyed it. Final

01:44:49 words, man. We've had, we've

01:44:51 addressed so many things, I'm not even sure what to say.

01:44:53 Actually, I'm just,

01:44:55 I'm, you know, I said to you in

01:44:57 person when we got together in Buffalo

01:44:59 two months ago, I appreciate what you're doing,

01:45:01 man. You know, I'm,

01:45:03 I have some friends who listen to you and they're like,

01:45:05 hey, Sam, you know, Joe,

01:45:06 so, no, I, so

01:45:09 I'm just grateful that you'd have me on. I really am.

01:45:11 and just have a good conversation.

01:45:13 So, yeah, that's really it.

01:45:14 And I guess if people want to follow me as well, too,

01:45:17 they can follow me on social media at SlowToWrite

01:45:19 and also especially in my blog, SlowToWrite.com.

01:45:22 Especially, you know, since I might get canceled on social media

01:45:25 at some point anyways, they can always find me on my blog

01:45:27 at SlowToWrite.com.

01:45:29 Cool.

01:45:29 And what you've told me offline is that you're planning,

01:45:34 is it going to be you and your wife or just you with the podcast?

01:45:37 Yeah, me and your wife, yeah.

01:45:38 Awesome.

01:45:38 Yeah, we're working on a podcast.

01:45:41 You know, sometimes it will just be me, but for certain topics, I'll bring her on and we'll, you know, we'll talk about what I think hopefully will be interesting topics.

01:45:51 Great. Well, you know, the fact that you've got grace to you coming after you, but then you also got, you know, guys who are theonomists like me and, you know, you got canon, you know, saying, hey, we published one of your books or this or that.

01:46:02 Like, I think part of that speaks to guys being ecumenical, but I think part of that speaks to the fact that you're just, you're kind of, you're a kind person and people like you. 0.93

01:46:12 We, we extend, you, you got guys on other sides of the aisle extending opportunities to you because you're kind and we don't offer those same opportunities to each other because we're jerks sometimes, you know what I mean?

01:46:25 like we just we and and so i feel like you're picking the right fight it's i don't want to say

01:46:29 you're nice because niceness really shouldn't be the virtue that it is you're kind kindness is a

01:46:34 fruit of the spirit because what you just said about candace owens was was not nice you know

01:46:39 what i mean but you're but you're kind so like you you've got the spine you're willing to fight

01:46:44 but i think you're picking your battles carefully and i think sometimes we just guys bite off they

01:46:50 they pick too many fights too, too soon. And they,

01:46:53 and they start fighting with everybody and then they just,

01:46:56 it just pitters out. And, and so you're an inspiration to me in that regard,

01:47:00 because I want to, I want to learn from you and I, and I want to learn,

01:47:03 I want to learn what, you know, I want to learn your history.

01:47:05 I want to learn some of your theology, but I also,

01:47:07 I want to continue to learn some of your character.

01:47:11 I think you got good character, Samuel.

01:47:13 Wow. That's, that's, yeah. Wow. That's an incredibly, yeah.

01:47:16 That's, I don't know what to say to that. You're very kind.

01:47:18 thank you for that i'm very grateful um yeah cool all right man well god bless and for everybody

01:47:24 listening i hope this was helpful and i'm sorry we didn't get to more questions that question

01:47:29 about ancestors uh that's where that's where it went off the rails i think i think we went on i

01:47:35 we went on this whole expedition you know about race and and we kind of like kinism we were kind

01:47:41 of beating around the bush with that you know all this kind of but man i i feel like it was good

01:47:45 I'm biased.

01:47:45 No, I enjoyed it.

01:47:46 I really did.

01:47:47 And I don't remember the other questions, but I'm sure you probably touched on that

01:47:50 in some degree anyways throughout that conversation.

01:47:53 So it was good.

01:47:54 Cool.

01:47:54 All right.

01:47:55 God bless, man.

01:47:55 Thanks.

01:47:56 Me too.

01:47:57 Thank you.

01:47:57 Thanks so much for listening.

01:47:58 But real quick, before you go, do us a small favor, take a moment, and leave us a five-star

01:48:04 review if you enjoyed the show.

01:48:06 This is undoubtedly the best way that you can help us get this biblically faithful content

01:48:11 to as many people as possible.

01:48:13 Thanks so much.

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The NXR Podcast - November 01, 2022

THEOLOGY APPLIED - Can A Christian Love Their Own People More Than Others？｜ with Samuel Sey

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript

The NXR Podcast - November 01, 2022

THEOLOGY APPLIED - Can A Christian Love Their Own People More Than Others？ ｜ with Samuel Sey

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript

THEOLOGY APPLIED - Can A Christian Love Their Own People More Than Others？｜ with Samuel Sey