Austin Ave Unplugged #029 An Every-Topic Conversation

Well, good morning, good afternoon, or good night whenever you're listening to this, and welcome to the Austin Avenue Unplugged podcast.

Did y'all get the Truman show reference on that?

Yes.

Good morning, good afternoon, good night.

And if I don't see you again, then good night.

Well, I had uh something interesting that I like to do with our teenagers uh every now and then, and I think mine is really good.

But have y'all known do y'all know like the birthday proverbs?

Okay, so you take your you take your birthday.

So in my case, I always have these things.

Okay.

I love them.

It's so much fun.

So you find your proverb in Proverbs.

So the chapter is the month, and the verse is the day.

And some of them don't work, and so you have to go to um day first and then but so like mine is Proverbs, chapter 10, uh, because I'm the 10th month in October, verse 23, 23rd day.

Proverbs 10 · chapter mention

So this is my birthday proverb.

Um a fool finds pleasure in wicked schemes, but a person of understanding delights in wisdom.

Okay, that's a good proverb to have.

And some of these are not so good.

Um I I can't think of it.

Or then when's your birthday?

Uh 1231.

Okay, so some of them don't have right, it might not have 31 verses in it.

It doesn't, it only has 28.

But if we go to the 31st chapter, there might be 12 verses.

Okay.

You ready for yours?

Go.

Okay.

Chapter 31, verse 12 of Proverbs.

She brings him good, not harm all the days of her life.

That is your Proverbs.

Yeah, that now that that is referencing Shanna for sure.

She brings him good, not harm all the days of her life.

Absolutely.

Very nice.

Yeah.

Mine is uh nine, five, Psalm nine, five.

You have rebuked the nations and destroyed the wicked.

Yeah, you have.

You have blotted out their name forever and ever.

So good.

So is it is it chapter so is it?

Chapter is month.

Chapter is month.

Okay, so June 1st.

So six one.

Yeah.

So mine's like uh like it doesn't complete.

I was happy to have a good idea.

My son, if you put up security for your neighbor, if you have shaken hands and pledge for a stranger, just then what?

You're leaving us hanging.

Yeah, I know.

If you've been trapped by what you said, uh so I mean it doesn't resolve itself for like until first three.

Basically, just just like go and wear them out until they let you off the hook.

So basically it's like if you made a bad deal, just go wear them out until they let you off the hook.

So I look at it.

Kind of describes me a little bit.

Forgiveness?

Well, no, it's more like persistence.

Like, hey Giles, I know I said that I was gonna help you move, but I'm not gonna help you move now and just never mind barrage you until you stop.

I'm fine.

I give it up.

So I I went a step further.

I know I was born at 129 in the afternoon.

So 129 is since they hated knowledge and did not choose to fear the Lord.

Okay, that's not unresolved.

Yep.

Another I need the verse in front of it to know.

Um, but then there's some other uh like popular dates.

Like uh let me let me read this one and y'all guess the date that it is a significant day of the year.

Anxiety weighs down the heart, but a kind word cheers it up.

So we're supposed to guess like what date that that is?

Yeah.

I mean, we have one in 365 chances.

It's not one that I've done before.

So you have one in 361 chances now.

Oh okay.

Anxiety weighs down the heart, but a kind word cheers it up.

So it's gotta be a holiday or February 14th.

It's a significant day.

No, it's not.

That's a great guess.

It's not Super Bowl Sunday.

That that's Christmas Day.

Oh, nice.

How do you all not know?

Yeah.

Anxiety is a good thing.

How do we not know?

But a kind word uh cheers it up.

Let's let's see.

Uh how about this?

Okay, we are this close to being accused of doing like the Bible code thing that was popular in the like early 2000s.

I haven't heard this.

You remember the Bible code.

Oh my word.

Okay, so in the early 2000s, people fed the like probably the King James version.

I don't know.

They fed the Bible into computers long before AI and looked for like combinations of words and like hidden prophecies and like who was the Israeli politician that got shot?

Um anyway, but there's also there's all sorts of world events that they like decoded running the Bible through a computer.

Well, every ten thousandth word, if you take out the word the and then the word president or whatever.

And so to prove that it's just silly, people did it with like Moby Dick, which is you know also a very so you can find anything you want in a large enough body of work.

You can run it through a computer and it'll find a code to to like say, oh, the prophet the assassination of JFK was prophesied in the Bible.

You just have to count every 30,000th word to put it together and anyway.

Yeah.

Um so yeah, doing doing this proverbs thing, my homeboy is like I can't believe you're about to shame me for not knowing that.

Not knowing the Bible code.

From the early 2000s, as if I was interested in stuff that came out the year you were born.

Okay.

Go ahead.

I was just gonna ask you, tell us about your experience with the Y2K bug, but never mind.

Yeah, don't don't know that one either.

I've heard stories though.

Okay.

Say to wisdom, you're my sister, and to insight, you're my relative.

Thanksgiving.

Nope, that would be a good one.

April Fool's Day.

But that one changes.

Oh, that's true.

That's true.

You don't know what it is.

April Fool's Day would have been gonna do.

Now this one is is more uh it it's a national holiday, but it's very national.

Fourth of July?

Fourth of July.

Yeah.

Um another thing I really love to do with the youth group is are y'all familiar with the Hawaiian Pid Jin Bible?

Something like that.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, have you all read it?

Okay.

That is amazing.

I don't know if it's an official translation or not.

What do you know about it?

Oh, that it's just kind of fun to listen to.

Yeah.

So um J uh James Elliott, who's kind of a famous missionary who died on the mission field like maybe back in the forties.

Uh I think his son or grandson I've seen do it on uh YouTube.

It's just yeah, it's just kind of fun to listen to.

Yeah.

Not endorsing it for your primary source of Bible study, but yeah, it's it's cool.

It it is just fun to look into it.

And so I asked them, what's your favorite verse?

And then they'll share with me their favorite verse, and then we read them their verse in the Hawaiian Pid Pigeon Bible.

Well, I think you'd be really good at this.

Oh, fun.

What is that?

So I have John 3.16 pulled up.

Okay.

You know John 3.16?

Yes.

Okay, give it to us.

In your KJ.

That um whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.

So now I have the Hawaiian Pigeon Bible pulled up.

And I forgot my glasses.

I have to hold it when you're gonna be able to do it.

I don't know how to up the fonts on.

Do y'all know how to do that?

Definitely fonts in settings of 45 if he doesn't know how to increase the font size.

Okay.

There's John 316.

Okay.

Right there.

Do you want to read this?

Yes.

Okay.

Okay.

God get plenty of love and Aloha Photo Popo inside the world.

Uh that's why me, why he send me his one and only boy.

Cause that everybody uh that trusts me know go and get cuff cut off from God forever.

They gonna get why am I I don't know like they're like I'm reading this.

This is like it's a little more Jamaican than Hawaiian.

Yeah, where did I gonna get the real kind life that gonna stay to the max forever?

Yeah.

That's wow.

I know a Samoan who grew up going to church.

Positive that's not what they read, but yeah, I'm gonna ask him about it.

Yeah, yeah.

Interesting.

It's funny also to look at the names of the books.

They got Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Jesus Guys.

Jesus Guys.

Yeah.

Rome.

Romans.

Four first.

I don't know if they say first or not.

Oh one Corinth.

C-O-R-I-N-T.

Two Corinthians.

Uh Ephesus.

Oh but E-F E S U S.

Okay.

It's just fun.

Anybody have a translation of the Bible that um is maybe not their primary, but something that they enjoy?

Not really.

No?

I don't enjoy any of them.

No, I don't enjoy them.

I I really just stick with NIV.

I've I've read a few other translations just verse by verse fashion.

And I I always just feel more solid in the NIV, but that doesn't mean anything other than I'm just used to it.

Yeah.

But I still really enjoy it.

I was probably 13, and for my birthday, I asked for a Bible.

And I wanted all the things.

I wanted the tabs, I wanted the three different tassels.

I wanted a certain version, I wanted a cover for it.

And I remember my mom being very proud of me for asking for all that stuff.

And it was an NASB.

And I used it for your eyes lit up when I said that.

I'm curious.

That's maybe not the one that I would choose for a child.

Right.

I chose it for myself.

Yeah, no, I know.

I'm I'm it I was like, ooh, okay.

And so it's that's a little higher level.

Well, I I don't know why I chose it then.

Obviously Giles because I didn't have that.

Um but I have an NIV that I I still love, that in ASB, and then I'm shocked with how many verses like I know like the 23rd Psalm or the Lord's Prayer pretty much exclusively in KJV or in KJV.

I know.

Because I heard my grandparents quoting it.

And but I I doubt I've ever truly just like owned a KJV and read it for myself to memory of that.

I definitely have a parallel Bible where that's one of the translations in there.

Yeah.

Um but in my the NIV that I've had for a long time, probably since teenage years as well, um, you might be able to quote something from the New Testament, and I'd be like, I don't know where exactly, but I know it's on the top right part of the page.

Doug has used the same version of the same Bible for years.

Yeah.

And he can tell you where on the page that things are.

It's pretty impressive.

It's a really helpful memory aid.

Oh, for sure.

Much better, like if you think about trying to memorize big chunks of scripture like Doug did for the Sermon on the Mount.

Scrolling on your phone, it's inconsistent on where on the screen it's going to be each time.

And so it serves as a good memory aid if you can turn the page and picture, okay, what's the first thing that's on, what's that first section up there?

Um so they say having something, and this is no news to anybody, having something tactile um serves a a really good purpose in terms of memorizing.

You know what I just thought about when the Hebrews are memorizing scrolls.

Right.

Okay, entire books.

It's more like our phones than like our Bibles.

It's scroll it scrolls.

Like I don't even have to change the word.

A scroll scrolls.

That's why we call scrolling on our phones scrolling.

Yeah.

Huh.

It means nothing.

It's just an interesting thought.

I wonder how much.

They were scrolling the Bible along before we were.

Yeah.

Do you think they would scroll it to their reading view and then scroll it to the next paragraph?

To the Do you think they'd roll up the whole thing?

I mean, those things have to be you know hundreds of feet long.

Um to the size of the podium that they're reading from.

Don't want to be quoted on this.

They did it.

Yeah.

They read the sentence as they're scrolling.

I somebody's at the top.

I think they were twenty-some odd feet long.

Don't quote me on that.

Okay.

But like Luke and Axe are like the same length.

One scroll.

Okay.

Um and then some of the one scroll.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So yeah, I I never thought about this.

Um, you know, we like to like walk on treadmills and read at the same time.

Could you roll the whole scroll out and just like walk through it?

Yeah, and just like walk as you read.

I mean, you have to do like a thing plank, like plank over it.

We would laminate it, of course.

Yes.

Never thought about this.

Yeah.

Could you roll it out?

Yeah.

And then just walk beside it.

Yeah, I'm I'm pretty sure that they did a two-handed tactile thing.

As they as they read it.

Right.

I'm pretty sure they were far too valuable to like scroll out over the floor.

I mean, yeah.

But I'm I'm kind of wondering if they went to the scroll store and they're like, I'm about to write this book, um, but I need a scroll.

And they're like, Well, how many words is it?

And he's like, I don't know, you know, like however many words.

And that guy's like, you could probably use a 22-foot scroll.

Um I've got some in the back.

Right.

I'm gonna go grab one for you, and then you can look at it and see.

Yeah.

That is like how do you harvest 22 feet of paper?

I don't I don't know.

These are old.

I don't think there's like a 22-foot mold where you like dip, but I mean, maybe there is, I don't know.

That would be super interesting to see.

Like ancient technology like for that.

Yeah, I mean, I've seen them making paper, you know, with the dipping it in the water and all that stuff.

It's pretty cool.

It is chat.

Uh oh.

How long is a standard old testament scroll?

Well, I know I don't know if like how many Jeremiah is the biggest book of the Bible, in terms of word count that is.

Psalms has it by chapters and all that, uh, and by verses.

But I think it's Jeremiah's 33,000 words for it.

But that's gotta be broken into a number of different scrolls.

I would think so.

That would be so heavy.

So the so the Torah uh is between 100 and 150 feet long.

Okay.

Okay.

100 and 150 feet.

The um So the first five, is that right?

Mm-hmm.

So the Isaiah scroll, the great Isaiah scroll from the Dead Sea scrolls that's that's kind of like the biggest proof that like no, they weren't messing with the text.

Yeah, I think it's a good idea.

I mean, I'm gonna quote it wrong, but I mean the years between the oldest one.

Yes.

The the years between the oldest one that we used to think was the oldest, and then that one, and then more like recent ones, but still antiquity, it just hasn't changed.

Yeah.

I mean, basically.

It's amazing.

Um we have 24 feet of that one.

I don't I knew that we had like chapters.

I didn't know that we had 24 feet.

That's that's kind of cool to know that.

Yep.

Um I know.

So yeah.

Anyway, kind of all I said.

I've never thought about how many feet of the Bible I've read before.

That's a new extra.

So well, it's pretty easy.

If you've read your whole Bible, you measure the the length of the pages in your Bible, so you know, like eight and a half by eleven.

So so it's it's basically the number of feet would be the pages in your Bible, depending upon the height of your Bible.

But you can't say I've read more because mine's font size 13, and you've read less because yours is font size eleven.

Well, the penmanship of the scribes, like yeah.

I mean, that obviously would change it.

It's not gonna come down to the same inches for two different scribes.

Right.

They have standardizations like that.

Like is their college ruled notebook paper like ours?

Yeah.

Times new Roman MLA format.

Right.

So Jeremiah might not be the longest book, depending on right, because he had what was his scribe's name?

Who translated it?

Oh man.

I know.

Anyways, I know he wrote a little bit.

Jeremiah did, the scribe wrote most of it.

It might be a short book if it was a young scribe with small handwriting.

It could have only been twenty-one feet long.

Well, uh you've got Paul who's like, look at how big I write my own name.

Right.

So uh that's Baruch.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I wish I could say I came up with that I think.

Right.

You had to look it up.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Baruch.

It's in there.

Um gosh, there's something else I was gonna say about it.

Uh uh I'm almost positive that this is right because then you would have your hands on it, but they only wrote on one side of the page.

And as somebody who tries to maximize everything, I never print on one side of a piece of paper.

That's wasted paper, right?

I know.

So like right there they could have written on both sides.

Wouldn't have worked for the actual scroll part.

It'd be exposed.

Well, and I would think that they would have bleed through.

Oh, yeah, they wouldn't have had anti-bleed through technology quite thing.

Um so there's a documentary on I think I saw it on Amazon Prime uh about the Dead Sea scroll find and how I mean how they literally are piecing it together under a microscope with like tweezers.

They're putting these little pieces in, and they're it's just like a jigsaw puzzle that they're trying to restart.

And just just how tedious that that would be, but man, what a gift.

I know.

What a gift.

So was it submerged?

Uh where was it found at?

Uh Qumran in those caves.

Okay.

I'm I mean, I'm gonna butcher all the facts.

I think a I think a shepherd, uh a Badawan tribesman was um throwing rocks in this cave, and he could hear the clay pots that they were stored in shatter.

So a group of of uh Essenes, which were people that withdrew from regular Jewish culture because they're like, y'all are corrupt.

Right?

The temple's corrupt, the priests are corrupt, this place is bad and wrong.

And so they uh withdrew and they had a a lot of of what we would call the canon, they had some some additional writings.

Um, and then um uh Rome, they got sideways with Rome, and Rome came in and sacked the place.

And um man, I wish I'd study this recently.

And so they had kind of a compound, and I feel like maybe that they knew that the Romans were coming, and there were caves maybe up above the compound.

So they hid.

And so they hit them there.

Brilliant.

Yeah.

What what's the timeline on that?

Oh when do we think they hit them?

So i it might have been around the same time of the siege of uh I used to know.

Okay.

Um we found them in relative recent history?

Uh 1948.

Okay.

Yeah, I really want to look this stuff up.

Yeah.

Uh and so they um people were buying, so they ended up just being for sale.

You can find ads in like the New York Times in like the 40s and 50s where people were like, hey, you can buy this old scroll, and people are like buying them through the mail.

Oh my goodness.

Whoa.

Yeah.

Well, and like how many did those did and like I was like a little Honyok kid who broke stuff and did stuff I shouldn't do.

Like, like I was not a obedient, sure, well-mannered, I was kind of a feral kid.

I would have been wizard rocks, and they're like, This is awesome.

Yeah.

Set them up again.

How many did they break?

And then how many got sold on not even the black market if you buy an ad in the New York Times?

Like it's not the black market.

Right.

And so um finally people were like, I think this is important.

And that's that's what turns out it was.

Yeah.

Translators and scientists, and I feel like there's maybe been kind of some drama about who got access and when about that in like academia.

But I'm like, just take a picture and share it with everybody else.

I mean, hi res.

Um, but no, just just remarkable finds.

Yeah, absolutely.

Very significant.

Yeah.

So I've started this thing recently where I say recently, over the last several years, it's been a work in progress where I've recognized in myself that I I'm not a great listener, but I'm very patient and just waiting on someone to get done to speak.

And I say very patient.

You are great at that.

I'm a liar.

I'm a liar in that regard too.

And so oftentimes I and when someone is talking, they'll remind me of something, and then I'll have that thought, and then I'm just sitting here waiting for them to get done to talk so that I can say something.

Yes.

And I realize I'm not actively listening when I do that.

And so I've tried to make an effort to be an active listener, but it's so frustrating when someone gets done and I know I had a thought.

Yes.

And I lost it.

And I try to back backtrack what it was.

Sometimes I can find it, other times not.

Yeah.

It is not serving me well now.

Like I've had a hundred thoughts in your like questions that I had pop up.

And now that you're you're done explaining, I'm like, I have I have zero now.

So uh they were found what year did I say they were memory?

47.

Oh yeah.

Good memory.

Good job.

Yeah, and you said you were a kid reading the New York Times.

Uh yeah, in the movies.

Yes.

Yes, I was alive then.

I remember breaking a window at the uh Cross Plains gymnasium, uh, and we had to pay to get it fixed.

Me and my brother, we were throwing caliche rocks at each other and broke a window.

Um I also remember running through Like what are those like concrete culverts, storm drains, or whatever that would go under highway?

But there would be hundreds of birds birds' nests in there in the spring at least.

And me and my brother and my cousin would find like an old subway cup, and because it's just at the public park, and a stick.

And then we would quietly go through, or we would go on top and run across the highway, and we would run down the storm drain with this subway cup, banging on it with a stick, and all the birds would fly out and run away from the sound.

And then the other two with their baseball caps would stand at the end trying to catch birds.

When you said you were a hanioc that got a lot of trouble as a kid, I thought of that story.

So imagine if there were priceless scrolls in there.

Would you have found them and handled it as the treasure that they were?

Nah, we would have we would have thrown rocks.

We would have we would have treated the clay pots as like a skeet and thrown them and then tried to hit them with they would have probably stretched them out over the road and then like ran like you're finishing a marathon and be like How long is it under it under the whole thing?

Yeah.

Um can you jump over it?

Did it say did you find out how old those boys were?

I'm guessing that's been lost.

Yeah, I think I heard they were like 12 or 13.

I have no idea.

So uh yeah, so it was in my brain that like 70 AD was when Jerusalem kind of famously fell.

So they think Qumran that the Romans showed up around 68 AD or so.

During the first Jewish Roman War.

And so yeah, that's that's really interesting.

That's why they were in there.

So um that's crazy how they could preserve it for that long.

In clay pots.

Super dry that survived the weather.

I mean, I know there was you know in a cave and tucked away and so wind and sun and and and rain and super dry, no humidity.

Those are all perfect factors for that, but still Perfect.

I mean, you're talking about 1900 years almost.

Like 1,870 years of of just sitting in these pots.

That's wild to think.

That's wild.

Yeah.

And the Essenes were such an interesting group of people, anyway.

Um, they're the ones I I'm gonna say it wrong.

I think it's the mikvas, to where they they did water uh purification rituals like daily, and they withdrew.

And some people think that John the Baptist like may have had loose associations with them or because he was baptizing in an area that was not that far from there.

And so, no, but they're just a neat group.

Um, I do this every week now, I've figured out.

Uh Scott McKnight has a book, uh Kingdom Conspiracy, in which he goes through the different religious groups that were formed around the time of Jesus' ministry and kind of their way of thinking and their view of of uh Messiah.

And the Essenes were one of the groups that I was like, I might have signed up with y'all.

Like your way of thinking.

Just go off, build a compound, try to live a moral, pure, good life, restore the writings, keep them.

Um, I don't know.

They're just an interesting group.

They're they're way more sympathetic than like the Sadducees, right?

Which were basically like almost secular atheists that found a way to make a lot of money from the temple.

And so like there's some groups that are more sympathetic.

I don't want to be a sheep.

I don't want to be a goat.

Nope.

I I wanted to do that every year of church camp growing up.

Do we have to go?

Can we just stay here for the whole time?

Yeah.

You wanted to stay.

You always wanted to stay.

You're an Essene.

And I remember having a counselor that showed a diva with the whole camp that said that although it is fun, we're not meant to stay here.

Right?

We're supposed to take it, and he brought up the Great Commission and stuff like that.

And talked about how outside of these gates are the battlegrounds and it was really inspiring to I don't know, seventh or eighth grade Giles at the end of a long summer of church camps.

Yeah.

Um, it was cool.

But I think of too, like in 70 AD to the 1940s when they found that just how much went on globally during those times, those scrolls were present but unfound for is wild to think about.

And now we have the Bible in our pocket, and we were talking about the scrolls, and I mean they didn't travel very far.

Did they ever travel town to town, right?

They just stayed in the temple.

Um, only a certain uh class of people could read them in certain times, and the preservation and the honor that it was to be able to read them, or even to be literate to read them.

And now we have it like I I just think of Christians for most of history, their jaws would be on the floor if they knew of how much information we have easy access and how much access that we have to the Bible in almost every language, um, even just in our pockets where we can look it up anytime.

And I think um that is great for a lot of reasons, but I think it's also led to because we have it um so much access to it, we don't have it stored away in our heart like they did, or in our mind like they did.

Why'd you have to bring that up?

Yeah, there's a little bit of of lost intention where you're not actively going to the shelf and pulling out the scroll and putting it on the table and reading and and a dedicated time for it.

And yeah, we can grab it anytime we want, but are we?

Practicing the way has made me get the Bible out, put it on the table, read it, read it out loud with my family.

Yeah.

We've just like we did that when the kids were younger, and I've gone back to doing that again.

Like, no, we're gonna like read it out loud.

That's great.

Like I like reading out loud Bibles.

Anyways, you know, even if it's just to myself.

Um I don't know.

I think hearing hearing it being taught is good too.

Yeah for me.

I have a panic attack about reading out loud.

I've been a stutter my whole life, and reading was always my kryptonite.

Sure.

And so anyway, but I still do it.

I do it with my family.

I do it a mobile class.

I mean, but yeah, it's it's not the easiest thing for me, but um, I know that it's good.

Yeah.

I had a freshman year world geography teacher.

We were doing a project, and you got assigned a country of the world, and you had to answer a certain part of this and then present it to the class in two weeks or something.

And she said, if you don't know a word, I mean look it up, do research, try best.

But if you get to the moment and you can't remember how to say it, just say it with as much confidence as you have, and no one will know.

Yeah.

And we had a a guy that did that, I can't even remember the word, and he butchered the word, but did it with such confidence that only the teacher knew.

Yeah.

And then at the end she said, Oh, by the way, it this is how you pronounce it.

And I was like, Well, he would have fooled all of us until you spoiled it for him.

Uh but yeah, I do that with a bunch of names, particularly in the Bible.

Um just say with enough confidence.

And I'm so I'm so sure that it's wrong.

Um but I try not to let it stop me when when I'm reading.

Um we did have a Bappa Baba Pataz once in in when I asked a teenager to read, and it was really funny.

Baba Pataz.

Baba Patiz.

Yes.

Sweet kid.

That's always the fun part is hearing the littles in the kids' men stay say the names of you know all of these other ones.

Um uh Jehosaphat was Jahafahat, I think is what one of the kids was talking about.

And uh it's always so cute to just hear them pronounce these names again, but they get it wrong.

Like what were the three gifts that was presented at Jesus' birth?

Gold, Frankenstein, and whoever Myrrh is.

And they did a Murr.

Yeah.

That's funny.

I know in different groups um that they'll pronounce names or places differently.

I've I've got that.

Um I've I've been at funerals or visited different different church groups, and yeah, I'll be like, that's not how you would say that where I go to church.

But it's Philemon, is that one?

I I can't think of an example.

Yeah.

Um But I was like, yeah, we we pronounce that differently.

That's you know, that must be your Baptist dialect.

It's Philemon or Philemon.

Yeah or some do like first and some do one.

Yeah.

First Peter or one Peter.

Yeah.

I think in academia it's more one, and in the local church, it's more first.

Why is that?

I have no idea.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You save a syllable if you do one?

I can't.

I don't know.

Wait, I don't think you save a syllable.

First and what are both one syllable?

Yeah.

Second and two.

Oh, okay.

Maybe three.

And I mean there's only it's too much effort.

It's too much effort.

Just say two.

It does sound fancier if you just say words.

First and second.

Yeah, I've literally have never thought about it.

Well, I learned a lot today in today's conversation.

Yeah.

Next time I'll I'll study up on the uh Dead Sea Scrolls.

But but at some point we should do a podcast about those five groups.

That would be that would be really interesting.

I would like to learn about that.

I've just recently learned about um as they as they call them, the mother and the desert mothers and fathers, the ones that that split away, that thought that things were too complicated, too busy, too whatever, that they were distracted.

So a a small group would would retract and and go find a new place, a new community, and they would take people with them and people would be drawn to them, like monasteries were were significant like that, that they would build themselves like the first missionaries, build themselves into the community, and then those people would recognize the light that they were trying to shine and and bring people in.

So I'm I'm kind of in that mode right now of of learning like the you know two hundreds to four hundreds BC or 80, sorry.

So when you're gone from the podcast for like six months, you're out at Lake Brownwood.

Right.

You have a little lean to that would be amazing.

No, there's there's people who believe that like those people that have withdrawn and are praying deeply that like they're keeping the world spinning.

And when I hear ideas like that, they are so foreign to me.

I'm like, no, we're supposed to be in the world, but not of the world.

And but and yet Jesus had this pattern of like withdraw and then re-entry.

And I just think that rhythm of life is pretty beautiful.

Yeah.

And if we need to learn from people who withdraw for maybe a little longer, it's like, okay, well, they probably have something to share.

All right.

So the podcast is on break for six months.

We're all gonna go live at Lake Brownwood, and we'll come back and tell you what we've learned.

Um Wayland's beard will be like down to his belly button by then.

It'll be awesome.

I think this is like the longest it gets because I've just got to do it.

My hair is like that too.

It'll get really long and then stop.

It'll be grayer, probably for sure.

I've shared this on the podcast before, but y'all reminded me of of something when saying that.

Right?

The rhythm is you don't rest from your work.

Right?

You rest for your work.

The day starts with with rest.

I've heard a good in the Hebrew calendar.

Yeah.

I read a good article on that too about um the first thing that they would do, right, starting their day with rest, is they would put themselves in the most vulnerable position, sleep.

Right, and as a sign of or as a dedication of trusting in the one that has control over the world.

And so they they started their very first moments of their day with rest and a loosening of control over their grip of their lives.

And I thought, man, that's a really great um but yeah.

If you don't work, right, you don't have anything to return to, what are you resting for?

Yeah.

Right?

You're resting for the work that you have to do.

Yeah.

Um we're called to work.

Just that rhythm of beasting and fasting, withdrawal, um, engagement, um solitude and community.

Solitude and community.

I mean, it probably probably every good thing that we're called to do probably has I wouldn't say an opposite.

It has a polarity, I think it's the right word.

Yeah, it's not even intention.

No.

It's uh it's that back and forth.

Yeah.

So another podcast idea.

Okay, we've we've got to write these down.

Okay.

I have a I have a document in the podcast thing that says brainstorming and ideas.

Yeah.

Could I start to use it?

If you put that in Dropbox, you're in trouble.

Oh wow.

Well, just tell me about it.

Okay.

Yeah.

So would you say that if if you're going to rest with intention, as you should, you should also run with intention.

That's absolutely right.

Right.

You should the things you're resting from slash for should have just as much intention behind them as it as the rest that you're actively doing.

Yeah.

Sure.

And and that resting doesn't mean thinking about the next work.

It means like like intentionally listening.

It means about what you guys think next.

Yeah.

Actively listening and not no, I don't know, not at all.

But like actively engaging in the things that will um fill you back up.

Like nonsense TV is not going to fill me back up.

Pursuing scripture and prayer, that'll fill me back up.

And that's my And then I can go think about that.

Sorry, I wasn't actively listening.

But that's my so somebody, I forgot who it was, they're like, So, Lance, what are your take on self-care?

And I think it was a intern that was asking for a day off.

I'm not sure.

But I remember thinking like, I'm all about soul care.

And yeah, I don't know if that has a different connotation or bad one or not.

Sure.

When a lot of people say self-care, they're like, I want to eat terrible food, stay up too late, and stream stuff.

Go cut my hair and get some nails done.

And I'm like, if that's your definition of self-care, then no.

But but I do think that there's a definition of self-care that that like Jesus models that we should be about that like, I mean, I'll admit I'm not great at like the like the off button and all that I I don't have built into me natively.

Yeah, I don't I don't like that self-care, you know, because the way the world talks about that is that's just indulging in fleshly desires.

Yes, you know what I mean?

And I'm like, self-care, really.

Yeah.

How about let's uh do self-care.

I like self-care.

Yeah, it's a good phrase.

I realized um we went out to lunch with a family from church, this was probably months ago now, and I didn't know what I wanted, restaurant I hadn't been to very often.

And I asked them kind of what's their go-to, and they should win and they said, I think you'll really like this.

And I looked at what was in it and I thought, I am not gonna really like this.

But they said it, I kind of feel obligated now to get it.

Guys, I loved it, and I had this realization I'm like, I'm a I'm a grown man, and I don't know what I like to eat.

Like, I don't even know anything about myself.

And so who am I to say?

I think I've shared that before.

Who am I to say that I know what myself needs for care?

Right?

Like that this indulging of the flesh is actually what self-care is.

Yeah, I don't I don't know anything, and I can't turn even one hair on my head a different color.

That's right.

But I feel like last week we kind of brought up that we have a generation now who kind of wants to be told what to do is maybe a negative way of saying that.

They want to be um discipled or led is a positive way of saying that.

And so sometimes we need to be shown like, no, this is what fasting, this is what a rhythm of prayer looks like if you're gonna be serious about it.

Because I mean, it's nothing new that we've invented in the last five years.

It's just stuff that maybe a lot of us haven't had a mentor.

Yeah.

Right.

And so, new rule if you invite Giles to lunch, if you pay for it, you can order for him.

Yes.

I would agree.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, just somebody's gonna take it through like Giles is what you're gonna eat today.

Whatever you order, you have had to have it before.

Okay, fair.

Right.

Because I don't want I don't want you to order me the oysters and you not eat it.

Okay.

The most disgusting thing on the menu.

Yeah.

Uh no things.

So sorry.

I have an appointment.

I'm Wayland, you want to give us some closing thoughts?

That was a really good one.

Really good one.

I'll yeah, I'll definitely pray.

Um uh we were talking about who were we talking about that with the other day about we we've been told what not to do for so long, but nobody ever told me that we're gonna do that.

We talked about it in small groups.

That's no, that's a great deal.

I think that's um sorry, I know I have to run, but I'm saying it anyway.

Um what occurred to me when I started listening to um Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline, great book, read it.

Um, is we you know they were oral communities.

They were told everything.

You had to tell the stories, you had to tell what you were doing, you had to tell why you were doing it.

We've lost that.

It's all written or somewhere else, and we're not telling everything we're doing and why we're doing it.

I think we that's just what we've really got to get back to is telling everybody and talking about it all the time.

All the time.

Um because it's it's it glorifies God to do it all the time.

That's that's it.

With people you're sharing life with.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, let's pray.

Father, we thank you so much for uh the avenues and the things that we um have that we can put your word out.

Father, we ask that you just help us to uh complete that great commission uh to go out and make disciples, Father.

Who make disciples?

We pray that you just be with us this week and uh be with our intentional uh setting of our prayers every day.

And uh we just ask that you help us to be more intentional with everything we do.

We love you and we thank you for everything.

All these things we pray in Christ's name.

Amen.