Don’t use that potty language! Or do? What is cursing anyway? If you’ve thought about this, gotten in trouble for using bad words, and ever thought about how funny Christian curse word replacements are – you’re not alone! Josh and Andrew share embarrassing stories and tackle this one head-on!
Verses – Ephisians 5:3-4.
Verses – Ephesians 4:29.
Verses – Romans 12:14.
Commentary – Enduring Word.
Commentary – Blue Letter Bible
Article – Gods and Goddesses.
Transcription
Josh: Hello? Hello. Hello. We’re just to normal do you was trying to live this Jesus life. My name’s
Andrew: Josh. Hey man, this is Andrew and we are this Jesus life podcast. What’s up dude? How you doing?
Josh: I’m doing well. How are you Andrew?
Andrew: Ah, you know I can’t complain some
Josh: time. Yeah, actually got some sun,
Andrew: dude, I’ve got some sun.
We, it was like 80 plus degrees yesterday and we had a pool party at our house.
Josh: It was awesome. Use social distancing during your pool party.
Andrew: Oh yeah. Uh, obviously everybody six feet apart at all times.
Josh: Now how do
Andrew: we, it’s actually a pretty small pool, but it’s a sweet one. But we have, uh, we’ve given up on that.
Uh, this is direct family. I’ll move though. Um, so, you know, got gotta hang out. You gotta be done with this craziness to some point. So
Josh: it’s kinda like the coronavirus thing has ended. Now that all this other stuff is going on that you just don’t really think about the coronavirus anymore. Yeah, just moved on.
It’s just not even the thing.
Andrew: Yeah. Except I still have to wear masks in places cause I live in like Eastern Pennsylvania where everybody’s still crazy about it. But dude, COBIT 19 Corona virus aside, dude, I made the chickens. Um, and I basically pimped their ride of their chicken coop. Uh, this weekend I made them all custom boxes,
Josh: like
Andrew: a box for every chickens so they can sleep in it.
However, I went out there just before this to make sure they were in their coop and closed the door. Dude. 15 of the 17 chickens were in one tiny, but
Josh: they liked to be close together.
Andrew: The other two were just wandering around looking guilty. Like, I don’t know what happened. Like it was pretty funny.
Josh: That’s funny.
So you made 17 boxes. I’m picturing like a lot of purple, a lot of gold, lots of bling going around right
Andrew: now. They’re all wood colored. Um, but I did
Josh: notice, I
Andrew: thought. Yeah, I did let my daughter like color on them with the pencil, so that was cool. But I got to confess, I made 16 boxes and on number 17 I just put that in the corner on the second level and scooted the thing over so that it could like have its own little space, but no roof sale, like the least popular chicken.
We’ll get number 17
Josh: or maybe the most popular cause it has a sunroof and it’s like,
Andrew: Ooh. Yeah.
Josh: Yeah, but apparently I’ll want to be in one box anyway, so it doesn’t matter.
Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. So chickens, man, chicken.
Josh: How much longer until they start laying eggs for you?
Andrew: Uh, I think that, I don’t know, I think we’re probably like three, four weeks out honestly, but they’re almost full grown still.
I don’t know how long, once they’re full grown, but I think late June, early July could be going,
Josh: you’re going to come in eggs like sell them to your neighbors skills, social distance, of course your neighbors.
Andrew: I was, I wasn’t just going to add my neighbor neighbors as an advertisement, you know, throw some eggs at their
Josh: house and let them know, just throw a card.
Andrew: Yeah. We got eggs. You
Josh: need an egg. Do you want some?
Andrew: You want to buy some five bucks a dozen organic free range
Josh: eggs actually cost, I don’t know. Never looked,
Andrew: dude. Couple bucks normally, but, but when you buy the fancy organic, it’s like probably four bucks a dozen.
Josh: Yeah. The egg market, man,
Andrew: the egg market.
Speaking of the egg market, dude, what are we talking about this week? What’s going
Josh: on back connection.
Andrew: Yeah. You make that connection.
Josh: There’s definitely a part of it. It just wants to let out a string of bad words just to get the episode going, but we won’t.
Andrew: Well, you could do a string of bad words in Christianese.
I
Josh: just want to point out that though, we’re talking about curse words. I was not the first one to curse on this podcast.
Andrew: That’s true. That’s true. It was me. However you have in the last couple episodes, you know. So
Josh: I’ve been preparing for this episode.
Andrew: Yeah, I’ve been saving up all my
Josh: bad words. I’ve been building it, but Hey, we’re talking about curse words this, this week, talking on whether or not Christians are allowed to say them.
If it’s a sin mean, it really comes back to my comment in the very first episode where I said my theology on the curse words, and we had some people ask, what is your theology and curse words? Right? Huh? That’s kind of where this all came to be, right? Yeah. Where do you want to start out with all this
Andrew: dude?
I want to start out my background. Uh, and you can maybe do yours. This is quick. But, um, dude, I grew up in a, a pretty conservative Christian home. Um, and I remember one day I was at like my best friend’s house and we hung out all the time. Um, and I said, James, I have to take a bowel movement. Um, where can I, where can I take a bowel movement at your
Josh: house?
Andrew: And he’s like, what?
Josh: with James on this one.
Andrew: Okay. Okay. But as a kid, so what I was trying to say is, James, I have to take a bowel movement. Where is your bathroom?
Josh: Your weird childhood? I’ll be honest,
Andrew: dude. Okay. Bowel movement was what my mom and dad said I had called it. Instead of poop, instead of, I have to take a poop, I have
Josh: to take it.
When you leave the house, you only say, no, dude.
Andrew: It was always like, I always had to say bowel movement or BM. I could say I got to take a beat. And it was like the worst thing. Like James looked at me, he was like, you what? And I’m like, I have to take a bloop. And he’s like toilets in there, you know, like, but it was crazy.
Like. Apparently poop is a cuss word. Uh,
Josh: it is, I’m glad that you figured that out. I’ve, I’ve been meaning to bring it up. I’ve been very offended.
Andrew: Yeah. And then later there were things like what the Frick, um, freaking so kind
Josh: of like a Ned Flanders methodology to curse words
Andrew: is, shoot. Dang, you
Josh: still want to say them all, but I’m going to fill them in with shortened versions of the slightly different probably why we’re calling this episode fricking flipping and shoot.
Yes, we can probably do that. I’ll move into that bowel movement fricking flipping and shoot.
Andrew: You totally can. Yes. Yeah, so you got any weird, any weird stuff like that for you?
Josh: Mine is so much worse than that. Like that’s, that’s nothing like. We grew up in your typical Christian conservative home. We weren’t supposed to curse, we’ll say it that way.
My parents didn’t necessarily curse around us unless they’re that angry at enough and then curse words went flying.
Andrew: But in general, never heard my mom or dad curse. Never really my life. Yes.
Josh: Well, I see what I mean as they get,
Andrew: what I mean is I’ve never heard them use cuss words. I think cuss words and cursing are very different, hence this episode.
But go ahead.
Josh: What do you mean by cuss words? You mean like cursing somebody?
Andrew: Uh, cuss words being like, uh, like shit. Um, that’s a cuss word. We’ll see. I’m not sure it is. So we’ve got to have this discussion in a minute.
Josh: No, no, no. My question was, what is a curse word, if that’s a cuss word.
Andrew: Oh, I see what you’re saying.
Yeah. I just think there’s a thing like a curse and cursing and then there’s cuss word. Yeah. I think curse words is like a misnomer. Um, totally.
Josh: So it’s not a thing.
Andrew: I just think, I think it’s a, what does society right now view as a word that’s somehow derogatory or bad? That’s a curse word, but I think that like the biblical intent of cursing and curse.
Yeah, cursing somebody is like very different than that. I think curse thing is like. Go to hell, but you mean it, you know, like, I want you to live the rest of your life and hell, not, not, Oh, I just took a shit that’s very different, you know?
Josh: Um, here’s my question. I mean, can you tell your shit to go to hell?
Andrew: Maybe, but you know, yeah. I don’t know, man.
Josh: I dunno. No, my story’s a little bit different now. I’m probably, let’s see here. We still live in South Dakota, so I’m probably fifth grade, sixth grade. So what I was at like 10, 11, 12. Yeah. Um, and we’re going to the movies. My brother and I, my mom’s dropping us off.
Now. This is a big deal in Watertown, South Dakota. Uh, we have a real movie theater cause it has four movie theaters, not just to like. Pretty big upgrade. We’re going, um, we pull up, I’m sitting in the backseat of our minivan and I’m like leaning forward in between the front seats. So my brother’s there and my mom’s there, and as we pull up, there’s a girl that I just don’t like in the window, just standing there.
And of course I’m like, Oh, and just drop the big one. No, let them ride on my mother’s ear. No. Oh, bad move.
Andrew: Get mouth washed out with soap. I had that.
Josh: I’m pretty fast. I ran to the back of the van and I hid behind the backseat. Of course, I didn’t go see a movie that day. My brother did. I did not. Uh, when we got home at, I don’t remember anything at that point.
Maybe it was that harsh of a punishment, or my mom was just in shock and just walked inside the house. Who knows? But. Um, yeah, that was, that’s my story of cursing, not for the first time. Uh, at least that was the first time in front of my mother. Um, so probably a pretty shocking experience for a 10 year old to drop the F word, but not just.
It was in her ear. At least it wasn’t that her like, right. It wasn’t somebody else. So,
Andrew: yeah, but the effort, something like that, that’s, that’s tough. I got my mouth washed out by soap one time, um, when I was, I don’t know, somewhere around that age, but I said, dammit. Uh, and my mom could hear me, and it was like I was mad at the dog or something.
Like, she’s like ripped a toy out of my hand or something. I said, damn, that dude. Next thing I knew I was in the bathroom with a bar of soap and no, not a bar of soap. A couple of drops of Dawn on my tongue. It was horrible. It was the worst.
Josh: I probably should have had my mouth washed out with soap, but I don’t.
I don’t remember a time when that actually happened. Right. Um, I do remember telling, my mother went to slap me once and I caught her hands when I was in high school. Just out of reflex, like it’s like protection. I’m just trying to save myself. And then you like realize in that moment what just happened and you’re like, Oh shit.
So I just kinda like, my mom was just as shocked, so it wasn’t like pushing her out of my room, but I was guiding her as I held her arms out of the room and then I closed the door and locked it now to be on the other side of that door and just be like, mom, what happened after that? Like what were the thoughts running through your head in that moment?
Andrew: I’m bet they wouldn’t have some cuss words and then absolutely,
Josh: yes. All of them. Imagine this words, and part of this is like this idea that, I don’t know, there’s, there’s Hills that Christians choose to die on. Yes. That oftentimes confuse me of why did you choose this Hill to die?
Andrew: Right.
Josh: And I think cursing is one of those Hills because I don’t think you can call curse words.
Sin. Hmm. In my short, simple answer to my theology and curse words is I do not believe curse words are sin in and of themselves. Um, and the main, yeah. And the main reason for that is languages language, right? Like, you can’t. What is it, what we consider a curse word today is not the same as what they would consider it a curse word, um, in the first century.
Um, but not only that, what we can up, what we don’t consider a curse word in this environment, in another environment today with different people might be a curse word, right? So like it’s just, it’s a cultural. Piece to it. And there’s just, I don’t think you can label something a curse word when it’s just simply language and it’s constantly changing, right?
Like sin is pretty black and white. There’s a line in the sand, either yes or no. Um, it’s center. It’s not sin. Um, when you start getting this gray area that things get really weird, and I don’t think this is actually a gray area. I think Jesus is pretty specific. Um, as we go through the gospels and go through, um, even the epistles with Paul, um, I think.
Paul’s, even the very specific on what is a curse, what is a sin and what is not sin when it comes to the language we choose to use.
Andrew: Yeah. I, I tend to agree with you and I, I do agree with you. Um, but at the same time as we were preparing for this, I felt a little challenged cause I pulled up, you know, like.
Um, Bible info about swear word, swear words or Bible verses about swear words. And there’s like so many passages, man. But as you read through them, so many of them are like the tongue, you know, sets a forest on fire. Like they’re there. Things like that. Um, where they’re not like, don’t say the words that your society views as being harsh or.
I don’t know, like abrasive or something. I’m trying to define what a cuss word is or a curse word is in my mind and something that’s like intentionally kind of over the top or abrasive maybe could be. So, um, I dunno, the thing
Josh: about at the end of this, I think by the end of this we’ll land on an answer.
Yeah. I hope some of those kids,
Andrew: I’m curious. Um, okay. So like Ephesians four 29 let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only, um, but only such as is good for building up as fits that occasion that it may give grace to those who hear it. Um. Simple, but it’s just like, okay, don’t let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouth.
And I’m like, okay, what’s on unwholesome, you know, is it saying S H I T as one word? Uh, or, or what, what’s unwholesome, you know, cause there’s a lot more unwholesome things to say than that, in my opinion. Sell. What do you think about that?
Josh: I have a punchline and I don’t want to get to the punchline right now.
Yeah. So let’s keep reading verses and then we can kind of get to my punchline. Of why I believe what I believe. And then you can argue or agree with that. Okay, but why don’t you give us a couple more verses and then we can kind of dissect them. Alright. Because there’s what, there’s like three or four verses that Christians use.
There’s more verses in Ephesians. There’s a verse in Colossians, maybe Jane.
Andrew: Okay, James. I mean, James, this actually is, is a harder one, James five 12 but above all, my brothers do not swear either by heaven or by earth or by any, any other oath. But let your yes be yes and your no be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation.
And it goes on to talk about like you can’t even control like the color of your hair, but that’s not kind of canned. Now you know
Josh: what James is speaking to us in language. Jamie’s speaking to Alliance, right? Like I swear this is true on my mother’s grave. Right? That’s what he’s talking to. He says you don’t need to swear on anything.
Just let your yes be yes and your no be no. If you say yes, then then follow up with it. If you say no, follow up with it. Right,
Andrew: right. Okay. What about this one, James one 26 if anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue. But deceives his heart. This person’s religious or religion is useful, is worthless.
Um, like if you don’t bridle your tongue but deceive your heart. Your religion is worthless. You know, that one’s kind of tough. James one 26.
Josh: It’s definitely a tough verse in general. I don’t think that’s stuffers for what we’re talking about. Like I think, I think keeps coming back to language. It comes back to how you using the words and what you’re choosing to use them in.
Um, I think the other verses that people bring up is collage three eight but now you must put them all away talking about you being a new creation, anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Or Ephesians five. Um. Is another biggie. Um, but Ephesians five is not even talking about curse words.
Uh, but I’ll read it. Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk, nor crude joking, which is out of place. But instead, let there be Thanksgiving. Um, for you, mate, for you may be sure of this, that anyone who is sexually immoral or impure or who is covetous, um, has no inheritance in the kingdom. Of Christ or God.
Yeah. I think, I think the big issue is as a, I think this is what Christians like to do. Often they grab onto these certain verses and then they pull them out of context outside of the conversation that Paul is having. I mean, you look at Ephesians and Colossians, um, that Paul’s having in these things that aren’t, that have nothing to do with, um.
The topic at hand, right? Like you’ll get a Fusion’s five well, Ephesians five has nothing to do with curse words. It has everything to do with sexual immorality, right? Like it’s a progression that we follow as we go through those verses, that it’s sexual morality and purity. It gets ugly. Then it’s covered in this of more sexual morality, and then it’s a foolish talker crew joking about sexuality.
Um, and I, here’s my issue with all of this. I think an issue here, and we see this throughout. Christianity in general that we like to grab on to parts of verses or parts of letters, and then make them the everything, right? Like, because I don’t like cursing, then I’m going to grab these verses that I found because it had a quick Google search or these are the verses that were always quoted back to me.
Um, but in context of what he’s actually writing about, when at least we look at it, you know. Uh, Ephesians and Colossians. Um, when Paul’s writing, like he’s not actually talking about curse words as a language. Um, he’s talking about, um, attitude and how those words be using. Or in Ephesians five, he’s talking about sexual morality.
Um, and how that kind of progresses in shows itself. Um, and even in, you look an emphasis like. Emphasis is like a hotbed for sexual morality clause or a Corinthian corner
Andrew: somewhere. Ton of like big temples and stuff like worship to tons of gods and emphasis. Or maybe that was everywhere, but
Josh: yeah, it was everywhere.
But in emphasis specifically, uh, it was the goddess of fertility. Well, the gospel fertility, um, literally had temple prostitutes inside of the temple. Same. Similar practices were in this, in the city of Corinth. And this is why you see Paul make the statements of women shouldn’t, uh, speak in the church.
Women should have dropped dress in such a way that doesn’t, well, it has nothing to do with necessarily a blanket statement across all Christianity. It was a letter to that specific church because the issues that they were dealing with was, well, when women stood up and when women had that. Well, the things that all the men’s minds are going back to is what they were practicing before with these great goddess and having sex with these women as a form of worship.
Right? So that’s what he was trying to stop. He wasn’t saying women should never speak in the church. It wasn’t his, that wasn’t his point. His point was
Andrew: in your city in this time. And this means something else. So different.
Josh: It’s the same thing with Gentiles, right? Like there’s things that. That, uh, after the council in Jerusalem where they say, Hey, for the sake of your Jewish brother and for your sake, your Jewish fellow followers of Jesus, right?
Avoid these things. Not because it’s sin, but because it’s causing them to stumble and crate. You know, disunity, and that’s just not what we need. Right? Like that’s what he’s trying to get. Right. Right. Um, so I think we have to really careful, we start grabbing just single verses out of scripture, um, because I don’t necessarily think this is where he’s coming down to.
So here,
Andrew: okay, wait, before you go there. Um, before, before you kind of say, um, don’t grab a single verse. Um, I actually, I agree with you way more than I disagree with you. Um, I was kind of, kind of playing dumb for a minute, uh, before or downplaying a little bit, but, okay, here’s the single verse that I think encapsulates cursing.
Well. Um, it’s Romans 1214. It just says this blessed those who persecute you, bless them, bless and do not curse them. Very simple, but. To me, if I was looking at that, if I felt persecuted as in like not just felt persecuted, like my, like someone was trying to kill my family and friends, you know, because we follow Jesus, like somebody or somebody who’s trying to like ruin their business or mess up their life or something.
My first reaction as a, as a person is not to bless them. Um, I first reaction is like to get even with them, to hurt them, to stop them, to, to like to spread bad news about them. Yeah. Whatever. Like it’s to get even, or to go up one level to escalate. Um, but dude, I don’t think it’s, don’t say bad words about them.
Don’t say. Man, I hate that guy. He sucks. Like saying somebody sucks. That’s a character judgment. Like they’re a bad person, you know?
Josh: Well, he probably does suck at certain times of life. Like if he’s, if he’s like. If he’s looking at lollipop or drinking a drink out of a straw, like he’s probably sucking.
Exactly.
Andrew: Yeah. But I just need like, I that like, bless those who persecute you, bless. And do not curse them. Like cursing them would be, I don’t know, going real intense. Like either you’re trying to go above and beyond. I’m getting even with them. Um, or. Really trying to tarnish their name, trying to get him kicked out of their city or town or state or something like that.
I don’t know. I think that’s the more of the heart of this thing then. Uh, don’t use words that your society views as being like the potty words, you know, potty mouth language. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, you say, not to use the single verse, but I think that’s a pretty good one that maybe communicate things, the heart of this.
Josh: Yeah. Yeah. And I think this is where we get to, like for me, this is how this house in plays out, and Jesus said this in Matthew 22 we call it the great commandment. So love, Lord God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. And the second is like it love your neighbor as yourself to equal commandments.
He’s put it together. And we can simplify them and say, love God, love people. Um, but then he goes on to say that same sentence. He says, all the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments. So this is where sin starts to exist. When we look at the world of cursing, I think curse words create, um. Uh, emotion for language.
So like, I can portray something by saying shit that I can’t betray, but saying, Oh man, dang it. Right. Like there’s, there’s a different level of emotion. Yeah. Right. Like there’s a different level of emotion to that. I don’t think there’s any problem with that at all. Um, where you start to get into ground, into bad grounder and sinful ground is when we start to get into this place where we are essentially what you were just saying.
We start to curse someone else. When I say you’re a piece of shit. Well, that’s a whole nother world now. Now I’m innocent. You are not
Andrew: loving. You’ve always been bad.
Josh: It’s, I’m not loving my neighbor. Right, right. Yeah. Like at that point, I’ve now, I’m not loving. My neighbor like I love myself. Like at that point I’ve crossed a line and now I’m in sin.
I mean, it doesn’t have to be a curse word. It doesn’t have to be, you know, whatever the curse word happens to me. It could be anything when I live with that thing, but this is where you cross the line in language of using curse words as when we start to attack people. Like in my anger, if I’m using CRISPR, it’s to attack somebody.
I’m in sin, period. It’s black and white. Um, but if I’m in normal conversation, I’m using curse words to express the emotion or to try to portray something that I couldn’t have portrayed in a different way. I see no issue with that at all. Like you see that shirt around that says, um, women wear, um, I’m a Christian, but I curse a little.
You’re like, yeah. Yeah. But why did cursing become such a thing? Like that’s the morality. Like this is where we get in this crazy ground of, of Christianity, of like we’re supposed to just be moral all the time. Yeah. But like, it’s not an issue of moral, it’s an issue of loving God and loving people. And as long as I live in that world, I’m, I’m living in line with the gospel and living in line with Jesus’ commandment.
Commandments to us.
Andrew: Yeah. Man. As you were saying that I, the thing that came to mind for me was that. There are a lot of things that I’ve said in my lifetime, let’s be real in the last month that I would like to take back, if I could physically press a rerun rewind button and, and I, I’d like to take them back because usually they’re just very hurtful, you know, um, with my words.
And that’s where like. All the talk and James of like, the tongue is a fire, the tongue is a predator, you know all that stuff, like the Rotter that turns the ship, the the spark that lights a forest on fire, all that stuff. I’m like, yeah, it is, but it has nothing to do with. Um, four letter words or five letter words or whatever has everything to do with like, did you plan to hurt someone when you said that, and did you say it to try to hurt somebody?
Did you plan to deceive somebody in or are you trying to deceive somebody? Did it work? Did you double down? Like it’s, it’s all of that, you know, it’s the heart. Um, and, um, and that’s the stuff when w when it’s out of your mouth, that’s the stuff you immediately like,
Josh: like as it’s going, where you’re like,
Andrew: no.
You get three to four words and you’re like, I’m committing. Cause a mad at him unit. And as soon as it’s out, you’re like, I’m the worst person ever. Um, yeah. And that’s curse words. Maybe
Josh: one of my superpowers is to size people up and understand their insecurities and then to attack those insecurities,
Andrew: which is dangerous.
Josh: Yeah. Yeah. A horrible, horrible skillset because it’s manipulative as all can be. Um. But extremely effective to destroy and win conversations. Um, so I like have to pay pretty close attention to it, but not, I’m right there with you. Like, I think there’s, there’s three types of sin, right? Well, in this realm, there’s three types of sin.
There’s sins against God that’s literally putting anything before God is sin, period. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. That’s how this works. We call it a dollar tree. Um, their sins against man, those around you. Um, typically we send Morgans, those that we love. It’s, it’s like, you know, in the situation we’re in right now as a country, like not loving those that may be different or look different from us.
Like that’s sin. It’s just, it’s plain and simple. I don’t care how you want to paint it. I don’t care what they’ve done to you. I don’t care what they’ve, what you think they’ve done to society. Like that’s, that’s sin to
Andrew: not love. A man killing a man. Straight up killing. Oh, for sure. That’s it. Get back to that.
You know, like it’s, it’s like one person killing another person and we don’t have to go into that whole situation cause everybody’s thinking about that, but it’s just sin. Man against man or woman against woman or whatever, you know, it’s, it’s person to person
Josh: sin. Yep. And third is sin against yourself.
So like Jesus and the, uh, Paul described this as sexual sin, sexual sentence against herself. Yeah. Um, causing destruction. And so like, that’s where the category lives. So in all reality, you have freedom outside of that. So I have freedom in my language. I have freedom in how I talk. As long as I’m not causing.
Um, harm to somebody else. I’m like, well, you go back to Paul’s words
Andrew: to the Ephesians in God’s seat.
Josh: Exactly. Yeah. Um, and going back to Paul’s words in Ephesians five, like the second, I did go into course of joking sexual course, joking about, yeah. My conquests, for lack of better term, right? Like, no, I’m not showing respect to that woman.
Um, or if you’re a woman, you’re not showing respect to that man. Like you’re causing harm in that moment. Maybe no one else hears it except the other person you’re listening to, but now you’ve created a, uh, an image of them that might not be true. I’m like, that’s, that’s the piece that these trying to get to, right?
Like. Um, are we causing harm against other people? Are we causing harm against God? That’s sin.
Andrew: Okay. So, so I. I’m a parent. I don’t want Catherine my 18 month old, a little older than that daughter, year and a half. I don’t want her to be like daddy, bullshit. I don’t want him to say that in front of other people.
It is funny, but I don’t want them to think that I’m saying that 24 seven but the reality she always says is the thing that. That. I don’t want her to say the most,
Josh: so that your words bullshit, but that’s okay. Yeah. I’m like, let’s dig into this for a second. We’ll have a little counseling session. Yeah.
Right. Like what? What? Why don’t you want her to say those things?
Andrew: I think for me it’s that I grew up with those as the bad words, the words that you shouldn’t say and maybe think, but don’t say them out loud because it hurts your testimony. You know? That’s what I grew up with, so in my mind it’s always kind of like that.
Like, I don’t want people to, like a toddler is just kind of a filter. What are they hearing in their life? You know, what are they hearing at home? And we’re in covert 19, like there, she’s always home, you know, um, like it’s, it’s kind of like. If people, yeah, it’s about people more than anything. It’s like, Oh, Andrew must say bullshit a lot.
Um, but you actually don’t, I don’t use those words a lot unless I’m working on a project and hitting my finger with a nail or, you know, like, yeah, then I do. But, uh, but yeah, I don’t know, man. It’s kind of roundabout,
Josh: but so like, you don’t care what people think to think. That like, cause let me, let me go back to what you said earlier.
It is, it hurts our testimony, right? Like that’s a thing Christians love to say. That’s a big thing. Yeah. Um, let me ask you this. How does it hurt your testimony?
Andrew: See, that’s the thing. Mentally, my head says it actually doesn’t know. My heart says it actually doesn’t, but I grew up in an environment that said, your
Josh: hurts, you say,
Andrew: yeah, yeah.
Okay. I don’t truly,
Josh: you’re right. I don’t
Andrew: truly believe it hurts my testimony at all, but I grew up thinking I needed to say bowel movement instead of poop, um, or, or crap or whatever, you know, because, because one was bad and the other was okay. And, and I. That’s kind of ingrained in me is like some words are really bad and others are okay.
Even if it’s the F word. Yeah. You know, if you see K versus F, R I, C.
Josh: K, I just remembered another story. Yeah.
Andrew: Frick. Oh, it’s going to be good. So you’re pretty sure,
Josh: I’m pretty sure I said the F word in this. You’ll have to correct me. So we’re sitting around, we’re sitting around the table of a friend of ours and there’s all the friends around.
This is years ago, your wife calls me fluffy and I’m, cause she thought she was being funny in my return thinking I was being funny. I responded with, I didn’t know, I thought he said F, you know, what did I say?
I said, I called her and said, you did. I was just trying to be funny. I was trying to get the joke. Okay, Holy crap. Did the table turn on me
Andrew: dude? And here’s the thing is, yeah, he did, but I wasn’t even mad at you cause I knew you were trying to joke, but she was. Actually it was Janet. It was the one thought
it
Josh: was funny.
She was the only one that was laughing. Everybody else was like, Josh, I was ridiculous. You went over the tables with Josh. I was over the line. That’s not okay.
Andrew: You just call me fat. Okay. To be fair, that was very early into knowing you. That was very early, but yeah, she called you fluffy. That was bad, man, though. I don’t
Josh: remember how that came up, but it’s so funny. I thought it was funny, Jen, and I thought it was funny. Everybody else was offended by the whole conversation, but that’s okay.
It’s not the first time in my life that’s been offended by conversations I’ve had, but
Andrew: yeah. Well, speaking of conversations you’ve had, we’ve had. We, we all got baggage on this thing, and from growing up in the church, I have some baggage on that of like, I still, I don’t believe, like, dude, I listen to podcasts all the time and they use cuss words all the time.
And I don’t think any less of them for it. I’m like, I don’t care. You know? And I hear it all the time. That doesn’t mean to say it all the time. It doesn’t matter. I just. Like, but part of me is still like, that’s
Josh: bad. Like there’s
Andrew: this, say that at dinner,
Josh: you know, whatever. Well, there’s a part that’s like.
So there was this morality inside of Christianity that ran through the nineties and into the early two thousands, and it was hyper legalistic, hyper of, we’re better than you. Like that was the kind of the piece of it all. Um, and at the core of it was like, to be better than you, I have to, I have to show that and to show that I’m just going to use curse words, like I would argue like, and they would use that term, like, we don’t want to harm our testimony.
This is the same reason they don’t drink, right? Like whether they think it was grape juice or not. Um, they’re looking at it saying like crazy
Andrew: and it’s
Josh: treated as not, I’m sorry guys. Um, I think we talked about booze at some point in our, in our list. It’s next episode. We talk about it.
Andrew: We’re going to talk about it.
We talked about the herb.
That’s right.
Josh: We’ll get an essence against yourself. So that I think that we’re still living inside of a lot of that. Like it still exists, this moral underground and like, sure, you don’t want your child cursing in public cause you don’t want your child to be seen as, but like, it’s not a sinful thing.
It’s a. In all honesty, it’s a prideful thing. I don’t want to see my child as a scumbag or like a degenerate. So I don’t want him cursing in these places. But I’d argue back to the whole, you know, hurting my testimony. Like I, you know, I think of my non Christian friends in the language that they choose to use, and if I chose not to use that language, um, they would probably pick up on those things.
I notice. Is it bad or good? No, I don’t necessarily think so, but if I can take the stigma away from Christianity and use that language to break down those barriers for the sake of the gospel, to be able to say, yeah, like we’re just here. We’re normal human beings just trying to live this life. The only differences, yeah, we have sin that we’re combating.
That’s the difference. And my sin is sin against God. Sin against a man and sin against myself. And those are the things that I avoid. Language is not a part of that, that equation. And we need to stop putting things inside though. I think this is why it’s important to me. We need to stop putting things inside of a box of morality.
So we’re better than we look better than whatever happens to be. And we create lists of sins that aren’t sins. So I’m giving you the freedom to curse if you’re listening to this and you need some type of, yeah. Voice outside of your life to say it’s okay as long as it’s not directed towards people, as long as you’re using it as language to express an emotion, but it’s not derogatory or, or abusive in some way.
Um, and I think we strip a lot of that, then the pressures of Christianity start to fall away because they’re not pressures that Jesus created for us. The pressures we’ve created on ourselves. It’s, it’s the Pharisees of Jesus’s day, right? Like I’m gonna create all these rules and laws on top of the laws just so we can be better.
No, that’s not the, that’s not the piece. Then it’s just bondage again. Now we’re getting back to, you know, the, the bondage of the law. Like we’re free. We’re followers of Jesus, and we found freedom inside of his gospel, inside of his sacrifice. So let’s live inside of that freedom and our language can live inside of that freedom.
Um, and I think he was a big
Andrew: okay. When you, when you were saying that. I agree totally. Um, live in that freedom. But as you were saying that, um, this passage came to mind and it’s in Matthew, it’s towards the end. I’ll find it and I’ll tell you what it is. But Jesus is talking to a crowd of like, kinda nobody’s, you know, the normal people, the common folk.
And he says, listen about the Pharisees. You should do the things they tell you to do. But don’t live your life from the way they live their life. Um, and then he goes on to say, you know, they, they stand and pray in front of you. Um, so that you can see them not so that they can honor God. They stand and praise of you.
You see them, they take the high seat so that everybody knows. Yeah, that dude, that dude has high social status, like he is, he’s ahead of me. Um, so Jesus says. Yeah, they, they teach the right things, but they don’t live the right things. Um, and to me that, that is kinda the spirit of, of this whole discussion is try to live through right things.
Um, don’t try to just like follow every single rule of. The, I don’t know like the, the religion side of Christianity. Cause I think there’s a difference between religion and relationship. Religion is like, go do this, do this, do this, do this. Relationship is more like, who do you turn to when you need to really.
Talk to somebody about what your next step in in life is. You know, who’s the people’s advice? Who you really trust, or the God’s advice, who you really trust. You know, it’s not, it’s not, what’s my checkbox? It’s, I have a real question and I don’t know the answer. How do I figure out the right answer? You know, that’s like kind of relationship religion.
But, um. Yeah. Anyway,
Josh: Rose versus, or the beginning of Matthew 23, I think. Tell me if these are right. Um, uh, Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, now 23 is right after 22, he literally just had a conversation with the great commandment. And he says, the teacher of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’s seat, not its authority, right?
Like that’s what he’s speaking to. Um, so they are the connection. And you have to remember too, like the law wasn’t. The law wasn’t as readily available to read as the Bible is available for us. So you have to have some kind of standard in it, right? Um, that’s what the Bible is for us. It creates a standard.
We don’t worship scripture. We worship the one that wrote scripture, and that’s God himself. But there’s a standard or foundation that we pull from it. He says, the teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in the Moses’s seat. So be careful to do everything they tell you. And this is the piece of it, right?
Like when. The laws that they’re teaching, the laws that align with Moses, the laws of Moses, then you need to be very careful to do these things. These are important because there it’s sin against God and sin against people. That’s what all sin boils down to and he says, but do not do what they do for, they do not practice what they preach.
They tie up heavy that I think this verses is. Enlightening. They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulder because they themselves aren’t willing to lift a finger to move them. Yeah. And I think that’s, that’s what we’re trying to fight against, right? Like this level of hypocrisy.
Hypocrisy, hypocrites, hypocrites, hypocrisy. Look at that. I got there.
Andrew: So good.
Josh: I’m not an English major. I didn’t do well in English. I’m dyslexic. You’ll figure it out. Keep listening. Uh, but that’s the piece of it, right? The level of hypocrisy that’s existing inside of, at that time, the Jewish culture and that Jesus was fighting against that.
Now. Still exists at at points through Christian culture that we’re still trying to fight against because it creates unnecessary burden on followers of Jesus that they’re in debt and need to be burdened there in the first place. Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s why this conversation’s important.
Andrew: Yeah. And, and I think that that verse communicates the spirit of this whole thing.
Well, um, I didn’t know as in Matthew 23, but I literally read it the other day and I was thinking about this conversation. Um, and man, the. The clarity of that, like ties up a heavy burden and puts it on somebody else but isn’t willing to lift it themselves. You know, it’s like if we’re backpacking and I’m like, Josh, Hey man, I need to just put a few things in your pack.
And you’re like, yeah dude, of course. Put a few things that no worries. And then I’m like, okay, I’m going to put my pots and pans and my water obviously cause you’re done. Take a drink.
Josh: I’m going to put,
Andrew: yeah, I tell them bills I’m going to throw in my bag of sand that I carry, you know, just to even out like distribution and it’s like, Oh cool man.
Like what are you carrying? It’s like, Oh, just like my bag. I got my bag. LG. Yeah, my Nalgene it’s empty cause you got my Walker. Like I’ll fill it up when I need it. Um, but it is literally like that, only in like a spiritual sense of like. I’m going to tell you to do all these things, to um, to say these things, to not say, I’m going to tell you, Josh only use your tongue for, for good things.
And I’m going to leave it ambiguous. And when you say, when you stub your finger and you say, shit, I’m going to say, Josh, you should repent. And, and you can confess to me what you just said. You know, like it’s, it’s this religious, like
Josh: heavier. It’s like,
Andrew: well, it’s, I think
Josh: I’d be curious where it comes from.
I think, and I am probably wrong, but I think it comes from pride that if I can make you feel worse about yourself, that means I’m better. Than myself than I actually am. And, and we just create this unhealthy cycle that constantly, um, I don’t know when, when I was reading these
Andrew: verses again, I’m going to interrupt you.
I think it is a really, really low view of God. I think it’s like a, I’m going to be ahead of you in line, like I’m going to be one step ahead of you because all God cares about is like, is Josh worse than Andrew? Let Andrew in. You know, it’s like a super low, like, like deeds based thing of like, Oh, you know, Josh got a 91% and got 91 and a half, like he’s in Josh’s and hell, that’s it.
It’s like that religious thinking.
Josh: Yeah, that’s a powerful word right there, dude. Like a low view of God is what drives that conversation and that behavior, man.
Andrew: Yeah. He’s so small that that if I used the wrong four letter word, I’m going to hurt him. God, I’m going to hurt God with my four letter word or five letters, six letters.
I don’t know how many letters, but, but it’s like that. It’s like he’s so, God is so small and so fragile that I have to observe all these tiny little lines, you know, and rules that if I break one. I’m bad, or if I break one,
Josh: we’ll even limit God down just to like a morality of of Alyssa do’s and don’ts, like a morality of like, you’re a good person if you do this, you’re a bad person if you do that.
And that’s not the point of all this. Like Jesus called us to love those that are around us and love them in a sacrificial way, in a way that puts them before myself, which means my desires, my wants come second to their desires and their wants. Right? Like for what’s, what’s best for them. Like, I could be destructive if, if you go, if you take that too far.
Um, but like that’s the core of it. Like it’s love. Like God is what God is love. Like at the core of everything he’s doing. And he wants to be, you know, um, he wants us to experience his, his deep love for us and us to have a deep love for him because that creates a bond and a relationship and our sins that go against him just create, it’s a divide just like my sins against you creates a divide.
Between us, whether you know my sins against you or not, like it’s still going to create a divide. And when all that comes to light, then it creates destruction, right? Like that’s what he’s trying to avoid. Like he’s trying and you get back to the church and when Jesus says, you know. I want you to be, do, have unity and to support one another.
And you see the, the epistles go into the same words, like there’s a level of sacrifice of like, yeah, we don’t see eye to eye on this. And that’s okay. Um, we, we end up in different places. I can’t say what you’re doing is sin and you can’t see what I’m doing. That sin. That’s great. Let’s just keep moving on.
Um, and that’s this piece, but then we weaponize scripture along the way somewhere, and now we’re. Attacking other churches and not living in unity about things that aren’t necessarily sin. And I’m, when we really dig into it, but we use those verses to call it sin because we can pull them out of context really fast.
Right? That’s the things we’re trying to fight against. Like I think Jesus cares a lot more about our unity than he does about our sin because his sacrifice on the cross took care of our sin. Yes, our sins destructive. Our sin is ugly. And. Continuing down, those paths will keep, um, causing destruction. Um, but what he desperately wants is that great love for him and a great love for people around us.
Like that’s when he’s trying to get us to, and if we can live that, then, then like, that’s world changing. Like that’s life changing. That’s something you build a church around. Right? Um, but we miss it. We miss it constantly. And unfortunately, we’ve been on the other side of it. I apologize.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I’m sorry if you’re, if you’re on the other side of it right now, I’m sorry.
Like it’s, it’s not about the words that you’re using. Granted, if you’re speaking out of, I hate you, it might be out of that, you know, but if you’re just saying word that is stigmatized in society.
Josh: Yeah,
Andrew: I don’t think it’s that. Um, and man, part two of that a little bit different, but what you were saying, it’s like Jesus prayed for the unity of, of believers.
And, um. This week. You know, if you’ve opened your phone at all, you know that our nation, United States of America is more divided right now than, than we’ve been in a long time. Like we took covert 19 you know this, this virus on lockdown gotta do this stuff.
Josh: Then we fought against. Murder horns. Yeah,
Andrew: I, okay.
I got to tell you story about those soon. This freaking Hornet charged me all because it was starting to build a nest above my grudge. No spring bug spray on it. Like pump was the trigger
Josh: spray.
Andrew: Dude, it was ready to murder me. I don’t know if it was murder horn did or not. It didn’t hit me, but I literally sprinted inside.
It was bad.
Josh: Did it? Your boss, the bees heads, then you know,
Andrew: murder harder. It probably did. It would’ve. It would’ve, it would’ve ripped off my head.
Josh: The question is, would he been cursing at you in a moment?
Andrew: No. He would have been like defending himself. Like, what are you, why are you spraying gasoline on my house?
You know, like, dude. That was, it was scary. That was the last night I sprinted inside billets. But the bigger, the bigger thing is you, you talked about unity. Um, like that Christ wants us to be unified as believers and man, how radically different would we look right now as the church? Like. The church in Ghana, the church in America, the church in Guatemala, the church in Paris.
Like if we were truly unified, not along the lines of race, not along the lines of, uh, words, you know, but along the lines of like, no, no, we were all sinful. We’re trying to get towards Jesus. We’re following Jesus. You know? Like if we were truly unified around that right now. Dude, the church would be a force to be reckoned with and it is enforced, but, but we could be in the day to day, not, not that we’re one political group or another.
It’s like, no, no, no, not, we’re separate. We’re about Jesus.
Josh: We want, not a force, not a force in the sense of power. No,
Andrew: no. A force in the sense of, I want to be a part of that. Yeah. That’s what I meant, like a gravitational pole of like they’re different and they’re, and that seems better. So I want to be a part of that, but, but sometimes we squabble about these words of like, don’t say it’s say bowel movement, not, not poop.
And God knows you shouldn’t say shit.
Josh: When I stub my toe down, sometimes I say, poop sticks. I don’t even know what that means, but yeah, that was good.
Andrew: Long pieces of poop
Josh: on like a stick. I picture it like a those rocket popsicles, but just a Brown turd kind of.
Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. Slowly over time. I don’t know, man.
What do you think? What do you think about that? Other than rocket bops?
Josh: No, I think that’s great, dude. Like I think, man, if we just choose to love and. Like, I think of, I think of the woman that was caught in adultery and they were about to stone her. And Jesus shows up on the scene. He draws a line in the sand.
He writes something in the sand, and we all wish we knew what it was. We don’t, we won’t know until we get to heaven. But, um, but in that moment it wasn’t, it wasn’t, Hey, let me tell you everything about your life. That’s wrong, ma’am. It was, I’m going to protect you for what’s wrong. And what they’re about to do is rock because they have no right to do it.
And they don’t get to take life because you’ve been lived. You live in sin, like things have changed. And that’s the stance that took. Um, you look at the woman at the well in S in, um, the submerged woman. Um, and. Yes, he calls out as sin, but his end goal wasn’t necessarily to call out the sin. It’s an important piece to get to the, Oh, now
he
Andrew: caught up the sin so that she was like, Oh, you know me, you, you actually know the things.
I don’t want people to know you. Like,
Josh: you know, like you’ve dug into my shame and you’re still talking to me in this moment. You’re still loving. And not only that, um, he’s giving you access. To, you know, forever water, everlasting water. He’s calling himself the Messiah in that moment. Like he’s introducing essentially himself.
Um, but it’s not about the sin. It’s about a recognize, you know, recognize the sin. But get back to Jesus. It’s about Jesus. Are you getting back to this place where, where Jesus is our focus? And it’s the same thing in our world today. Like, I’m going to loving you as I should be in such a way that I’m putting you above myself, because that’s what Jesus would do.
Like that’s how he would love. Um, and it’s not blind faith. Like we’re not. Pushing sin away. We still see it. We still recognize it. It’s still there, but in the midst of it, we still believe that Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross is greater than it, and in the side of forgiveness takes care of it. Right? And that’s the piece I think we have to hold on to and push away all the other burdens.
The rest of it doesn’t matter if you’re not harming God, you’re not harming yourself and you’re not harming others, you’re probably okay. We’re not going to call it sin. So if you need to drop that S word, drop it now, the B word, the C word, like now you’re getting into some stuff. You’re getting some scary ground like
Andrew: you can watch.
Just watch yourself
Josh: say the word ingest. Uh, I don’t know how you say the word, in all honesty, like now you’re creating a whole mess of thing, but,
Andrew: but will the entire group turn on you?
Josh: Maybe it’s the story of my life.
Andrew: Maybe. Who knows? I
Josh: don’t find that funny. Nobody else did.
Andrew: Ah,
Josh: Jana, just in case.
Andrew: But yes, you did.
You did. And I didn’t know you well, nothing to be like, you’re joking. It’s okay. But, uh, sorry about that, man. I didn’t mean to be that guy.
Josh: No. And I get it. Like my. My mentality is to seem like I’m pretty serious all the time, so I get that, but
Andrew: right. But you weren’t called fluffy and nobody wants to be called fluffy.
Come on. That’s rough.
Josh: I’m probably even more fluffy now,
Andrew: but nobody wants that.
Josh: Maybe some funny moment. It was a funny moment between Janet and I. It’s all good. Yeah. Everyone else could just kiss my ass.
Andrew: Whoa. Watch out for that as a three letter word there. It’s
Josh: close to them. Was I hurting them? Was it derogatory?
Was I putting them down? Was I putting them in a,
Andrew: no, you’re fine. You’re fine. Actually.
Josh: Yeah. He was just making a statement. I was expressing emotion and I think that’s okay. Um, so this is what I want to see from you. People that are listening. I want you to drop the F bomb on Facebook, on Instagram, on all those social medias.
I’m just kidding.
Andrew: And tag us when you do.
Josh: Yeah, and I’ll say this too. There’s another piece of this too, right? Like if I use language that can be considered foul language in an environment that’s like, yeah, I’d rather you not do that. Yeah. Out of love for my brothers and sisters in Christ, I’m going to stop using that language, right?
Like that’s care. Like if they’re uncomfortable with it. That’s fine. I won’t use it. It’s the same thing with drinking, right? Like if they’re uncomfortable with it, that’s fine. I like, I’m not connected to in such a way, or like I have to stand on my Hill and say, no. Drinking’s okay, I’m going to chug this beer right in front of you and you’re going to walk.
No. Like if they’re not okay with it, then they’re not okay with, that’s fine. I’m just wondering around them. Right. It’s the same thing with cursing. Like we can go through so many lists of things of like, um, like I want to love you. Well, and in the midst of that, now you’re not going to control me with that.
Like, if you’re doing it from the sake of control, I’m going to push against your control and we’re going to have fun with it, and you’re not going to like it, but I’m going to enjoy it. Um, but I’m trying to get you to a better place. Like that’s why I’m doing it.
Andrew: Josh, if you could just not use the letter T from now on.
Any words? Yeah, that’s adorable. It’s sinful and you imagine how slowly you would have to speak if you had to think of, is there a T in this?
Josh: It’s impressive. I was going to say think, but it’s impressive that you look at me and say, he’s. Intelligent enough. I think there’s a dealer in town just a couple of weeks.
I was going to say smart, but there’s a T in that one. He’s smart enough to be able to figure that out. I’m not smart enough. You’re not,
Andrew: dude. I’m not either.
Josh: You can spell words to me out loud and be like, I don’t even sound like Jibo. I have
Andrew: no idea what all I’m doing is I’m just here putting a heavy burden.
On you and I’m expecting you to carry it and, and, and I’m not willing to, I’m going to say the teas
Josh: were Jesus’ words when it comes to burden.
Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. Lay it on him. My
Josh: burden is my
Andrew: burden. Yoke is easy and my burden burden is light.
Josh: If you’re living a Christian life right now, that doesn’t feel like his burden is light, you’re not living the Jesus Christian life and you’re leaving some religious life and you’re putting burdens on yourself that Jesus not trying to put on you.
Um, he’s trying to get you to a place so you’re loving him and loving people and making a difference in your world. Um, it shouldn’t feel like burden. And if it’s feeling a burden, something’s off, something’s wrong. You gotta dig into it. You gotta figure what it is because you should be able to live a life full of hope, full of freedom, full of looking to the future that things are going to always be better.
Things are always going to be great. No matter how ugly they get. Jesus right there with me in the midst of it. And because of that, I can face anything in this life. Um. That was a little preaching moment
Andrew: for you all. Nothing wrong with that man. I think that was great.
Josh: As always injured. It’s great to see you, my friend,
Andrew: man.
It was great to talk to you, Josh. Thanks for your date.
Josh: If you’re listening right now, do us a favor and just rate us on Apple podcasts. I think it’s the only platform you can rate us on. If you’re on a different platform and you can register as well, it always helps. It’s going to just help us kind of push us forward.
If you like us along the way, follow us even for really not listening though. It helps us if you do some. Please listen, please go back and listen to all the podcasts. If this is your first podcast, you’re listening to a started like episode three it’s like when we found our groove, we’re like, yeah, the first time you were there.
Yeah. They’re there. They’re okay. They’re probably entertaining enough, but if you need to skip something, skip those two. Go to three.
Andrew: That’s right. Start at three. So when we get to 10 we’re at seven basically. Anyway, start at three. Yeah. Authenticity. We’re being real about this. This is for sure Jesus’ life.
Normal dudes, you know, we’re figuring it out.
Josh: That’s true. And we’re only going to get better from here, but Hey, thank you so much for listening. We do greatly appreciate it. Um, we’re humbled to see the amount of people that are listening. Um, I wish it was higher, but that’s just probably my pride in my ego saying it should be in the thousands by now.
I’m kind of confused why it’s not. Um, but Hey, we do really appreciate that you’re listening. We appreciate you sharing with people. You’ve seen that as well. And that means a lot to us. Um, just to help others just live this life of freedom that we find in Jesus and have be full of hope again, because that’s what Jesus provides us.
It’s a hope for a future because it’s a future with him. No matter what the world throws at us, no matter how ugly it can get, as it is right now in our, in our world, um, God is still God and Jesus still Jesus in the midst of that, I can hold onto confidence. That’s right. And the, he’s in control. But
Andrew: Andrew.
Yeah. Uh, so thanks for being here. Love you guys. And, uh, feel free to use those four letter
Josh: words. See you later. .