The 10 commandments

Hello everyone, it is TUC Talks for another time.

That's right, love the name Terrible Uniting Church Talking.

That's exactly what we're doing here today.

So today I have as my guest Phil Rogers.

Hello, Phil.

Hello, Richard.

Hi, everybody.

And we are talking about Sunday, the 11th of October, and our Bible reading for that week, which came from the book of Exodus.

And I better make sure I give it the correct because there were two sections to it.

The first part is Exodus chapter 19.

Exodus 19 · chapter mention

And it is I can't find it now.

Is it Exodus 20?

It was 19 to start with.

Exodus 19, 3 to 7, and then 20.

Oh yes.

1 to 17.

So the reason that there are two readings here this week, the first one sets the context, but it's also sets the context of the Ten Commandments in a covenant kind of relationship of God saying, You are going to be my chosen people.

And it also has that fabulous image of I will I have brought you here on eagle's wings.

Yes.

I will lift you up on eagle's wings.

Yeah.

I've got a question for you in a minute, but before I get that, I thought it was significant that God rescued the people from their slavery and their bondage in Egypt before He presented them with the rules for living, the Ten Commandments.

He didn't say to them while they were in Egypt, Oh, you obey these rules for a little while.

Let's see how you're going with the rules, then I'll rescue you.

Yes.

He said, I'll rescue you.

You're mine.

I've rescued you.

Now, here are some rules that will help you to get along with me and get along with each other.

That's right.

It isn't sort of a prerequisite of the relationship with God.

It's now that we're in relationship, this is how we can play it.

Yeah, somewhere on our website, I don't know whether it's still there, but it used to be the comment that you didn't have to get your act together before you start a relationship with God.

God will meet you as you are, where you are.

You can start that relationship now, and then later down the track, we can get your act together.

One of the things that I find interesting about the Ten Commandments is that in the forming of them, the only place where it calls them a commandment, I think, is the little heading that we put on there, not in the biblical passage.

Interesting.

You know, we turn them into commandments, and they sort of are an instruction.

Yeah.

But we give them a far more draconian, a far more severe edge than I think than I think the original author was placing on it.

Yeah.

And I think we can take and run with those Ten Commandments and turn them into absolutes, can't we?

So that the rule becomes the rule, and that is more important than the than God who gave them the rule.

And there's a lot of debate about each and every step along the way.

See, one of the things for me, the the chapter 19 said in the context, on Sunday I was talking about it.

I believe that it's talking about the the idea of I lift you up, I I've brought you on eagle's wings.

I don't know for sure, but I do wonder whether they're playing on that myth of how a young eagle is taught to fly.

Yeah.

And I say myth because I did research on it and I found out that it's actually not the way that eagles always but it's a great word picture, isn't it?

It's a great image and it it must have been founded in something.

They must have seen an eagle do that with a young to actually found it.

And so the idea of a young eagle learning to fly can plummet out of the nest, and the parent scoops under and lifts them up and then drops them again and lifts them, keeping on training them to fly by lifting them up on their back.

Yeah.

And I love the image there of is that what God is doing here with the Israelites?

Is God sort of because let's face it, every time along the way they're failing, you know, they they they run away from Egypt like we saw in the week before story of the parting of the Red Sea, and they were shaking their fist back at Egypt saying, you know, in triumph.

Yeah.

And then they just crumble when the Egyptians are chasing them, and and God needs to find a pathway through the Red Sea.

It's almost like they're soaring, and then they plummet, and God lifts them again, and then they plummet, and God lifts them again.

And I think that image of God trying to teach them to be a people.

Yeah, I mean, even whilst Moses was up the mountain receiving tablets of stone, they were down at the base of the mountain making a statue of bull.

Yes, they were, they were that and so the first time round the Ten Commandments were smashed and weren't given because they actually they failed to to follow God.

But I think it's because, and I mentioned this on Sunday, they were a nation of slaves.

And as a nation of slaves, in a sense, slavery had taken away their understanding of nationhood and their understanding of power, like they they were always doing the bidding of someone else, never determining what was right for themselves.

No self-determination.

Yes, yeah, like it's that they've just been disempowered.

Yeah.

Another comment I came across, and it's obvious when when I read it, I thought, oh, yeah, why can I see that?

But that the first four commandments are about the relationship with God.

Um, and what this this this article was saying is those first real four commandments are basically saying this is an exclusive relationship.

You know, when couples start talking now and they've you've been together for a while, and then they seem to have a big let's be exclusive sort of thing, and yeah, um, and I don't want to go too far with that, but it's an exclusive relationship now.

We're not gonna see anybody else, just you and I.

I think the first four commandments is probably God saying, guys, this is an exclusive relationship.

I am God, and you really do owe me your trust, your your your your obedience, your loyalty, because I am God.

I demand that from you.

We are in an exclusive relationship.

Yes.

Very interesting.

They talk about the stone, the two tablets of the Ten Commandments, and they take that first four as the first tablet.

And so, like, it's like there's two segments to the Ten Commandments.

The first is our relationship with God, and the second tablet is our relationship with the world around us.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And with the those the second tablet, if you like, would be commandments five to ten.

It's about how we should act, as you say, in relationship to each other.

And so it includes lists of what we shouldn't do because we wouldn't like it if that were done to us, sort of thing.

That that's right.

It's a very the reality is that if someone had stolen from us, then we would be upset.

Yeah.

Don't steal from someone else.

Yeah.

Don't take somebody else's wife, because you know, that's just going to cause hardship and pain and suffering.

Yeah.

So uh and and don't steal from people, you know.

Um, so yeah, um the so the second tablet in my mind contains those rules, which if we all abided by as um as a rule of perfection, then we'd all get along together.

A lot, lot better.

Yeah.

But I think we have taken the that second tablet, and as I said before, turned those rules into moral absolutes where there is no grace, there is no mercy, there is no compassion, it's just this is a rule.

And like with rules, it's very binary, aren't they?

Rules.

You're either you either break it or you don't break it.

Yes.

And I don't think that's how God works, not with compassion and grace.

One of the things, well, I think particularly we need to read the Ten Commandments, we need to read the whole of the Old Testament through the lens of the New Testament.

Yeah.

Um I back in the 80s, um, I have dyslexia.

And so dyslexia, there's some physical aspects to it.

One of them is that it's you when you read, apparently, some apparently most people can see like a whole sentence in a look.

When you look at a page, you can look at a whole sentence.

Yeah.

With dyslexia, you can only read like a word at a time.

Okay.

So if you hear a young child reading, they sort of read each word really carefully.

Um, with dyslexia, that's all you can see.

So you're actually reading each word along.

You can't see the sentence ahead of you.

You can't see the sentence ahead of you.

You can't see the whole sentence.

You can only see the one word.

The rest of it is a bit of a malaise.

And therefore, it you're you're not actually getting the big picture here.

Um, yeah, and I think we don't get the big picture of the Ten Commandments unless we look at it through the lens of Christ.

Well, yes, because one of the things in the 80s they did was they got these rose-colored glasses, these different colored glasses, and for some people with dyslexia, it actually unscrambled the rest of the page.

They would seek you, Richard.

It doesn't work for me.

Sadly, it doesn't work for me.

So the rose-colored glasses, yeah, they tried them.

But but what I suppose I'm trying to say is if we look through the lens of Jesus, it unscrambles for a Christian, it can undersc unscramble some of the Old Testament.

And so, for example, the Ten Commandments, we see them through the grace of Jesus.

Yeah.

We don't see them as a hard rule anymore.

We see, well, we see them as something we should do and something we should follow.

And when we muck up, we see that Jesus offers us grace.

Yeah.

It's not yeah, I don't believe for one moment that grace cancels the Ten Commandments.

It doesn't.

The Ten Commandments are there as guides and rules, and we should be aiming for them.

Yes.

But but one of the commandments that, of course, is that you shouldn't work on the Sabbath.

And this is the argument Jesus had in the New Testament with the Pharisees when he healed somebody on the Sabbath.

And literally speaking, I suppose he had done some work on the Sabbath.

And that's what the Pharisees, the legalists, were you know, the lawyer in them, it was saying, Oh, you've broken the Sabbath.

Well, because Jesus was actually saying to them, is it right to do good or to do bad on the Sabbath?

Because the rule was, and I think I've mentioned this plenty of times before, but I always find it fascinating.

The rule was you could keep someone alive on the Sabbath.

If you were a doctor, you were allowed to keep a person alive but not heal them.

Okay.

Yeah.

So healing was meant to happen on Monday.

Yeah.

So, you know, if someone walked in with a massive gash and they were bleeding everywhere, you could put a pad on it and wrap it up and stop it from bleeding out.

Yeah.

And then on the next day you're allowed to sew up the wound.

Isn't this what happens when man starts sort of making rules?

That's right.

And so we need to look at it through the lens of Jesus, who basically said that that's silly.

Yeah.

You know, let's but but at the same time, we also need to look at the principle of what the Ten Commandments are saying.

How do we make sure that we leave space for God in our lives?

Yeah.

The notion of time for rest and time for God is, you know, it's really, really, really important.

Um, but yeah, if somebody's hurting, you know, do whatever you can to help them.

And it happened again, didn't it, with the uh the woman who was um accused of adultery.

The woman at the well.

Oh, who had broken adultery.

The woman had accused of adultery.

Yeah, I mean, she had broken the commandment, and the Pharisees were getting ready to stone her.

Um, and Jesus sort of flipped it back on them and said, Well, okay, pick up the stone if you're blameless.

Yes.

But he didn't cancel, that grace of his didn't cancel the um uh commandment because after sort of not condemning her and showing her mercy and love, he then went on to say, Go and sin no more.

So the commandment or the um the underlying principle behind the commandment was was still there, but it was tempered with his his grace, his mercy, and his justice.

And Jesus does that all the way.

And and and Paul picks it up as well.

Like Paul often will pick up that in some of his writings as well, that image of God's grace at the same time as hold on to the value of the law.

Yeah, I did find a quotation.

Look, I have this image in my mind, although I'm modifying it somewhat, of Paul as being really picky about the rules, real stickler for the rules, because we know he was a Pharisee, and you know, some of his readings in Romans, it does sound as if he's, you know, he's still a bit of a Pharisee.

But but this one surprised me, so I'm having to sort of revise my stereotypical view of Paul.

But it's in um Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 3, where he refers to the Ten Commandments, and it's clear he's talking about the Ten Commandments.

Uh he refers to them as a ministry of death chiseled in letters on stone.

A ministry of death chiseled in letters on stone, and it's important now to go on to say he's not saying the commandments are bad, they're wrong, we can ignore them.

He's just saying that they're bad when they become the entire point of the thing.

If it's obeying the rules just for the sake of obeying the rule, that is bad.

And he says that serves to convect convict and condemn people, and he goes on to say, in the light of Jesus Christ, we've got these rules, but let's apply them, let's temper them through the lens of Jesus Christ and and the way that he dealt with that woman in adultery with compassion and mercy before going on to say look and go now and do what's right from now on.

Yes, yeah.

And and so I think when it comes to our faith, we need to actually have a little bit of grace on ourselves.

Yeah.

Acknowledging that we will not live out these all of these Ten Commandments perfectly.

No, you know, we will not we will not do all of these things perfectly.

And when we make those mistakes, we need to give ourselves a bit of grace, just as much as we need to call on Christ's grace.

Yeah, and give others some grace as well.

Yes.

Because I think the church, particularly in Victorian times, maybe, um, they were not too good at showing grace to those people who had disobeyed not just the Ten Commandments, but any other rule that they decided was appropriate.

One of the things that I mentioned on Sunday that I found really interesting in my reflections was that we need to read these Ten Commandments in light of a collective understanding, a society understanding.

Yeah, yeah, that was good.

I like that bit.

Yeah, yeah.

Because particularly, so for example, the the the Sabbath rest, which I think is commandment four or three.

It would be it'd be in the third, somewhere in there.

Um that Sabbath rest commandment, it actually It's number four.

It's number four.

Yeah.

Um that there, it is fine.

It's a really important one, but the flip side of it is that I don't demand others serve me when they are trying to have their Sabbath rest.

Yeah.

And so we have this balancing act of making sure that we have Sabbath rest and that others have Sabbath rest.

Because if we don't because if we and and the only the best way, not the only, the best way we can take a break is if others take a break round us.

Yeah.

You know, I it might just be that I am guilt-driven.

But if I sit down and do nothing in my house while my children or Suzanne is cooking a meal, and I've just walked in and sat down and I'm doing nothing, there's a guilt for me of I'm sitting down and doing nothing while others are doing stuff.

And and therefore, if we all have a rest, you know, probably meal time is not the best time to have that rest, but if we all have a rest, then we're not actually egging each other on to do.

Yeah.

You also mentioned yesterday that society itself and the structure of society has a role to play here in creating um a society where people don't need to steal from others to have the basic necessities of food.

Yes, do not steal.

Actually, the flip side of that is if we have a social system where people are living in such poverty that they need to steal to survive, then we are creating a social structure that enables is the wrong word, but forces people into breaking a cover.

Yeah, almost encourages them into doing so.

Yeah.

Well, that's perhaps the wrong word.

But again, it's the same with homelessness, isn't it?

If society could create um a situation where the there wasn't this huge amount of homelessness, people wouldn't feel the need to squat and squat illegally or take over other people's houses and things like that.

So there is a societal sort of responsibility um as well.

Yeah.

And so, for example, if we as a society diminish parenthood, like diminish the value of parenthood, or don't train people to be parents, uh effective parents, or enable them to be effective parents, then the honour your mother and father stuff falls apart because as a society we are not we are not lifting parenthood up and we're not enabling parents to be respected by their children.

Yeah.

Um as I said, I thought particularly um I come from the UK and I'm sure it happened in England, but be to the UK that I came from, but um I read somewhere that it was more prevalent in Scotland, where towards the end of the 19th century, in particular rural areas, the local minister he really did rule his parish with a rod of iron.

Yeah.

And because there wasn't much social welfare there, um if you were poor or you were ill, or even if you wanted an education, there was no sort of state education, you had to go to the church for it.

So if the church thinks that you've committed adultery, if the church thinks that you've done something which offends their moral code, they control your life.

Your children would be taken out of school and they wouldn't get an education.

You would be denied access to poor relief, so no more charity from the church because you you know you're on the wrong side now, and any other form of basic human dignity that the church afforded to people was withdrawn because the church applied the rules in this dogmatic sort of Pharisee way.

Yeah.

And it's just that's you know what God intended when he came up with these Ten Commandments, I don't think.

If we read the Ten Commandments without the grace of Jesus Christ constantly sitting on our shoulder, reminding us to hold grace, yeah, these can become things that judge people and alienate people.

Yeah.

Not and they are about forming a relationship with God.

The reason that the God's people are here at Mount Sinai is because they are a they have escaped Egypt, they are a collection, again, of um of slaves who are trying to be formed into a nation by God.

And so God is creating the the foundational document of here's how our culture will be formed.

Yeah, here's how we live together as children of God.

Yeah, yeah.

And so so if we don't look at that as the foundation of a relationship with God's with the grace of Christ sitting on our shoulder, we turn it into a set of rules.

Yeah.

I I think there's a danger here though that some sort of more dogmatic people would say, Oh, you're just watering them down, you're just looking for reasons to disobey the rules.

But it's not that, is it?

The rule is like I keep going back to that same example, but but he and the same with the lady at the wealth um that you mentioned earlier.

He didn't cancel the commandment, he just applied it with.

Grace and then came back to the no judgment, no condemnation.

But the he he went on to say, but don't don't carry on doing this, you know, don't sin anymore.

So it's not cancelling it just by showing some mercy and justice, not watering it down in any way.

No, no, we're not because and I think we need to remind ourselves again and again and again of the importance of these foundations because they're they're actually foundations that cause us to live well in society, yeah.

And and so as nations we should behave this way, as individuals, we should behave this way, and as the church, we should absolutely behave this way.

Going back to something you mentioned right at the very start, do you think it would have helped matters if the sort of the the comp the people who compile the Bible are just head at this part, good rules to live by?

I think it would have been an excellent way to but that's interesting.

I was about to say absolutely, but they need to be raised above just a good idea, don't they?

They do, you're right.

But they shouldn't be a rigid dogmatic statement of, and if you don't do this, you are evil and horrible.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because you can get into so many debates, and we're not going to go through each individual one of them.

But for example, um, children honouring their parents, that doesn't excuse any sort of child abuse or neglect from parents.

You know, it's God isn't saying you've got to honour those parents who have abused you in some way.

No, no, so there's got to be grease though.

See, I I think of it in terms of like speeding, you know, in your car, speeding, and and so many people go, oh look, you know, I might go a little bit over the speed limit.

Or so speeding, the reason that they've set the speed rules are because that is the safe speed to travel in that place.

And if it's not safe for you as the driver, and it's not safe for others on the sides of the road, 40 kilometres an hour in a children's area where they're coming out of school is not gee, this is too slow.

If a kid runs out in front of the the traffic, if a kid, you know, because some children have no impost control.

That's right.

And if a child runs out and you're doing 60, 70, 80 kilometers an hour, you don't have the capacity to stop.

No.

And and you're gonna feel that you're gonna carry that for the rest of your life.

And that child might die.

This is a nice idea, but it's at the same time, it's it's yeah, it's it's life-saving, it's a matter of life and death sort of thing.

And and it's a it's a self-governing thing.

Yeah, you know, the driver needs to do this, yeah, because let's face it, 99% of the time there isn't a speed camera.

Yeah.

And therefore, if we break that rule, 99% of the time you'll probably get away with it, but at the same time still wrong.

It's wrong.

Yeah.

And you will in jeopardize someone's life because of your belief that you are above the law.

Yeah.

So it's not just a good rule, it's much more important than that.

I get the point, yeah.

Yeah, and so I think the Ten Commandments is the same.

They're not just good rules, yeah.

They affect our lives, you know?

Yeah.

Because if we don't, if we put other gods before God, then we diminish the value structure of our life.

Yeah.

And a final point, well, my final point, I mentioned this to you yesterday very briefly.

Um, we got the tablets of stone and the written word of God as sort of transcribed by Moses, but we don't know the tone of voice that God used when he delivered it.

Yeah, because take again the one about thou shalt not commit adultery.

You could either, when you read that, hear it as a shouty Pharisee-type rule, thou shalt not commit adultery, you know, and perish in hell if you do sort of thing.

Or it might have been God saying, Look, just don't commit adultery, because it's gonna screw up your life, it's gonna screw up your partner's life.

Think of the damage you're doing to the children, think of the damage to the other families involved.

It's just don't commit adultery.

Yeah, it that and and you're right, the tone is so important.

Like, there is no doubt that the first couple, there is a fairly strong tone.

Yeah.

You know, like there's uh there is some there is a very strong tone, and and I struggle with it in a bit, but it's still quite important.

So the first part, I am the Lord your God who rescued you from the land of Egypt, the place of your slavery.

You must have no other god but me.

You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind of image of heaven and earth.

Um, you must not bow down to them or worship them, for I am the Lord your God, and I am a jealous God.

Yeah.

And you um and I will not tolerate your affection for any other gods.

I don't mind that because that's talking about that first tablet of stone, which deals the relationship with between me and God.

It's that exclusive.

God is saying we have got an exclusive relationship.

That's how this thing works, and I don't mind that that is an absolute, because I think it's got to be.

Yeah.

I think that's got to be an absolute.

I and I'm very comfortable with up till there.

Yeah.

Listen to the next bit.

I lay the sins of the parents upon the children.

Yeah.

To the entire family is affected, and even children in the third and fourth generations of those who reject me.

But I lavish unfailing love to a thousand generations on those who love me and obey my commandments.

This isn't probably a question I should be asking you towards the end of a podcast, but how do you how do you see that?

How do you sort of view that?

That he will he will punish people, uh, he'll punish children, grandchildren, great great grandchildren for the for the wrong of somebody else.

Look, the I lay the sins part is the part that I struggle with.

There is no doubt the generational sin affects the next generation.

If if I do something wrong and for example, an aggression aggression and abusive behavior.

If I'm aggressive and abusive towards my children, that can affect them, and they might be aggressive and abusive to their children.

There is generational behavior that we would call sin.

Yes.

Um, and therefore, there is that generational behavior.

I don't think that it is God laying that on the next generation and then laying it on the next generation, but there is generational sin that affects the next generation and the next generation, and it's only till we turn to the grace of Christ that we can break that.

Break the cycle, yeah.

And so I I suppose I see it in a very practical way that there is generational sin.

Yeah.

Yeah, what you're doing today can affect your children and your children's children, and so on.

Yeah, and so do we need to work on on breaking that cycle?

Yeah, yeah.

I think that's where I would go with that.

And and and lots of the other commandments you're right, they are about our behavior and how we wouldn't want others to do the same to us.

Isn't there a character in literature can't remember where it comes from?

Sounds like Dickens and Mrs.

be done by uh Mrs.

Do as you would be done by.

Yeah, so do as you would be done by is that sort of the second tablet.

You know, do act towards other people as you would like them to act towards you.

Yeah, well, I think isn't there a bit of a Jesus statement there sometimes?

Do unto others as you would have them do to you.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, there I think is it Jesus says that?

I think it is.

It sounds like something he would have said to me, and that's I I think these commandments or these rules, and it actually I shouldn't say that the word commandment's not there, I just read it a few seconds ago.

Yeah, these commandments are sitting there as a foundation of life with respect and dignity to God and to others.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And and without it, we we fall over.

We flounder.

Yeah.

Was there any other insights that you got along the way, Phil?

No, just something that just occurred to me now, as usual speaker.

Don't know whether anybody's read The Lord of the Flies.

It's about this group of English school kids and were um left on an iron.

They didn't have any rules.

They didn't have any rules, um, and they didn't have God.

So when they came to make the rules, they made them themselves, and it just descended into utter anarchy and chaos.

So I think it's right that God has laid down some rules for us rather than let us come up with our own rules.

Yeah.

And in a sense, as we read on in the scriptures, the times that things fall over is when these rules are broken.

Yeah.

You know, the the the Babylonian exile, it's when they start to worship other gods and not focusing on God.

That is when their world starts to fall apart.

Yeah.

Um, and for us, I think it's the same.

Any other bits?

No, um, I'm happy, no, Richard.

Well, it is one of my goals still to achieve happiness for you.

Um, yeah, I for me this passage it was quite eye-opening the asking the questions about the collective yeah, you know, how do we create an environment where these things can flourish?

Yeah.

And where the temptation to do wrong is lessened.

Yeah.

Because if we actually if we believe that we should as individuals live this out, then we should try and encourage a society where this can be lived out socially as well.

Yeah, the P word sort of raises its head at this stage, doesn't it?

It can become very political.

Look, I I do not um I believe that Christians have to be political.

Doesn't mean you need to be party political.

Agreed.

You know, I it's not about whether I vote for Labour or Liberal or whatever, but it is about are the choices that I make when I pl when I look at my politics, are they choices that are founded in my face?

Yeah, are they aligned with the values of Christ?

Yes.

And because that the thing that I was talking about with um have no other God before me, if if some if there is ever a clash between my political values and my religious values, my religious values live win.

Yeah.

You know, Jesus should win in every single situation.

Because you're exclusive, it's an exclusive relationship.

Because it's an exclusive relationship and God is our primary.

Yeah, 100%.

99% of the time that will mean everything can tick along.

Yeah.

Um and and then people sort of almost take that to an extreme of then trying to find how they can argue with society and they, you know, become people that dismiss Australian society and and become anarchists outside of that society because they want to live by their Christian values.

Yeah.

There is a like there is a denomination that actually refuses to vote.

Okay.

In Australia.

Because that's politics or because yeah, because that's politics.

However, they were heavily involved in lobbying for one of the political parties at the last election.

Which is politics again.

Yeah, which is politics again.

Yeah.

But they ch they have actually they refuse to vote as a group of people.

And I think, I don't know if they get fined every time, but I think that they must have worked out an exemption on their voting.

Yeah.

Um we should be grateful um and acknowledge the fact in a serious way that we live in perhaps just a couple of dozen countries around the world where we can live as Christians and not be persecuted.

And for the 99% of the time our government's um our values um uh align with Christ, and we we we can live with that.

Yeah.

But as you say, if if ever push came to shove and the government did something which was clearly against the values of Christ, we have to choose where our allegiance lies.

I don't know if it was Paul and I forget which book of the New Testament it is, but there is this statement in there that says you should live as a good citizen of your nation.

Yeah.

You know, that you should abide by the rules of your nation and live as a good citizen, and we should.

The question is when it starts to rub up against us.

And the debate that's happening now about border security is actually one of those points where we yes, there's a point where we can sort of say this is how many people can come into our nation, but we can't diminish our refugee intake.

People that are in sufferance, we can't say, well, you know, we're gonna drop that number for those who are who are in fear of their life, yeah.

Yeah, we our Christian values have got to help them.

Yeah.

Well, Phil, um that was probably a bit of a downer to finish on.

I won I'll give the notices.

Yeah.

Um, on the 25th of this month is Harvest Festival.

Um, are you gonna be cooking something, Phil?

Uh I'm working on the sound desk that day, but I'm not oh, you mean cooking in advance?

No, I don't think people would sort of appreciate my cooking, I don't think.

I'm still trying to work out what I'm gonna do up, but um I a couple of weeks ago I mentioned I've got some native honey.

Oh, native bees.

Yeah.

Um, and they only produce around about a hundred mil a year.

Because they're not very generous, are they?

They don't produce.

They are very lazy critics.

Very, yes.

So I am tempted to try and extract some native bee honey and put that on the market.

Okay.

Um, you know, put that out there, but and that is my that being my gift to God.

The native bee honey, yeah, it's a precious commodity.

But you know, if God is precious to me, then I show up pretty much.

I might put 50 mil on there and 50 mil on there.

So if there's a vial of honey, you'll see it.

Um, yeah, that's what I'm thinking I'll do.

I don't know.

That's 25th, isn't it?

25th.

And look, I believe there's everything from that.

There's an I think someone's got an Airbnb that they might be putting a couple of nights accommodation on.

Oh very classy.

Yeah.

So there's those things.

Um we're starting at a different time though, aren't we?

10 o'clock.

Yeah.

Well, it's different for the eight o'clockers and the six o'clockers.

Lucky it'll confuse some people.

Yeah.

But it is, it's 10 o'clock, isn't it?

One of the things that I want to remind people for the last couple of years that we have been we've dropped in numbers.

Our 6 p.m.

and our 10 o'clock and our 8 o'clockers sometimes think, oh, that's a Sunday off.

No, no, no.

Come, it's meant to be all of our church together.

It's not meant to be just that we only have one service.

Yeah.

It's meant to be all of our church in one place.

And we don't do it often, so it is really nice to meet at a place.

It's once a year.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And look, I changed the seating for this Sunday so that there is no that's where my seat is.

I wondered what the motive behind that was, but no, I know.

Yeah, well, look, as that and I like the idea of churching around.

Yeah.

So there's that.

Um, and we're starting to prepare for Christmas.

We're sort of getting ourselves ready for Christmas, but that we're still a bit away from that.

Um yeah, so just keep an eye on everything in the notice sheet, but that's our primary things at the moment.

Um, Phil, thank you so much for your insight.

Thank you for the invite.

And we will see you next week for TUC Talks, and hopefully we'll see you on Sunday.

Talk to you soon.

Bye.