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In this powerful solo episode, Jesse Schwamb brings Matthew 18 to a close by unpacking Jesus's parable of the unforgiving servant. As Tony Arsenal begins a well-deserved sabbatical after a decade of faithful podcasting, Jesse explores the radical nature of kingdom forgiveness and its role as evidence—not grounds—of our justification. Drawing on Reformed theology and Puritan wisdom, he demonstrates how the immeasurable debt we owed God should revolutionize how we forgive others. This episode challenges listeners to examine their hearts for harbored bitterness and calls them to embrace forgiveness as the family likeness of those adopted by grace. A must-listen for anyone wrestling with the difficult work of forgiving from the heart.
The Reformed tradition carefully distinguishes between the grounds of our justification (Christ's righteousness alone) and the evidence of genuine faith (good works, including forgiveness). Jesse emphasizes that Matthew 18 does not teach that we earn God's forgiveness by forgiving others—that would be works-righteousness. Instead, a forgiving spirit is the inevitable fruit of having truly received mercy. As Westminster Larger Catechism 194 teaches, we cannot satisfy our sin debt; forgiveness comes through Christ's satisfaction applied by faith. When the Holy Spirit regenerates a heart and opens our eyes to the magnitude of what we've been forgiven, that heart naturally extends forgiveness to others. The warning at the end of the parable isn't threatening to unjustify the justified, but revealing that persistent, unrepentant unforgiveness indicates a heart that never truly embraced mercy in the first place.
The numbers in Jesus's parable aren't arbitrary—they're shocking. Ten thousand talents was an astronomical sum, roughly equivalent to 200,000 years of wages for a common laborer. It was literally unpayable. By contrast, 100 denarii was about four months' wages—significant but manageable. This jarring disproportion forces us to see our sin debt to God versus others' debts to us in proper perspective. Jesse notes that this is "the logic of grace"—grace received creates a new "ought." The servant's wickedness isn't just in being ungrateful; it's in fundamentally misunderstanding what happened to him. He treated his forgiveness as a transaction cleared rather than as a display of astonishing, undeserved mercy. When we truly grasp the immeasurable nature of our forgiveness in Christ, human offenses shrink. Nothing softens resentment like fresh astonishment at mercy.
Jesse makes the important observation that the fellow servants in the parable grieve and report the unforgiving servant's actions to the king. This isn't tattling—it's recognizing that unforgiveness damages the entire fellowship. Sin between believers is never purely private in its effects. It bleeds into relationships, worship, witness, and unity. The Reformed understanding of the church as a covenant community means we're interconnected; one member's unrepentant sin affects the whole body. This is why church discipline exists and why Matthew 18 begins with instructions for confronting sin. The community of faith should be marked by astonished mercy, and when one member harbors bitterness or refuses reconciliation, it introduces toxicity that grieves the Spirit and hinders the church's mission. Forgiveness, then, isn't just personal virtue—it's essential to the health and witness of Christ's body.
"The Kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. It's not even one thing, it's this whole process... it's about this whole process of a king who wished to settle these accounts with his slaves."
"Forgiveness from the heart is a spirit-wrought mark of those who are truly pardoned. This is exactly the kind of evidence, not ground—it's evidence of reasoning that the Reformed tradition uses."
"The King's free pardon creates a people who forgive from the heart. We don't have to manufacture it. We don't have to pull ourselves up by our spiritual bootstraps and try to be the kind of forgiving people that we think we ought to be. We are the beneficiaries of a King who has pardoned us."
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In this theologically rich episode of The Reformed Brotherhood, Tony Arsenal and Jesse Schwamb continue their journey through Matthew 18 by examining the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant. Building on their previous discussion of church discipline and reconciliation, the hosts explore how this parable reveals the shocking nature of divine forgiveness and what it means to live as forgiven people in the kingdom of God. Through careful exegesis and systematic theological reflection, they unpack the staggering contrast between the infinite debt we owe God and our comparatively minor grievances against one another. This conversation challenges listeners to examine whether their approach to forgiveness reflects genuine heart transformation or merely external compliance, ultimately pointing to the free justification that comes through Christ alone.
The servant's request for "more time" to repay his debt exposes a fundamental misunderstanding of both the magnitude of his obligation and the nature of salvation. When the servant says "I will pay you everything," he demonstrates a staggering level of self-delusion—he genuinely believes he can somehow accumulate 200,000 years worth of wages. This mirrors the natural human tendency toward works-righteousness, where we imagine that with the right formula, enough time, or sufficient effort, we can restore ourselves to God's favor. Like Martin Luther's desperate bargaining on the road to Erfurt ("Save me and I'll become a monk"), fallen humanity consistently underestimates the severity of sin and overestimates our capacity for moral restoration. The parable exposes this thinking as not merely mistaken but absurd—revealing that our spiritual insolvency is so complete that only divine intervention through free justification can address it.
A critical theological insight from this parable concerns God's capacity to forgive without being diminished. The king's ability to casually dismiss such an enormous debt reveals his extraordinary wealth—he possesses resources so abundant that forgiving this impossible sum doesn't threaten his solvency. This maps directly onto the doctrine of divine impassibility and God's self-sufficiency. When we sin against God, we don't injure Him or reduce His glory; therefore, His forgiveness doesn't require Him to recover something He's lost. This stands in stark contrast to Roman Catholic theology, which requires meritorious exchange and suggests God somehow benefits from our good works. The Reformed understanding, illustrated perfectly in this parable, is that God forgives from a position of infinite sufficiency—His mercy flows from abundance, not need. As Isaiah 55 teaches, His thoughts and ways are higher than ours precisely because this kind of lavish, free forgiveness is so otherworldly that we can barely comprehend it.
The shocking reversal at the parable's conclusion—where the forgiven servant brutally demands repayment of a tiny debt—reveals that his initial pleading was not genuine repentance but self-preservation. His actions expose that he never truly received or understood the king's mercy, making him a picture of the unregenerate heart. This serves as a sobering warning that external religious behavior can mask an unchanged heart. The parable teaches that forgiven people naturally become forgiving people—not perfectly, but characteristically. This reflects the Reformed doctrine of the "practical syllogism," where we increase our assurance of salvation by examining the fruit of sanctification in our lives. Habitual unwillingness to extend forgiveness, especially when we claim to have received divine forgiveness, calls into question whether we've genuinely experienced God's transforming grace. The kingdom of heaven creates a community built on "astonished mercy"—people so overwhelmed by what they've been forgiven that extending forgiveness to others becomes their settled disposition.
"It is good to waste a little time every day... just appreciate and stop for a second, even if it's in like just this mundane task." - Jesse Schwamb
"Forgiveness and reconciliation are not the same thing... but being a forgiving person is not how you become a forgiven person. It's what it looks like to be a forgiven person." - Tony Arsenal
"The servant asks for time, not mercy... and that's the logic of self-salvation: Give me a little space, let me know what I have to do, give me more time and I'll fix it." - Jesse Schwamb
[00:00:08] Jesse Schwamb: And what I find interesting is something that you just brought up and I think we should tease out, which is there's a flawed plea and this diluted promise, I say that because the servant, asks for time and not mercy. Which I think is a helpful distinction. And then he tries to promise what he cannot perform.
So that's like the logic of self salvation, which is, give me a little space. Let me know what I have to do. Give me more time and I'll fix it. And I think the critical observation is the servant's words expose that. I don't think he understands the nature of his debt. He underestimates what he owes.
He asks for the wrong thing, that's exactly what we do. We wanna know how we can fix it instead of understanding that it's unfixable, that only God himself can again be just and justifier through his son.
[00:01:01] Jesse Schwamb: Welcome to episode 482 of the Reformed Brotherhood. I'm Jesse.
[00:01:09] Tony Arsenal: And I'm Tony. And this is the podcast with ears to hear. Hey brother.
[00:01:14] Jesse Schwamb: Hey brother. So it turns out, not surprisingly, that Jesus is giving us an absolute masterclass in Matthew 18, and I think everybody, if they're just jumping in now, like you gotta go back and listen to some of these other episodes because I think we jumped into Matthew 18 thinking.
We talk a little bit about this community life discourse that Jesus brings to us. He talks about humility in the first six verses. Then he gets into the seriousness of sin, the pursuing, the straying, the church discipline reconciliation. That's where it gets that famous passage about wherever two or three gathered, and we promised we wouldn't go there, and then we exactly went there in that last episode together.
And then. Then I think there's still more left. There's this culmination where Peter asks a question, and it's not random. It's this natural follow up to everything that Jesus has said in this little partition that's Matthew 18, the call to gain your brother through patient pursuit and restoration, and it all comes to a head.
So I say all of that. It is true pro gamina because. I think we've gotta appreciate that. That's where we're going in this conversation, but we're going there for a reason because the path has already been laid out for us. It's not just an isolated parable that we're getting to on this particular episode.
It's really embedded in all of this stuff. Yeah, there's all this drama, there's all this dialogue, there's all this subtext, and Jesus is gonna give us a parallel to round it or parable to round it all out.
[00:02:41] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:02:42] Tony Arsenal: I think what I'm learning as we work our way through these, um, and I've commented on this before, that I love when we start on these series because it feels like we have, you know, we have like some preliminary conversations when we're figuring out what we wanna do and we have like an idea roughly of where we think we're gonna go.
And then I always end up learning or latching onto something, or a theme kind of organically develops either. Like explicitly on this, on the podcast are just sort of in my mind as, as I'm preparing and what I'm. Impressed by, and I think this is one of those things like I always had in the back of my head when I would think about the parables.
Um, but what's really coming to the forefront, especially in these last couple episodes, is how much these parables exist in context.
[00:03:29] Jesse Schwamb: Right?
[00:03:29] Tony Arsenal: I think a lot of times parables get taught as like these sort of timeless, abstract, allegorical. Teaching truths that stand on their own completely absent from anything else.
And there's obviously, there's certain elements of each parable that is rooted in a timeless truth and can, can stand on its own. But more so these parables are all coming. Christ is teaching the people in front of him something. Through the parable that's related to the context they're in. So I'm excited, um, to keep exploring that through the rest of the parable series.
But then especially, I think it's gonna be great. I think this conversation's gonna be great tonight because it really is gonna open up. I think a lot of what we were seeing in the last one carries on into this, uh, into this parable in ways that I hadn't anticipated. So it's gonna be good.
[00:04:14] Jesse Schwamb: It's gonna.
It's gonna be real good. Yeah.
[00:04:16] Jesse Schwamb: I realized that maybe we missed an opportunity with this whole series. I was recalling that famously, sometimes titles have really focused on, again, like what, what explicitly was going on in a particular like small conversation or episode. So, for instance, I think I liked Sherlock Holmes.
It was always like the adventure of Sherlock Holmes and the Scarlet Thread, or the hundred Oscar bills. Right? And then also maybe equally famously. Not quite with the same prestige that sitcom series friends titled everything. Like the one with the
[00:04:45] Tony Arsenal: one with, yeah.
[00:04:46] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, exactly. So if you're wanna use that as your rubric for today, then this is the one with the unforgiving servant.
So that's what we're gonna be getting to in Matthew 18. Yes. Is 18 starting in verse 21? You can go hang out there just ahead of us, because for a second we gotta talk.
[00:05:02] Jesse Schwamb: Affirmations. Denials, we didn't forget. We never forget.
[00:05:06] Tony Arsenal: We never forget.
[00:05:06] Jesse Schwamb: We never forget. So, Tony, are you affirming or denying against,
[00:05:10] Tony Arsenal: I'm affirming tonight.
It's a, a pretty straightforward, uh, let's do it. Affirmation. Um, I, uh, feel like maybe I'm way behind the, the curve or the timeline. I don't know. Like, I'm way late to the show here. Um, I just recently, uh, like today it arrived from Amazon and I made my first cup. Of like traditional pour over coffee. Oh, nice.
Um, which, you know, I, I was a drip coffee person for a while before like Keurigs were a thing. And then we've had a Keurig for many years and we're trying to save some money and, and cut some costs. Um, and Keurigs are nice. They're super convenient and there was certainly a season in life where that convenience was, was.
I suppose I couldn't say it was a necessary convenience. 'cause then it's not a convenience, but it was a convenience that was worth the financial output that it took. Um, you know, when you've got kids and you're all of a sudden you're up at like three in the morning to not have to stumble around and wash a filter out and all that junk, but.
But we're not in that phase right now. We're trying to save a little bit of money. So we kind of said like, should we do a drip coffee or should we just go pour over? I did my first pour over and I like immediately could tell the difference in the flavor and the way that the, the coffee tasted. Um, takes longer.
But there's kind of a, there's sort of like a,
[00:06:25] Jesse Schwamb: there's a joy in that.
[00:06:26] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, there's like a joy and like a zen moment. I'm looking forward to tomorrow morning when I wake up of like actually like. Starting. One of the things I've heard about Drip, about pour over coffee is there's almost like a ritual element to it.
Yes. Of brewing your coffee and getting it right and taking the time to do it. So I'm just affirming, uh, pour over coffee. Uh, we got like a relatively inexpensive, I think it was like a $30, $35 kit on Amazon that has everything you need. It's got like a metal filter. Um, so you don't have to buy filter paper, I guess the metal filters.
Yes. Have more of the oil makes its way into the coffee. So it has like a, a richer flavor than when you use the paper. I don't, I'm kind of not a coffee snob. I don't, I wouldn't be able to tell a difference probably, but, um, but yeah, so I'm affirming pour over coffee. It was delicious. Uh, I made way too much of it.
Uh, it's gonna take a little while to figure out like what the proportions are and stuff, but that's kind of the fun of him, right? Yes. Like you have to figure out your own particular kit.
[00:07:22] Jesse Schwamb: It is, it seems to me like, and we have pour for coffee as well. Actually, I just made something the other day and was thinking about how bespoke a process it is and how if you go online or use the AI as super fun for this and you ask it like the best recipe, everybody's got their high conviction.
Yeah. On how much coffee. The proportions of coffee and water, the temperature, the swirling, I dunno if you have a gooseneck kettle for this whole purpose. It is a super fun process, but it was striking me that I think like what's Samsung and Google phones are to the mobile world. So also is Pourer coffee because it's like this pilot, customized, do what you want.
Kind of process. And I have an iPhone and I love it. There's nothing wrong with that, and that's maybe like the Curee or the Nespresso or whatever you have, but there is something fun about being able to customize the entire process. Yeah. And basically do whatever you want. I also, it's funny you bring this up because I was just reading something about Japanese, it ceremonies, I don't know.
The internet happened to me and I got in this rabbit hole and. They were talking about how it's a process and how like Americans struggle with that because they sense that they're like, I, I want the drink. I don't care about the ritual. And this person was saying it is good to waste a little time every day.
[00:08:37] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.
[00:08:38] Jesse Schwamb: And I think what they meant by that is exactly what you're saying is like just do appreciate and stop for a second, even if it's in like just this mundane task. To appreciate that it takes a little time. It's okay to wait and to let there be a kind of meditation and for us, like a more productive one while you're doing this thing.
Yeah. Pour of a coffee is a great way to do that. I mean, it takes like, what, like maybe three when I do it, like three minutes. 'cause I have a timer. I said and we, I tried. I try to let it bloom. There's also, blooming is fun. Like how many things do you get to let bloom?
[00:09:05] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.
[00:09:05] Jesse Schwamb: Like there's a whole process.
It's, but it's fun. You're right.
[00:09:08] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Well, and you know, like. You buy a pour over coffee kit and like you, when you look on Amazon, like there are some that are very utilitarian looking. Yes. Like they're very almost industrial. Um, most of them look like you're brewing a magic potion. Like it's a, it's like a glass, like beaker and it has, the one we have has like a cork collar, so you can grab it and not burn your hands.
It's like tied with a leather strip and it's like. It's kind of fun to have this and like you do, like you have to pour it a certain way and Right. I'm sure the coffee would taste fine if I just dumped the water in and didn't care about it. But, um, there is a whole process and I, I think, I think you're right.
I like that phrase, like it's, it's a good thing to waste a little bit of time, and whether that's on like this or whether it's on a hobby that you're doing or even just like. Even if you have a Keurig, right? Even if you have a Keurig, just stand there and wait for it. Right? Like it's hard to do that, especially with as busy as our lives are.
And I know for me it's often at like four 30 in the morning and I'm like, I've got, if on a good day, I have an hour and a half before the kids get up and I gotta make every minute count. But I think there's something in that idea that like. The, the minutes of waiting and just being peaceful and, and just sort of stopping those minutes count too.
Like we agreed. We need to get away from thinking about those minutes as though they don't count. So yes. Um, affirming pour over coffee. It was delicious. The process is fun. Um, again, I feel like. I mean, I'm 43 years old. I feel like I, I probably should have done this at some point earlier in my life. Um, I texted my wife with a picture of it.
She was out, um, she was out doing some shopping while I was brewing the first cup, and I texted her, I think, I think we're hipsters now. I'm not sure.
[00:10:53] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. Oh yeah, definitely. That's like classic on the hipster card. You gotta, and it's not just that, it's, you show it and it's like you, then you have the debate about how you make yours.
Yeah. Like once you do the ratio of gram's water to coffee.
[00:11:06] Tony Arsenal: I don't, I just, I just did whatever Google Gemini told me to do. I think it was like seven and a half
[00:11:11] Jesse Schwamb: if you want. Have a fun, fun time. And again, we're speaking about time and it's lack of our lack of ability to really harness it really, because there's so much going on.
But please. Next time we have a second go on YouTube and search for this because there's so many amazing, some of them are really good, uh, but everybody has their own recipe and I keep trying different ones and seeing what they taste like. And my palate is probably not refined enough to differentiate between most of them.
[00:11:37] Tony Arsenal: I feel like, uh, if you think theology fights are wild, that this is probably a whole different frontier. Yes. Of, of not that, Theo, this is gonna sound weird, but like, of just dumb things to fight over. Right? Theology is not a dumb thing to fight over. Like it's important for us to sometimes even do a little bit of combat over a, a theological error or something like that.
But this is probably a whole different level of like, yeah, it's fine. However you want your copy to taste. It's totally fine. Yeah. There's no moral element involved in how you brew your, your pour over coffee, but I bet you there are people out there who would say, I'm wrong, so.
[00:12:09] Jesse Schwamb: That's, and that's why this is the food equivalent of genealogies.
[00:12:13] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. There you go. That's, that's great.
[00:12:15] Tony Arsenal: Well, Jesse, what are you affirming or denying tonight?
[00:12:18] Jesse Schwamb: I'm gonna keep it positive. Go affirmation as well and keep it light. I hope. Let me explain the situation briefly and then you'll just know the affirmation at the end 'cause it's more fun that way. Uh, I was at a practice for.
Worship music this past week and blessed again just by our church and the number of lovely musicians that we have. And actually, one of the things I do appreciate is that we're always trying to work ourselves out of a job, and that is we're trying to, especially recruit younger people into playing. We have people of all skill sets and abilities who are.
Like really volitional about setting their hearts right on worship through music. And really the instrumentation comes alongside of that. And oftentimes it's secondary to that, of course. And so we have a couple of college students that are joining us while they're studying locally. And one of them in particular is, is playing guitar.
And she plays quite well, but she's growing into that role of playing and it's a whole different challenge to play in this capacity. And so we, because we have a lot of people with a lot of instruments and experience, one of the other guitarists who is an older gentleman who is very experienced, he took on, he, this is also fantastic by the way.
He took up playing the bass because we just need a bass. I mean, he was a guy who was like, I play guitar exceptionally well. I see there's a need. I don't know how to play bass. I could probably learn. I don't own a bass, but I'm gonna make all that happen. And he is just fantastic. And so it turns out that because this young woman, she had a nice guitar or reasonable guitar, beginner guitar.
It was having some problems with our sound system, so. On Thursday, he brought another guitar for her to play and she didn't know he was gonna do that. And so he brought this very nice guitar, like multiple. I don't wanna get into exactly pricing, at least from what I discerned, but if you know, you know, it's a breed love guitar.
So this is, this is a very nice guitar. So he said, I just want you to be able to play it like, and have something to play here that, and see what you think and how it sounds in the system. So she played it. And I know he was just taking such great joy in seeing that, um, you know, we mixed it properly. It has EQ on it.
So we set the whole thing up and she's like, wow, it feels very nice. Like, I really appreciate playing it. So at the end of course, he turns to her and says like, how, what do you think? How does it sound? How do you, how does it feel? And she said, it feels really nice. And he says to her, take it home. It's yours.
[00:14:28] Tony Arsenal: Wow.
[00:14:29] Jesse Schwamb: And you know, he says to her, I know that you love to worship the Lord in music. Use this to do that and to lead yourself in others. And so the affirmation is. I don't know how often we get to just be witnesses to some kind of great private generosity. And the only reason I was, I was witness to it is because I, in the arrangement, on the stage we were practicing, I was just between the two of them.
So I felt like a little awkward, like this whole moment was happening and I was like just trying to awkwardly like moonwalk my way back out of that. So like they could just have this moment, but instead I got to witness it. So I. I don't know what it would look like for each of us to do something like that.
Not that necessarily the size of the gift in this case, but the thoughtfulness of it was exceptional. It was just a beauty to behold the family of God supporting and loving one another in a way, and this was no doubt. A sacrifice for him. I just couldn't, I said to him afterwards, I was like, that was incredible.
And uh, you know, he of course is very humble about the whole thing and was wanting to support musicians, but it's more than that. Of course, this was about gifting someone a tool to help them lead and to worship God more passionately. And I just have been thinking about that ever since. Like, well, how can I do that for others?
What, what are some spaces where I can do that, where it doesn't necessarily cost maybe even anything except my. Unwillingness to seek that out. So
[00:15:49] Tony Arsenal: yeah,
[00:15:50] Jesse Schwamb: if you see it, acknowledge it and hopefully we get to see it from time to time, but maybe we can be also the people that do it.
[00:15:55] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, that, that kind of gift, the value, like the monetary value is almost not relevant.
[00:16:01] Jesse Schwamb: Exactly.
[00:16:01] Tony Arsenal: And like a guitar, this is gonna be super like woo woo, but like. Anyone who plays guitar and has owned a guitar knows that like a guitar is kind of like a personal thing. Yes. You can have the most generic beater, like hundred dollar Epiphone acoustic guitar, and that's still your guitar. And to just give that away to someone is actually kind of like a, it's sort of like a weird, intimate feeling.
Um, and I think there are probably lots of things like that where we have a tool that is part of our craft, part of our trade, whatever it might be. Um, you know, like maybe you're a carpenter and you've just got your favorite. Here's, here's a dumb example. I, I started working at the hospital as a scheduling secretary in February of 2015, so I'm, I'm just past 11 years now, and there was this stapler at my desk when I first started.
And, uh, I've kept that stapler with me through, through 11 years in like several different job transitions in several different departments. It's the only thing that I've brought with me, and it's funny because I used to share an office with a nurse. And I went on vacation. When I came back, um, she had swapped my stapler for another stapler of the exact same model stapler, like it was an identical stapler.
And I could tell the difference in the waiting and the feel of the stapler. Um, like that, that kind of thing. Although, like I struggled to think how I might gift that stapler to someone in, in the same meaningful fashion, but like right. There are trade, there are tools of your trade and tools of your craft that you use to serve the Lord in particular ways.
And I think a musical instrument is like an obvious example, but maybe you're a carpenter and you have a favorite hammer that just, it feels right in your hand, it's the right weight, it's the right size, um, and someone else needs a good hammer. Like I think there are ways. Similar kinds of things that could happen.
And that's a really lovely, thoughtful gift. And it's a way that you can honor the Lord. Yes. Like it's not, it's not just being nice. It's a way that you can sort of pass on that blessing that God has given you in that, in that physical implement to someone else to make use of it. Um, and I can tell you I've been the recipient of similar kinds of gifts.
[00:18:09] Jesse Schwamb: Me too.
[00:18:10] Tony Arsenal: I don't have anyone that's given me like a guitar. But, um, there's been times where I've, I've, uh, like I have a set of commentaries that was gifted to me by someone who, they were well loved, well used commentaries, and they were just at a point in their, their academic career that they just weren't using them anymore.
And they gifted them to me. And I'll tell you like. I have never read through those in, in their entirety, but every time that I go to reference them, there's a warm spot in my heart when I think about what these commentaries have contributed to the kingdom in terms of that person's ministry. And then now my ministry, my my preaching Pul supply ministry, this podcast.
Um, so that's a special gift. That's a cool story. And I think. Your exhortation is great for us to think about ways we can, we can do that. I suppose there's some ways we've done that as a podcast. Like we've helped other podcast start. True. We've, I mean there's been equipment that we've grown out of, that we've passed on to other people who are getting started.
Um, you know, so I think there's lots of ways we can think about how that works and how we do.
[00:19:09] Jesse Schwamb: And we ourselves, of course, are ongoing beneficiaries of that kind of love.
[00:19:13] Jesse Schwamb: And this sounds like it's a plug that I intended, but I didn't when I started the whole affirmation. And that is we have people that give to the podcast through patreon.com.
[00:19:22] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.
[00:19:22] Jesse Schwamb: So after they've satisfied all of their other responsibilities, they have decided, you know what? The podcast, the conversations have blessed me in some way, and I wanna make sure that they keep going. And so. There's a place where people are giving even just little gifts, either one time or regularly.
And it does keep things going, like, uh, this is all practical. Now. For instance, many of our listeners noticed that somehow you developed a lisp over like the last Yeah. Two episodes, which it turns out Tony is healthy and well, his like. Speech is fantastic. I I hear it. I've always heard it in this clear, crisp mo voice kind of way.
And it turns out we tried to go with a cheaper solution that will remain unnamed.
[00:20:01] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.
[00:20:01] Jesse Schwamb: Um, and it turns out, for whatever reason, it, it
[00:20:06] Tony Arsenal: just wasn't gonna cut it. It
[00:20:07] Jesse Schwamb: just didn't work. And so we were trying to save a little bit there. But I'm so grateful for those who, who along with us, help us to cover these costs so that we could return to a solution that costs money.
[00:20:18] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.
[00:20:18] Jesse Schwamb: But is actually better for sound quality and less distracting for people that want to listen to us talk. So that all happens because many have gone to patreon.com, back slash reform brotherhood and said, I'd like to contribute. So I see that generosity and I wanna say thank you.
[00:20:33] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
[00:20:35] Tony Arsenal: Well, Jesse, we should probably get into the parable tonight.
[00:20:37] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, let's get into it.
[00:20:39] Tony Arsenal: So we are gonna camp out tonight. Uh, we're we last, not last week because, uh, last week I was, uh, preaching and so, uh, you were, uh, the sermon from the, the church I was preaching, I was put into the feed, but the week before that.
We were camping out in the first half of Matthew 18. We were talking about the parable of the lost sheep and how it is positioned differently in Matthew than it is in its parallel in Luke, and that that positioning in that context sort of shades the meaning and and changes how we think about what the parable means.
We're gonna finish out the second half of chapter 18 here with the Parable of the Unforgiving Servants. And what I, what I think we're gonna find is actually like, in, in a similar way to how the Parable of the lost sheep and the Parable of the Lost Coin and the Parable of the Lost Sun all sort of stack up to be sort of like a mega parable.
This parable continues the same themes, um, and in many ways is, is like an. A next level question on the theme that Christ is teaching regarding, uh, people, you know, coming to the faith, people who sin against each other, and how we should think about church discipline. This parable really kind of continues that line of thought, so I'll go ahead and start reading here in verse 21.
We will go ahead and just read out to the very end of the, uh, end of the chapter here. So starting in verse 21, it says, then Peter came up and said to him, Lord, how often will my brother sin against me? And I forgive him as many as seven times. Jesus said to him, I do not say to you seven times, but 77 times.
Therefore, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wishes to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him 10,000 talents. Since he could not pay his master, ordered him to be sold with his wife and children and all that he had and payment to be made.
So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him half patience with me, and I'll pay you everything out of pity for him. The master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. But when the same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him and hundreds inari and seizing him.
He began to choke him, saying, pay what you owe. So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, have patience with me and I will pay you. He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place.
Then his master summoned him and said to him, you wicked servant. I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me and should not. You have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you. It is anger. His master delivered him to the jailer until he should pay all his debt. So also my Heavenly Father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.
[00:23:34] Jesse Schwamb: Maybe I'm the only one, but Peter is my spirit animal. He just is because like, it's not just that the question he starts with is like brutally honest, but I find out brutally practical. Yeah, I know there's a lot been said about Peter. He, he gets a lot of shade about this idea of him trying to set like, what's this generous limit?
How often should I forgive? But in some ways isn't the this, like the thing, if I were there, I'd be like, I'm thinking this too, which is, yeah, about how far, Lord, you know, how much, where, where do I be? When do I become the doormat? And so I have a sense, I think even in my own life, still don't want to quantify mercy.
Actually, I know this to be the case. I could think of a situation in particular. Where I was just talking about with my wife, where I was essentially doing this same thing. And in reform terms, I think like this is of course like the sinful heart's instinct to convert obedience into some kind of manageable policy, and that's where I'm like, yeah, I hear this.
Because if. Even quote unquote, like advanced disciples often want righteousness by measurement. Yeah. It's easier. It appeals to our human nature rather than righteousness by likeness to the father. And so it makes sense to me that after all this talk about discipline and about going after your brother, that I think honestly the logical thing is to say yes, but how far right?
And that's like the whole setup for this thing.
[00:24:52] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And I think there is a certain logic to. Peter's question, right? Yes. I I think you're right. Like we, we sort of bag on Peter to be like, what a dummy. Like, and, and I, I don't love, um, I don't love sort of the extrapolation that people make where they like, sort of like add that crisis, like exasperated by the apostles, right?
There are certainly places in the scripture where it, it just straight out says like, crisis. It, it basically says like, crisis frustrated with his apostles and, and he expresses like. I was reading the other day where they're like, who brought him, who brought him bread to eat? Like, and, and or the one where they're like, beware the ye the yeast of the, uh, of the Pharisees.
And they're like, oh, we forgot the bread. And he's like, I wasn't talking about bread you guys. Like, I don't, I don't actually get the sense that that's what's going on here. Like, I think this is a rational, logical question that Peter asks, right. Um, in many ways.
[00:25:50] Tony Arsenal: He's actually like catching the drift of what Christ is getting at because the, the prevailing thought in, in sort of like the ancient world, forgiveness was not really something you offered, like there was offense and then the offense had to be repaid and Christ is presenting this sort of radical new way where like all that needs to happen for the offense to be resolved is actually just repentance.
Like, it, it was not the norm. Peter isn't quite getting as far as Christ is pushing him yet, but he's not asking a dumb, selfish, stupid question. And I think we, we tend to sort of position Peter here as though he is, and I think the radical nature of this is that Christ answer is as many times it's, it's, he puts a number on it, but it's this number that has this symbolic value of like as many times as he repents.
And I think when you go back to the church discipline passage that we just came out of. The, the question basically is like, how many times am I gonna get to step one before I can just skip to step two? And the answer is, as long as there is genuine repentance, reconciliation should move forward. Right? Um, now again, like.
There are a lot of situations where rec, and I know the prevailing way of talking about this is like forgiveness and reconciliation are not the same thing, and they're, they're not. Um, but I also don't think reconciliation always means full restoration of a relationship as though nothing happened. And, and so I think this, this teaching that Christ is going into here.
Is not only designed to sort of like answer Peter's question, but providentially, it actually continues to extend the lesson of the last parable that you continue to seek your brother and you continue to forgive them and rejoice over that forgiveness and over that rest restoration as long as repentance continues to occur.
Um, now we don't need to get into it. But there are certainly times where a person might outwardly say like they're repentant of their sins and their behavior demonstrates they're not. That's not the scenario that Christ is addressing here when he is encouraging Peter to forgive 77 times. Right? He's not saying, just like you said, he's not saying you become a doormat and you just accept.
For, and you accept repentance on face value despite evidence. To the contrary, he's saying that when there is genuine repentance, there is no limit to the number of times that you should forgive a person.
[00:28:17] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, that's right on. It's not like Jesus is mouthing forgiveness here. Yeah, it's more of this emphasis, like you've said already, that gospel is creating a people who forgive habitually, not sporadically.
And so forgiveness becomes, I think we said this before, like a settled posture because the believers live from this kind of idea. Settle the mercy. And so Jesus ties, and this is wild again, incredible, limitless. Forgiveness to the nature of the kingdom,
[00:28:43] Tony Arsenal: right?
[00:28:44] Jesse Schwamb: So the parable is not mainly about some kind of interpersonal etiquette here.
It's about what it means to live under God's reign and in God's household. And that should be a demonstrative focus and emphasis in how we go about our lives because. What's practically applicable to all of us is that people are gonna hurt us. The same people will continue to hurt us, and we'll come back and seek some kinda reparation.
We'll seek forgiveness. And Jesus says, like you said, extend it. There's this idea that there's this. Kind of almost in this like a comment upon the Lord's Prayer in that fifth petition. Like we ask forgiveness as we forgive, right? So then there's not like behavioral or modification here.
[00:29:21] Jesse Schwamb: We're trying to perform in such a way, well, if we forgive, then we will be forgiven, and we get that twist.
It's all the other way around in reverse, which is because of course we've been forgiven, therefore we ought to forgive freely, liberally, unreservedly, not sporadically, but all the time, every way, any way you can, right? So that's what leads then to this, all this hyperbole about. Debt, which again I love as an expression of what it means to incur sin, to be under the weight of sin, to be in, you know, rebellion against God.
And so I love that that's where Jesus moves because like presumably there could have this, could have gone lots of different ways. There are lots of different metaphors. This is just one of several places where debt comes in the picture. And I know, I know it's your jam as well. Like I know that you love this in terms of how this like drama unfolds next.
[00:30:11] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, this is a, this is a, um, I kind of alluded it to a last time, I won't get into specifics, but there's been a, a number of situations in my life, um, and Jesse knows which situation I'm, I'm thinking of most specifically, but a number of times that I've been in situations where, um, e either I see another person who is refusing, who, who claims the name of Christ, but is absolutely refusing to.
To extend forgiveness except on sort of like really specific elaborate conditions.
[00:30:43] Jesse Schwamb: Right.
[00:30:43] Tony Arsenal: Um, I, I am not entirely set on the fact that forgiveness can't have any sort of condition in terms of what, what is expected to demonstrate that repentance is genuine. I think there are times where, um, especially if sin is an ongoing, you know, a person's sins against you in the same way, many times I think it's fine to say like, well, repentance in this situation looks like a right.
If a person is constantly talking about you behind your back and is gossiping about you, then repentance at a minimum is stopping that sin, right? For sure. At, at i, I would say in that situation, it might even look like that person needs to go. Take some steps to restore your good name in the, you know, in the people that they've slandered you against or slandered you with.
[00:31:30] Tony Arsenal: Um, but the, the main point of this, and the reason I bring it up, is that this parable is, um, uh. It's connected to the previous parable with this church discipline passage in the middle. In that what we see here is a picture of, of the unforgiving servant is not just the unforgiving servant, he's the unforgiving servant.
[00:31:55] Jesse Schwamb: Right?
[00:31:55] Tony Arsenal: And I think that's really key is that this. This parable, right? We always want to pay attention to what the parable is compared to. And so this is the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wishes to settle accounts with a sermon. So yes, it's true that this tells us about what a.
Forgiveness and reconciliation and what being forgiven and what that does if all of that's true and it's presented here, but this parable is really telling us what life in the kingdom of God looks like.
[00:32:26] Jesse Schwamb: Right on.
[00:32:27] Tony Arsenal: And what it looks like is not holding, not holding debts against someone in light of the fact that God has not held our debts against us and.
I think you have to be careful when you teach this passage because it can very quickly become you earning forgiveness by being forgiving. Um, and it's actually like the, the exact opposite. Forgive being a forgiving person is not how you become a forgiven person. It's what it looks like to be a forgiven person.
This is the classic Protestant kind of like, um, what's it called? The my brain is losing me. Uh, the practical syllogism, right?
[00:33:09] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.
[00:33:09] Tony Arsenal: You, you know, you're forgiven by the fact that you live, you're living a life of holiness. But it's not that, that life of holiness is somehow generating your forgiveness or causing it.
It's, it's the opposite. The life of forgiveness, the life of being forgiven is driving this gracious disposition that should mark every Christian. So I think as we unpack this a little bit, we get through this. That's what we have to remember. Yes, there are practical on the street concrete things that we should do in light of this teaching, but ultimately this is teaching us about what it looks like to live as a forgiven person in the kingdom of heaven, not just some general principle of what it means to understand forgiveness or something like that.
[00:33:50] Jesse Schwamb: Right? Yeah. It's bearing that fruit. Again, this is all about the community hermeneutic, the community of the family of God, represented in the kingdom of God, and that's what.
[00:34:01] Jesse Schwamb: Propels us into this idea in verse 24, these 10,000 talents, this incredible debt, which is of course really hyperbole. Just pick the number that is impossible for repayment in your mind.
It's meant to feel infinite, and it's a picture of our guilt before God's justice. And I mentioned this before, but I think this bears repeating. It's a real liability. Right. What we have here in this picture is not sin merely as mistake. We we're quick to talk about sin as missing the mark, and this is true of course.
Sometimes though, with that, we can get the sense that the missing of the mark is kind of innocuous. It happens and it's suboptimal, and your life would be better otherwise, and it does wrong and hurt God, and we can embrace all those things without realizing that all of this missing the mark is creating a real liability.
God has a claim over and above us for restitution of that because that's what his justice demands. And so here we have this explicit identification of sin as debt. It highlights this inevitable reckoning like you can debt, you have to deal with, you have to deal with it in some way or another. And
[00:35:04] Tony Arsenal: yeah,
[00:35:05] Jesse Schwamb: so too, here we have these two different servants and they both have this irreconcilable debt, this real liability that's represented in the form of this king having a claim over them.
[00:35:17] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. And I think, um, you know, we've commented in the rest of the parables that there, the, one of the beauties, the beautiful things about a lot of these parables is there's so much systematic theology actually baked into them.
[00:35:30] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah.
[00:35:30] Tony Arsenal: And one of the things, I don't think, um, because of the way translations work and because the translations are not, um, they're translating the words and not necessarily the concepts in direct ways, in, in this context, in this situation.
Um. This is a picture of the, the sin debt that we have, but we lose the sight of the magnitude of it, right? So a talent was 20 years worth of wages for a worker in, in this era. Now that's 10,000 of those. So like the idea that you could spend 10,000 times 20 years worth of wages. Like, that's unreal. Like that's crazy.
That's unreal. Um, I can't even imagine what that would look like to spend and to, to somehow go into debt 10,000 times, 20 years worth of wages. Um, and that's the point is that it's, it's painting this picture. I think sometimes we, this parable is taught and the comparison is primarily between the 10,000 talents, which is this, uh, like.
Unimaginable vast quantity of money versus a hundred denari, which is not a small debt, but it's an imaginable debt. It's an understandable debt. That's the contrast most people, most people make when they're teaching this passage, but before you even get there. We've talked about how the parables sometimes have this element of like shock where like the, the, the people listening would be listening and be like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then all of a sudden there's something in the parable that's like, whoa, wait, a, like, slow down a second here. Like the idea that the younger son could ask for his inheritance and then the father would just give it to him. That's a shock element that would make the, the audience sit up and go.
Something is a little different here. The shock element here is 20, it's, it's 20 times. 10,000 years worth of wages,
[00:37:27] Jesse Schwamb: right.
[00:37:27] Tony Arsenal: So there's so many elements of that. Like, first of all, how do you spend that much money? Second of all, who lets you go that far into debt? Right? And how did you even do it? Third, how did this king have, even a king ha wouldn't have that vast quantity of wealth.
Um, this would be like all of a sudden, uh, like. Elon Musk has let me spend his entire, his entire net worth, and I've gone into debt in that. Um, it's this unimaginable situation, and this is a picture of the sin debt that we incur when we have sinned against God. And so the gravity of our sin. Is on full display here.
The debt that we've incurred against the Holy God is not just, uh, it's not just a debt that we can't repay. It's a debt that is un repayable. This is supposed to be a picture of an infinite death. Yes. Or infinite debt. Right. There's, there's no real way, like the, the, the ancient world didn't really talk about infinite or infinity in the same way that we do.
Like mathematically, that wasn't a common concept. This is supposed to be a picture of a debt that is so vast and so large that it is, it is beyond. Like beyond rational numbering.
[00:38:42] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.
[00:38:43] Tony Arsenal: That is the picture of the debt that we owe God when we are still in the midst of our sin. And so this, this person comes.
There's a certain kind of like audacity that would, should actually be offensive to the king when he says like, I will pay everything. You're gonna pay everything. You're gonna pay 10,000 times, 20 years worth of wages.
[00:39:02] Jesse Schwamb: Right,
[00:39:03] Tony Arsenal: right. Like, yeah. Right,
[00:39:04] Jesse Schwamb: right.
[00:39:04] Tony Arsenal: That's, that's the audacity of this servant. Um, he wouldn't have been able to believe he was gonna do that.
He's coming, throwing himself, hopefully, throwing himself on the mercy of this. Uh, king that something could be done to allow him to, to change his estate. It's not all that different than what we talked about with the son. In the parable of the, uh, lost son, where he is coming back to his father, he's expecting his request to be made.
One of the servants is going to be granted with a positive, favorable answer. Right? But his concept of what he even. Could imagine to ask for is like too small. It's too, too narrow in scope, and it, it's not presuming on his, on God's mercy or the father's mercy, it's actually like undercutting what the, the father or in this case, the king is capable of in terms of mercy, which I think is something we miss a lot of times with this par.
[00:39:59] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, we certainly see that the servant's inabilities is total, or at least we're meant to see that. And of course that aligns with all the things you and I regularly talk about, the human inability to satisfy divine justice by works. That's what's on display here in this idea of the kingdom. And the scene, to me at least, is like courtroom economic.
There's justice, which requires satisfaction. There's insolvency and judgment, and it happens beautifully in the context of this relationship where there's, there's debt, there's money, there's a claim over one. That must be satisfied. And while you were speaking, what really struck me is it's the king's right to claim it.
And he does. Right? Right. He, he brings it forward and says like, here's the debt. I'm just reporting back to you the real liability that is before you. So how are we gonna settle this bad boy?
[00:40:42] Jesse Schwamb: And what I find interesting is something that you just brought up and I think we should tease out, which is there's a, a flawed plea and this diluted promise, well, maybe I'm being right.
Not very generous. You tell me. I say that because the servant, and I think this is what like test this loved ones. I think this is what the natural man does. What the servant does, he asks for time and not mercy. Yeah, which I think is a helpful distinction. And then he tries to promise what he cannot perform.
So that's like the logic I think, of self salvation, which is, give me a little space. Let me know what I have to do. Give me more time and I'll fix it. And I think the critical observation is the servant's words expose that. I don't think he understands the nature of his debt. He underestimates what he owes.
He asks for the wrong thing, right. That's exactly what we do. We wanna know how we can fix it instead of understanding that it's unfixable, that only God himself can again be just and justifier through his son. And so we have this amazingly, like off the reservation, missing the whole point adventures in Romans one, where instead the natural man is prone to like, well, give me the legalism that I need to make restitution on my own.
And it's just impossible. So we're gonna see that that moves us, like you said, into compassion, into Mercy. But it absolutely floors me that this person says instead like, well, if you could just give me a little bit more time. I mean, I think there's like panic in that response. I think there's self-promotion in that response.
I think there's wanting to, if this can be true in some way, well intentionally wanting to make it right, but to do so on their own. And it's just an adventure in missing the point.
[00:42:20] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And I, I think, um. What we learn, you know, spoiler alert. I guess what we learn by the end of this, uh, parable is that this unforgiving servant, uh, represents the un unregenerate person.
Yes. Right. It's, it's, it's the person who never actually received the forgiveness that was extended to them. And I think we. We think that that punchline only comes at the end where the king throws him back into prison at the end and, and forces him to, to pay or, or keeps him in prison until the debt is paid, which of course, the, the underlying text is that the debt is never paid.
Um, but really this is actually the beginning of that, of that implication.
[00:43:01] Jesse Schwamb: For sure.
[00:43:01] Tony Arsenal: Right? He, he doesn't ask for forgiveness. He doesn't believe that the king is going to forgive him entirely. Um, he, he comes and he thinks he's going to pay off this unimaginable debt. Um, and again, there's a certain absurdity to these parables that is intentional.
It's part of the teaching mechanism. Um, but he comes and he says, exactly as you're saying, gimme some time to pay this off. He doesn't, he doesn't think he's not gonna be able to do it. Right. I don't think he, um. I don't think he comes thinking he's gonna somehow trick the king by asking for time and then he's gonna like flee to another land, right?
Like there's no implication of that. He thinks. By all indications, he thinks with a little bit more time, he's actually gonna scrape together 10,000 times, 20 years worth of labor. Right. He thinks that's gonna happen. And that is like when we come to the way that this is like the kingdom of heaven is when we, when we come to God saying like, just gimme a little time.
Or gimme a little space or tell me what I need to do and I'll make it right. Um, you know, you think of like Luther on the road to, to wherever he was going. Like, um, you know, if, if, if you save me, I'll become a monk. Right. You know, Saint Anne's save me. I'll become a monk. Like we, we think that if we can just.
Get the formula right, that somehow we're gonna be able to, to restore ourselves into God's graces. And so this is a picture of the Unregenerate man trying to flee the wrath of God somehow out coming out from underneath it by their own labor. And I. Again, like the absurdity of the, the, the servant's thought process here is exactly, uh, the absurdity of the person who thinks they're gonna somehow make up for their sin, debt against the holy God.
It just is, it's just not real. And it's, it's a level of delusion that can only come, you know? Yes. Sin and our fallen estate comes with a certain kind of insanity that comes with it. Yes,
[00:44:55] Jesse Schwamb: that's right.
[00:44:55] Tony Arsenal: That we, we are. We're not human, but we're sort of corrupted subhuman. And our rationality, our ability to understand spiritual things is totally just, it's totally damaged.
Um, so we couldn't even get to the right answer even if we wanted to.
[00:45:10] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, so I think maybe one of the first.
[00:45:14] Jesse Schwamb: Several of the gasps from those listening would be in verse 27, where the king has this compassion on them. He exacts a pardon, but not a payment plan.
[00:45:23] Tony Arsenal: Right?
[00:45:24] Jesse Schwamb: And it really is an act of sheer mercy.
Of course, it's rooted in the king's compassion. And I would say like in the categories again that we talk about, it resembles this concept of free justification. God's acquitting, the guilty by grace and not by installments. And again, I, I had to look it up because I knew it was somewhere, but I couldn't find it off the top of my head.
But this connects to like the Westminster Larger catechism, which was the fifth petition. And I love this language. We're confessing that we cannot satisfy the dead and we ask God to acquit us through the obedience and satisfaction of Christ applied by faith. Right. That is phenomenally good news. In some ways, this is, I don't wanna say this is a problem for God, it's not, this is what he delights to do, but I hope people can hear me on this in that it's a problem in the sense that.
If God is a compassionate God, if this king is truly compassionate, then he has to take care of this in some way, right? Like it is, it is a concern. It is legitimate quantity. If this is a real liability that must be dealt with. It's a bit like saying, there is this old saying in banking where something like if you owe the bank a hundred thousand dollars, that's your problem.
If you own the bank, a hundred million problems, that's the bank's problem.
Yeah.
[00:46:30] Jesse Schwamb: And so here there's this massive weight. That must be dealt with. It can't just be like swept under the rug. So even behind this compassion, we know that the rest of scripture enumerates how that compassion takes place. It is free justification at the cost of God's one and only son applied to us again by faith as the confession gives us that language.
And so this is. Shocking. Even that is shocking. And I think to your point, Tony, it's shocking because I do believe, like you're saying, that the audience would've picked up on this guy being off the mark and is saying, well, he's somehow getting granted. He asked for more time. That's ridiculous. Yeah. And he is gonna be given forgiveness instead.
And so what's, what's going on? And I wanna point out, this led me to think about. Isaiah 55, and I'm embarrassed that I often read Isaiah 55 completely divorced from the context in which these very famous words appear, which is, this is the whole, my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways. My ways declares Yahweh, whereas the heavens are higher, higher than the earth.
So are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts? And for somebody like me, I was like, I always appreciated like, listen, God is of course abundantly my intellectual superior in every conceivable way. I mean. Talk about an understatement, but he's just so brilliant. He works all things out for his glory, that the, the majesty and the creativeness of the world in which he spoke into existence proves that he's genius.
And here's maybe everybody, you're ahead of me on this, but here's where that passage. Here's like the antecedent verses right before that. This is Isaiah 55, beginning verse six. Seek Yahweh. While he may be found, call upon him while he's near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return to Yahweh and he will have compassion on him.
And to our God, he will abundantly pardon for my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways. My ways declares Yahweh, for as the heavens are higher than the earth. So are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts? The higher than your thoughts. So in other words. How do we know that God is like this, that his thoughts are heart?
Because the sheer act of this kind of forgiveness is so otherworldly that we cannot comprehend it, that God is saying the proof of the pudding is in the eating here. Here's how you know I'm so different than you, and the way I think, and the way I act and the way that I know things is because this kind of forgiveness, which I offer to my people is so extraordinary and unbelievable.
That you will not even be able to comprehend the essential first principle of what they mean, which is why we have to receive the instruction as it's set forth before us in this parable.
[00:49:07] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:49:08] Tony Arsenal: And, you know, we'll, um, we'll have to come back. We're not anywhere near finished with this. We're at the end of the time here, but talking one of, one of the things, um, that I think, you know, that, that passage in Isaiah, but this passage too, um.
You cannot forgive a debt unless you have the. Capital to have that not sink you. Right.
[00:49:31] Jesse Schwamb: Right.
[00:49:31] Tony Arsenal: So if, if, you know, like that's part of why like banks and, you know, like the hospital like that I work at anywhere that is collecting fees and bills. Like they, they can't allow someone to go so far into debt that they will never recuperate.
That. That's like, that's where it's like bad debt comes in like at some point. You just let it go and you just stop giving them money. But you don't, you can't get the money back, but you can't forgive a debt if you don't have the resources to survive forgiving that debt. Right. And I think where this plays into in term, again, this is like another systematic theology point that comes outta this parable.
This king is apparently so fabulously wealthy and so fabulously, uh, rich in resources that he can just say, yeah. 10,000 times, 20 years worth of an, of an average labor. Like, don't worry about it. It's no big deal like that is, that has to be a king who is so fabulously wealthy, unimaginably so that that is not gonna hurt him.
And this is where the, like the omnipotence and the, uh, the impassability of God becomes so important is that we have a God who is, is able to forgive us. Right? I don't have the passage right in front of me, but. There's a passage in job where it's basically like, if, if I was to, to do something righteous, what benefits is that to God?
And if I was to sin against God, what does that hurt him? Right? Right. And like when we sin against God, it angers him. Um, there's not a change in his disposition. Uh, there, there, there might be a, a change in our experience of God. Um, because, you know, God in the presence of wrath is ex, I guess, is experienced differently than God.
Or God in the presence of sin is experienced differently than God, absent sin. Um, so when we're forgiven, we're experiencing, we're still experiencing God. Um, God is still oriented towards us, but he's oriented towards us graciously versus oriented towards us, non graciously. That's not a change in God.
That's a change in our status, a change that God renders in us. By applying Christ to us and Christ's benefits to us, but when we sin against God, it doesn't hurt him. It doesn't change him. It doesn't somehow make him less and, and that's a glorious thing. Because if it did somehow make him less right. Um, I'm a big fan of Anselm and I'm a big fan of ran of um, uh, satisfaction theory, right?
'cause that led into penal substitution theory. And I think there's a lot of truth to satisfaction atonement theory. Um, one thing that I think we have to be really cautious of with that is this idea that somehow God's. Honor, like is impugned and that he has to respond in a particular way, otherwise it somehow degrades his character and some wouldn't go that far.
But I think it's an implication of his, his theology is that's really a problem, right? That can be problematic because if God is somehow changed or harmed or injured by our sin, then then forgiving us. Becomes a problem because there has to be some sort of restoration to his being. And that would now put, you know, put a weird dynamic on the, the atonement that isn't, isn't biblical.
So just like in this parable, the, the king can forgive the servant, sort of almost like. Almost casually, right? Like right. The servant doesn't even ask him to forgive the debt. And he is like, oh, don't worry about it. Like, I don't mean to be flippant about it, but like there is this element of like, it's almost a non-issue for this king to just say like, your debt is erased.
I'm not, I'm not concerned about that. Um, he sees the. Outward disposition of this servant of Des apparently desiring to be able to pay this debt off and, and committing to what it takes. And he takes that step of mercy that wasn't even being asked of, but that's not possible if the king is somehow, uh, in a position of injury because of this debt.
Right. Um, he, he really doesn't seem to care about the debt. He, he just lets it go. And we have to, we have to then map that up to what God is like and what the kingdom of heaven is like. The kingdom of heaven. Um, it doesn't hurt God to forgive us. It doesn't hurt God or change the kingdom of heaven. It doesn't cause a diminishment in the kingdom of heaven for him to freely forgive our sins.
I mean, we could get into it, but like that, that's like totally flies in the face of Roman Catholic theology entirely,
[00:53:57] Jesse Schwamb: right?
[00:53:57] Tony Arsenal: Where like there has to be this, this exchange between the sinner and God, a meritorious exchange on some level in order for forgiveness to happen well. That only works if God is somehow benefiting or gaining from your, your, um, your good works.
He's accepting it in some way that actually benefits him. Now, that may be like a, a relational benefit or something like that, but it's still benefiting him. This parable seems to just fly in the face of that.
[00:54:25] Jesse Schwamb: It does, and we see justice is still at play here because we get at least some sense of what, like the equality of this debt, what it equals, what it costs.
Because we're told that when he comes before the king, the king says that he's commanded to be sold along with his wife and children and all that he had. So we know at least like that that would've been, in other words, this debt equals enslavement. That would be the only other way to even hope. To have some kind of restitution for, right.
Even that would be woefully insufficient. You're right. And so we still get a sense here, but that, that we're talking about livelihood, belongings, the persons themselves not being worth enough to really repay, but that is what would be required. Even just to begin that it's true that the minimum wages of sin is death and that's what the least of which our payment should be.
And so you're right that here we have one coming with all of the solvency that's required is not, not hurt by having to expend this, but must do. So I think that's like the subtext is behind there. It's not explicitly said, but it's clear like you're saying, Tony, that that's what's required of the one forgiving the debt.
It isn't just like, oh well. Well, maybe you'll do better next time.
[00:55:37] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.
[00:55:37] Jesse Schwamb: But instead says, no, this again, if it's a real liability that stands, it doesn't just go away in its own. You can't just snap it out of existence. I think that was a Thanos reference that I didn't Look at me. Look at me. He
[00:55:49] Tony Arsenal: only gets rid of half of your debt.
[00:55:50] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, look at me. Yeah. I guess that's a joke. Jokes on you. Um, yeah. Uh, only half by the way. I know what you saying. That reminded me one time of somebody ribbing me after I'd run a half marathon. I was like, oh yeah, I ran the half marathon. And they're like, well, that's great. What other things do you only do halfway?
Um, and so, you know, like I, you're right with this, like at most this would kind of get you like maybe halfway and that's like being generous. And so here the greatest is generosity.
[00:56:17] Jesse Schwamb: And the shock that we're gonna see next is, first there's the gasp at, you know, maybe even Peter asking out loud, how many times do I have to forgive him?
And then there's this gasp at here's this incredible sized debt. And like you said, how did one accrue that? Yeah. How did that go on for so long? It's just impossible. And then the gasp of maybe him saying like, just gimme more time and I'm gonna make it happen. And then the gasp of this forgiveness, and there's a bigger gasp that's coming, I think next, which is, yeah.
Just from one shocked expression to the next, but I think we gotta call it there.
[00:56:50] Tony Arsenal: We do. Yeah. I, I'm, I'm looking forward to this too, because this is basically, uh, this parable is the parable of the lost son. In a different register. Like it's, it's the same basic dynamic, but the characters are flipped around a little bit, which is really, I think is really interesting and fascinating and, and fun to tease out.
So we'll, uh, we'll put a pin in that now. Uh, I'm super, super stoked to continue this. Like I said, this is a, this chapter, um, chapter 18 of Matthew has been really sort of. Out Sizely formative in my life and my thought process about the nature of the church. So it's, it's fun for me and meaningful for me to kind of tease out some of these specifics and come to it and learn some new things.
I think this is the beauty of the scriptures, right? When we sit down and we're serious and we take time to think through these things. God is faithful to always. That's right. Continue teaching us, right? Every day is a school day, but when you sit down and study the scriptures, if you let the scripture study you, you're gonna come away with it with, at a minimum, a deeper understanding of what you already had.
But I think most of the time when we're serious, we actually come away having learned something, maybe not entirely new, but something different than what we expected.
[00:58:05] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. So since every day's a school day, what have we learned on this episode? Well, I think we've learned that this parable is teaching us that the Kingdom of Heaven is a community built on astonished mercy.
And the king's free parting creates a people who forgive from the hearts. And like you said, that means that that is the fruit of righteousness in our life. By the blood of Christ applied to us through the Holy Spirit, and that means we don't forgive to be forgiven. We are forgiving people because we have already been forgiven in the best and the greatest of all possible ways.
Getting rid of that debt that was so large, we couldn't hope to get out from underneath it. I think we've also learned, Tony, that you finally have become a hipster, and I'm so happy that you've arrived with the rest of us. And I hope we've inspired other people to go out and pour water over their own coffee.
It's delicious.
[00:58:55] Tony Arsenal: That might be the only actual hipster thing. Right now I'm wearing a, a zip up sweater that is, uh, is from when I was in seminary like 15 years ago. I still, I still own and wear clothes. Uh, that are like decades old. Uh, this is gonna like fall off my body at some point, but I am never getting rid of it, so, yeah.
Yeah. I'm stoked to keep going. Uh, please come back and join us next week. We'll be finishing out the parable. Uh, we'll, we'll talk through, you know. The difference between 20,000 years worth of debt or 200,000 years worth of debt, I'm not even good enough at math to figure that on the fly versus like a hundred days of debt.
Uh, it's, it's a totally different register, uh, and it just continues to add to the absurdity of this thing. So until we do that, until next time, Jesse, honor everyone.
[00:59:46] Jesse Schwamb: Love the brotherhood.
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In this profound exploration of Philippians 1:27–2:11, Tony Arsenal unpacks Paul's urgent call to gospel-centered unity in the face of both external persecution and internal division. Preaching to Christ Community Church in Plainfield, NH, Arsenal demonstrates how the Philippian church's brewing conflict between two prominent women threatened their witness and weakened their defensive posture against genuine opposition. The sermon's theological centerpiece—the Christ hymn of Philippians 2:5-11—is presented not primarily as a doctrinal treatise on the incarnation, but as the supreme pattern for Christian humility and sacrificial service. Arsenal challenges believers to assess their own conflicts, embrace sober self-esteem that esteems others higher, and embody the mind of Christ who emptied himself, becoming obedient even to death on a cross for our sake.
Paul's instruction to "strive side by side" (Philippians 1:27) deliberately evokes the image of ancient military formations, particularly the phalanx used by Greek and Roman soldiers. In this formation, soldiers would stand shoulder to shoulder with large shields overlapping, creating an nearly impenetrable defensive wall. The strength of the phalanx wasn't in individual prowess but in unified cohesion—when soldiers stood together, pressure from enemies actually reinforced rather than weakened their defense. Paul applies this tactical reality to the church: Christians facing opposition must present such a united front that external pressure only strengthens rather than fractures their fellowship. This requires not just agreement in principle but actual coordination of thought, spirit, and action. When believers are divided—bickering over personal preferences, nursing interpersonal grievances, or pursuing selfish ambition—they break formation, leaving gaps through which spiritual enemies can attack. The Philippian church, facing real persecution in a Roman colony, needed to grasp that their internal conflicts were tactical vulnerabilities that could prove fatal to their witness.
The traditional Reformed understanding of Christ's "humiliation" encompasses his entire earthly existence from conception to burial, not merely his passion and crucifixion. Arsenal emphasizes that when Philippians 2:6-8 describes Christ "emptying himself" and "humbling himself," Paul has the whole trajectory of incarnate life in view. From the moment the eternal Son took on human nature in Mary's womb—experiencing the compression of birth, the skinned knees of childhood, the weariness of labor, the sting of rejection from family and friends, and ultimately the agony of crucifixion—every moment constituted an act of voluntary humiliation. This was not playacting; Christ genuinely experienced human weakness, limitation, suffering, and mortality. He "learned obedience through what he suffered" (Hebrews 5:8), meaning the incarnate Son actually underwent a process of human development and moral formation, though without sin. This comprehensive view of Christ's humiliation serves Paul's ethical argument: if the eternal Son of God willingly embraced such comprehensive lowliness for the sake of others, how much more should believers embrace inconvenience, discomfort, and self-sacrifice for the good of fellow Christians and the advancement of the gospel?
Arsenal challenges a common misunderstanding of Christian humility—the notion that godliness requires constant self-deprecation and denial of one's gifts and abilities. He argues that such "worm theology" actually dishonors God by refusing to acknowledge the work of the Holy Spirit in sanctification and the gifts distributed by the Spirit for the body's edification. True humility, as Paul describes it in Philippians 2:3-4, consists of having an honest, accurate assessment of yourself—recognizing your genuine gifts, calling, training, and spiritual progress—while simultaneously making the deliberate choice to recognize and celebrate others' gifts as more significant than your own. This is not a zero-sum calculation where acknowledging others requires diminishing yourself. Rather, it's an abundance mentality: "I'm genuinely good at X because God has gifted me, and I thank him for that; but when I see someone else gifted in Y, I'm even more excited about their contribution than my own." This perspective prevents both false humility (which can mask pride) and competitive jealousy (which destroys unity). It creates the conditions for genuine collaboration where believers work "side by side" without jockeying for position or recognition.
"We certainly face real pressures to conform to the patterns of this world rather than to the pattern of Christ—that is the real enemy that Paul is encouraging and commanding the Philippians and therefore us to stand against. And we cannot do that if we don't have a united front."
"Our salvation, both as individual Christians and also as the church as a whole, corporately, it actually brings about the destruction of our enemies. In the last day, when Christ makes all things right, he's not just taking the saints to heaven and then putting all of the wicked off in some other place. He descends with the voice of an archangel, he slaughters all of his enemies, and through that destruction of his enemies, he saves those who are his."
"God is not calling us to think of ourselves as trash. He made us in his image. He's called us for his glory. He's empowered us by His Holy Spirit and we insult him when we don't acknowledge the gifts that he's given us. But what he is commanding us to do is to see the giftings in other people and to esteem those as higher than our own."
[The complete, unedited transcript of the episode is provided above in the source material.]
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In this episode, Tony Arsenal and Jesse Schwamb explore one of Scripture's most fascinating puzzles: the parable of the lost sheep appears in both Luke 15 and Matthew 18, yet teaches dramatically different lessons depending on its context. In Luke, it defends Christ's mission to seek the lost and exposes Pharisaic self-righteousness. In Matthew, it becomes a pastoral manual for church discipline, humility, and restoration. This conversation challenges the common assumption that parables have only one meaning and demonstrates how the same story can illuminate multiple theological truths. The hosts unpack the scandalous grace woven throughout both accounts while wrestling with practical implications for church life, confrontation, and the celebration of repentance within the covenant community.
One of the most significant insights from this episode is the recognition that the parable of the lost sheep serves distinct theological purposes in Luke 15 and Matthew 18. In Luke, Jesus tells the parable to Pharisees and scribes who criticize Him for welcoming sinners—the lost sheep represents those outside the covenant community whom Christ seeks. In Matthew, however, Jesus addresses His disciples within the context of kingdom life, and the lost sheep represents a believer who has wandered from the fold. This contextual shift demonstrates that parables are not rigid allegories with single meanings but flexible teaching tools that illuminate different facets of divine truth. The hosts argue that this reality should free interpreters from overly narrow readings and encourage careful attention to literary setting, audience, and surrounding discourse when seeking to understand Jesus' teaching.
In Matthew 18, the parable of the lost sheep (vv. 12-14) is not an isolated story but a theological foundation for the church discipline instructions that immediately follow (vv. 15-20). By emphasizing the shepherd's joy in recovering the one lost sheep and stating that it is not God's will for any "little one" to perish, Jesus prepares His disciples to approach confrontation with a restorative rather than punitive mindset. The language of "gaining your brother" (v. 15) echoes the recovery theme of the parable—confrontation is rescue, not victory. This connection is often missed because English Bible headings create visual breaks between verses 14 and 15, obscuring their flow. When read together without interruption, the passage reveals that every step of church discipline—from private conversation to final excommunication—must be undertaken with the Father's heart, which longs for the wanderer's return rather than their expulsion.
The promise in Matthew 18:20—"where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them"—is frequently misapplied as a general encouragement for small prayer groups or house churches. While Christ's omnipresence certainly validates such gatherings, the primary context of this verse is judicial and ecclesiastical. The "two or three" echoes the Old Testament requirement for multiple witnesses in matters requiring serious judgment (Deuteronomy 19:15), and the phrase appears at the climax of Jesus' teaching on church discipline. Christ is promising His authorizing presence specifically during the church's most difficult and painful work: confronting sin, evaluating repentance, and when necessary, declaring someone outside the visible church. This is both sobering and comforting—sobering because it reminds us that church discipline carries divine weight, and comforting because Christ does not leave His church alone in this weighty task but stands in the midst of the assembly, confirming its righteous judgments and sustaining its members through heartbreak.
"This almost proves the idea that parables have one meaning just isn't really real...a single parable with the same words can have multiple, at the very least, can have multiple gradations of meaning." — Tony Arsenal
"The scandal here is that it's not God's will that any one of these little ones should be lost. And that sometimes, I think, in the midst of great conflict feels scandalous." — Jesse Schwamb
"Gaining your brother frames confrontation as rescue...discipline begins maybe actually all the way through as pastoral care. It's not public shaming." — Jesse Schwamb
[The complete, unedited transcript of the episode would be included here for reference and accessibility.]
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In a theological landscape that often softens sin into "brokenness," Episode 480 re-establishes the biblical category of sin as debt. Jesse Schwamb takes us into the house of Simon the Pharisee to analyze the Parable of the Two Debtors. The central argument is forensic: sin creates an objective liability against God’s justice that no amount of human currency—tears, works, or religious heritage—can satisfy. We explore the critical distinction between the cause of justification (God’s free grace) and the evidence of justification (love and repentance). This episode dismantles the self-righteous math of the Pharisee and points us to the only currency God accepts: the finished work of Christ.
To understand Luke 7, we must understand money. Money is a system of credit accounts and their clearing. When we apply this to theology, we realize that "religious effort" is a currency that God does not accept. We are like travelers trying to pay a US debt with Zimbabwean dollars. The Gospel is the news that Christ has entered the market with the only currency that satisfies the Father—His own righteousness—and has cleared the accounts of those who are spiritually bankrupt.
Simon the Pharisee wasn't condemned because he wasn't a sinner; he was condemned because he thought his debt was manageable. He believed he had "surplus righteousness." This is the deadly error of legalism. By assuming he owed little, he loved little. He treated Jesus as a guest to be evaluated rather than a Savior to be worshipped. A low view of our own sin inevitably leads to a low view of Christ’s glory.
The woman in the passage demonstrates what Reformed theologians call "evangelical obedience"—obedience that flows from faith and gratitude, not from a desire to earn merit. Her tears did not wash away her sins; the blood of Christ did that. Her tears were the overflow of a heart that realized the mortgage had been burned. We must never confuse the fruit of salvation with the root of salvation.
Tears don't cancel the ledger. Christ does that. Tears are what debtors do when Mercy lands.
Grace received produces love expressed.
A creditor doesn't need to be convinced you did harm. The ledger already stands.
[00:01:10] Jesse Schwamb: Welcome to episode 480 of The Reformed Brotherhood. I'm Jesse, and this is the podcast for those with ears to hear. Hey, brothers and sisters, how great is it that we have these incredible teachings of Jesus? Can we talk about that for a second? Tony and I have loved hanging out in these parables with you all, and Tony will be back next week.
Don't you worry. But in the meantime, I've got another parable for us to consider, and I figured we would just get. Straight to the points, but I have to let you in in a little secret first, and that is not even Tony knows until he hears this, which parable I've selected for us to chat about. And I knew that there might come a time where I would be able to sneak in with this parable because I love.
This parable, and I love it because it's so beautiful in communicating the full breadth and scope of the gospel of God's grace and his mercy for all of his children. And it just makes sense to me, and part of the reason why it makes so much sense to me is. The topic which is embedded in this is something that more or less I've kind of built my career around, and so it just resonates with me.
It makes complete sense. I understand it inside and out. I feel a connection to what Jesus is saying here very predominantly because the topic at hand means so much to me, and I've seen it play out in the world over and over and over again. So if that wasn't enough buildup and you're not ready, I have no idea what will get you prepared, but we're going to go hang out in Luke chapter seven, and before I even give you a hint as to what this amazing, the really brief parable is, it does take a little bit of setup, but rather than me doing the setup.
What do you say if we just go to the scriptures? Let's just let God's word set up the environment in which this parable is gonna unfold. And like a good movie or a good narrative, even as you hear this, you might be pulled in the direction of the topic that you know is coming. And so I say to you, wait for it.
Wait for it is coming.
[00:03:20] Jesse Schwamb: So this is Luke's book, his gospel chapter seven, beginning in verse 36. Now one of the Pharisees was asking Jesus to eat with him, and Jesus entered the Pharisees house and reclined at the table. And behold, there was a woman in the city who was a sinner, and when she learned that he was reclining at the table in the Pharisees house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfume.
And standing behind him at his feet crying. She began to wet his feet with her tears, and she kept wiping them with her hair over her head and kissing his feet and anointing them with perfume. Now, in the Pharisee, who had invited him, saw this, he said to himself saying, if this man were, he would know who and what sort of person this woman is who is touching him, that she is a sinner.
Let's stop there for a second. So this incredible dinner party that Jesus attends and here is this woman. Well, all we're told is that she's a woman who's identified as a sinner. Clearly moved by the presence of Jesus clearly wanting to worship him in a very particular way. By the way, loved ones. Can we address the fact that this goes back to something Tony and I have been talking about, I dunno, for like seven episodes now, which is coming outta Luke chapter 15.
This idea that sinners, the marginalized, the outcasts, the down and out, they were drawn to Jesus. Something about him, his presence, the power of his teaching drew them in, but in a way that invited vulnerability, this kind of overwhelming response to who he was. And what his mission was. And so here maybe is like any other occurrence that happened in Jesus' day, maybe like a million other accounts that are not recorded in the scriptures.
But here's one for us to appreciate that. Here's this woman coming, and her response is to weep before him, and then with these tears, to use them to wash his feet and to anoint him with this precious perfume. Now, there's a lot of people at this dinner party. At least we're led to believe. There's many, and there's one Pharisee in particular whose home this was.
It was Simon. And so out of this particular little vignette, there's so much we could probably talk about. But of course what we see here is that the Pharisee who invited him, Simon, he sees this going on. He does not address it verbally, but he has his own opinions, he's got thoughts and he's thinking them.
And so out of all of that, then there's a pause. And I, I would imagine that if we were to find ourselves in that situation, maybe we'd be feeling the tension of this. It would be awkward, I think. And so here we have Jesus coming in and giving them this account, this parable, and I wanna read the parable in its entirety.
It's very, very short, but it gives us a full sense of both. Like what's happening here? It's both what's happening, what's not happening, what's being. Presented plain for us to see what's below the surface that Jesus is going to reveal, which is both a reflection on Simon and a reflection on us as well.
[00:06:18] Jesse Schwamb: So picking up in, in verse 40, and Jesus answered and said to him, Simon, I owe something to say to you. And he replied, say it, teacher a money lender had two debtors, one owned 500 in RI and the other 50. When they were unable to repay, he graciously forgave them both. So which of them will love him more?
Simon answered and said, I suppose the one who he graciously forgave more, and he said to him, you have judged correctly and turning toward the woman. He said to Simon, do you see this woman? I entered your house? You gave me no water from my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair.
You gave me no kiss, but she, since the time I came in, has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she anointed my feet with perfume. For this reason, I say to you her sins, which are many have been forgiven for. She loved much, but he who is forgiven, little loves little. Then he said to her, your sins have been forgiven, and those were reclining at the table.
With him began to say to themselves, who is this man who even forgives sins? And he said to the woman, your faith has saved you. Go in peace.
[00:07:42] Jesse Schwamb: What a beautiful, tiny, deep, amazing instruction from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So in this just short 10 verses here, it's we're sitting inside. This dinner at Simon, the Pharisees house, and a woman known publicly only as a sinner, has shown some striking love toward Jesus, and Jesus explains her actions.
Then through this mini parable of debt, two debtors, one creditor, neither can pay. Both are freely forgiven. Love flows. Then from that forgiveness. And so there's a lot within the reform theological spectrum here that helps us to really understand. I think the essential principles of what's going on here, and I just wanna hit on some of those and chat with you about those and hopefully encourage you in those as I'm trying to encourage myself.
First, we get some sense about what sin really is like. We get a sense of the inability to cope with sin. We get the free forgiveness that's grounded in Christ, in Christ alone, and we get this idea of love and repentance as the fruit or the evidence, not the cause of justification. Now to set this whole thing up.
[00:08:50] Jesse Schwamb: I do think it's so important for us to talk about money for a second, not money, like we're gonna have a budget talk, not what you spend on groceries or your vacation, not even what you do in terms of planning for your retirement or what you give to the church in way of tithe than offering none of that.
I'm actually more interested to talk to you about money itself. One of the things I love to ask people. Especially when I was teaching students in money and finance is the question, what is money? And I bet you if you and I were hanging out across the kitchen table and I asked you, what is money? I'm guessing you would go in one or two directions.
Either you would gimme examples of money, types of money. You might talk about the US dollar or the Zimbabwean dollar, or the Euro or the Yuan. That would be correct in a way, but really that's just symptomatic of money because that's just an example or a type of some money that you might use. And of course those definitions are not ubiquitous because if I take my US dollars and I go travel to see our Scott brothers and sisters, more than likely that money.
That currency, those dollars will not be accepted in kind. There'd have to be some kind of translation because they're not acceptable in that parts of the world. That's true of most types of money. Or you might go to talking about precious metals and the price of gold or silver and how somehow these seem to be above and beyond the different types of currency or paper, currency in our communities and around our world.
And of course, you'd be right as an example of a type of money, but. Gold itself, if you press on it, is not just money, it's describing as some kind of definition of what money is. The second direction you might take is you might describe for me all the things that money is like its attributes. Well, it must be accepted generally as a form of currency.
It might must be used to discharge debt or to pay taxes, or it must have a store of value and be able to be used as a medium of exchange. And you would be correct about all of those things as well because. Probably, whether you know it or not, you're an expert in money because you have to use it in some way to transact in this lifetime.
But even those are again, just attributes. It's not what money is in its essential first principle. So this is not like an economics lecture, I promise, but I think it is something that Jesus is actually truly drawing us to, and that is the best definition of money I can give, is money is a system of credit accounts and their clearing.
It's a whole system of credit accounts and their clearing. So think of it like this, every time you need something from somebody else. Anytime you wanna buy something or you wanna sell something, what's happening there is somebody is creating a claim. So let's say that I go to the grocery store and I fill up the cart with all kinds of fruits and vegetables and meats, and I'm at the counter to check out.
What I've just done is said that I have all of these things I would like to take from the grocery store, and now the grocery store has some kind of claim because they're handing them over to me and I need a way to settle that claim. And the way that I settle that claim is using money. It is the method that allows us to settle those transactions.
And in my particular instance, it's going to be the US dollar, or maybe it's just ones and zeros electronically, of course representing US dollars. But in this case, the way I settle it is with money and a particular type of money. But, and I want you to keep this in mind 'cause we're gonna come back to it.
This is my whole setup for this whole thing. The reason why this is important is because you have to have the type of money. That will settle the debt or settle the creditor. You have to have the thing itself that the creditor demands so that you can be a hundred percent released from the claim that they have on you.
If you do not have exactly a. The type of money that they desire, then the debt will not be released. The creditor will not be satisfied. You will not go free, and that it's so critically important.
[00:12:52] Jesse Schwamb: I think it's just like this really plain backdrop to what's happening here When Jesus addresses Simon with this whole parable.
So he starts this whole idea by saying to Simon that he is something to say to him, which I think in a way is profound anyway, because Simon invites him to speak. But Jesus here is taking the initiative. Simon is the host. He socially, as it were, above this sinful woman. But Jesus becomes the true examiner of the heart in this parable.
What we have is. Christ's word interrupts self-justifying narratives, and clearly there was a self-justifying narrative going on in Simon's head. We know this because we're privy to his thoughts in the text here. The gospel does not wait here for the Pharisee to figure it out, the gospel lovingly correct.
Always goes in, always initiates, always intervenes as Christ intercedes. And here, before any accounting happens, Jesus sets the terms. God is the one who names the debt, not the debtor. And this really is probably the beating hearts, the center of gravity of this whole exchange. I love that Jesus goes to this parable.
Of a money lender, a money lender who had two debtors, one owned, 500, one owned 50. Now of course, I would argue that really, you can put this in any currency, you can translate into modern terms, you can adjust it for inflation. It doesn't really matter. What we have here is one relatively small debt, another debt 10 times the size.
So one small, one large, and that's the juxtaposition. That's the whole setup here. And I would submit to you something super important that Jesus does here, which flies in the face of a lot of kind of just general wishy-washy evangelicalism that teaches us somehow that sin is just not doing it quite right, or is just a little brokenness, or is just in some way just slightly suboptimal or missing the mark.
It is those things, but it is not the entirety of those things because what's clear here is that Jesus frames sin as debt. In other words, it's an objective liability. A liability is just simply something of value that you owe to somebody else. And I am going to presume that almost everybody within an earshot of my voice here all over the world has at some point incurred debt.
And I think there's, there's lots of great and productive reasons to incur debt. Debt itself is not pejorative. That would be a whole nother podcast. We could talk about. Maybe Tony and I sometime, but. What is true is that debt is an objective liability. The amounts differ, but both are genuinely in the red here.
And what's critical about this is that because debt is this objective reality, whenever you enter into an arrangement of debt, let's say that you borrow some money to purchase a car or home or simply to make some kind of purchase in your life, that's unsecured debt. In all of those cases, the. The one lending you the money, the creditor now has a claim on you.
What's important to understand here is that this kind of thing changes it. It provides way more color and contrast to really the effects of what sin is and what sin does in its natural accountability. And so in this way we have this nuance that there are differences in outward sin and its social consequences.
That is for sure that's how life works, but all sin is ultimately against God and makes us debtors to divine justice. That is now God has a claim against us. And this shouldn't make sense because unless we are able to satisfy that claim, all have that claim against them all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
And as a result of this, it's not just that we somehow have lived a way that is just slightly off the mark and suboptimal, but instead that we've heaped up or accumulated for ourselves an objective liability, which is truly. Owed to God and because it is truly owed him, he's the one who can only truly satisfy it.
This is why the scripture speak of God as being both just and justifier. That is a just creditor ensures that the debt is paid before it is released, and the one who is justifier is the one who pays that debt to ensure it will be released. God does both of these things through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Praise be to his name. So here we have a really true understanding. Of what sin is. There's no mincing of words here. There's a ubiquity in all of our worlds about money lending and borrowing, and Christ leans into that heavily. We know for a fact that the ancient Mesopotamians learned how to calculate interests before they figured out to put wheels on car.
And so this idea of lending and borrowing and indebtedness, this whole concept has an ancient pedigree, and Jesus leans into this. And so we have this really lovely and timeless example of drawing in the spiritual state into the very physical or financial state to help us understand truly what it means when we incur sin.
Sin is not easily discharged, and just like debt, it stands over us, has a claim on us, and we need somebody to satisfy that claim on our behalf. By the way, this gets me back to this reoccurring theme of we need the right currency, we need the right money, as it were to satisfy this debt only that which is acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
Our Lord, by the power of the Holy Spirit is what will be acceptable in payment in full for this kind of debt. And so that's again, this whole setup, it's the spiritual realm being immediately kind of dragged into this corporal reality of the balance sheet, assets and liabilities, things of value that we owe to someone else.
[00:18:50] Jesse Schwamb: Notice in Luke verse 42, that the reason why it's important to understand the full ferocity, the ferocious of sin and the weight of the debt that it incurs upon us, is that it cannot be repaid no matter what. So look at both of these borrowers. Neither could repay. Neither could repay. So think about that for a second.
It doesn't even matter how much they owed. Both were way beyond their ability. It's not merely they didn't want to, but they didn't have the resources in the spiritual state. In other words, there was no surplus righteousness to pay God back and the creditor's action here is free cancellation grace, not a negotiated settlement, but free cancellation.
So whether it was 50 or 500, it was irrelevant to the fact that these borrowers just like you and I, have nothing within our means, our wherewithal to actually satisfy the this cosmic debt that we have rightfully incurred against God. And so you should be hearing this align so closely with justification By Grace, God doesn't forgive because we eventually scraped together payment.
He forgives because he's gracious and in the full biblical picture because Christ pays and bears that penalty. So this isn't, we have somehow, as you've heard, sometimes in kinda very again, wishy-washy, evangelical ways that we've somehow come forward at the right time. To receive from God some kind of gift or that we've somehow elevated ourself to the place of the deserving poor, or that we come with our own extended arms, empty, but outstretched so that we might receive something from God, in part because we make ourselves present before him, not loved ones.
It's far better than that. It's not being able to pay and Christ saying, come and buy. Not being able to put food on the table and him saying, come and eat. It's him saying, you who are thirsty, come and drink from the fountain of life freely and unreservedly. Not because you have some way deserved it, because in fact you desperately do not.
And because God has made a way in Christ a way that we could not make for ourselves, he's paid a debt that we just could not repay. It doesn't matter what it is that you think is outstanding against you. The fact of the matter is you cannot repay it. And so of course, that's why Paul writes in Ephesians, it's by grace through faith and not by works that you've been set free in the love of the Kingdom of Christ, that all of these things have been given to you by God because he loves you and because he's made a way for you.
You may remember that when Tony and I spent some time in the Lord's Prayer. That we really settled, we sunk down into what we thought was the best translation of that portion where we come to forgiving debts and forgiving debtors, and we settled on that one because we feel it's the most accurate representation of the actual language there in the text.
But two, because that language also comports with all this other teaching of Jesus, this teaching that. Emphasizes the debt nature of sin, and that when we think about the fact that we in fact have a giant loan or a lease or an outstanding obligation, something that has been that our souls ourselves in a way have been mortgaged.
And we need a freedom that breaks that mortgage, that wants to take that paper and to satisfy the payment and then to throw it into the fire so that it's gone and no more upon us. That because of all of that, it's appropriate for us to pray that we be forgiven our debts, and that, that we, when we understand that there's been a great debt upon us, that we are willing to look at others and forgive our debtors as well.
And so you'll see that in, I'd say it looks like verse 43 here, Simon answers. Jesus question appropriately. Jesus basically pegs him with this very simple, straightforward, and probably really only one answer question, which is, which one do you think loved the creditor more? Which of these borrowers was more ecstatic, which appreciated what had been done more?
And of course he says, well, the one with the larger debt, that that seems absolutely obvious. And Jesus essentially here gets Simon to pronounce judgment and then turns that judgment into a mirror. This is brilliantly what Jesus often does with these parables, and to be honest, loved ones. I think he still is doing that today with us.
Even those of us who are familiar with these parables, they're always being turned into a mirror so that when we look into the, the text we see ourselves, but like maybe whatever the opposite of like the picture of the Dorian Gray is like, well, maybe it's the same as the picture. You know, this idea that we're seeing the ugliness of ourselves in the beauty of Christ as he's presenting the gospel in this passage.
And the issue of course here is not whether you and I or Simon can do math. It's whether Simon will accept the implication and you and I as well, that we are a debtor who cannot repay. That. That's just the reality of the situation.
[00:23:44] Jesse Schwamb: And so Jesus turns then, and this is remarkable, he turns toward the woman and he compares her actions with Simon's lack of hospitality, speaking to Simon while he stares intently at the woman.
I mean, the drama unfolding in this quick small little passage is exceptional. It's extraordinary. And unlike some of the. Other teachings that we've already looked at here, there is something where Jesus is teaching and acting at the same time. That is the scripture is giving us some direct indication of his movements, of his direction, of his attentional focus.
And here there's an attentional focus on the woman while he speaks to Simon the Pharisee. And first what we find is Jesus dignifies the woman by addressing Simon about her while looking at her. He makes the sinner central and the respectable man answerable. That's wild. And there's an angle here that still leads us back to debt, which is Simon behaves like someone who thinks that he is little debt.
So he offers little love and the woman behaves like someone who knows she's been rescued from insolvency, and so she pours out gratitude. And then there's a whole host, a little list here, a litany of things that Jesus essentially accuses Simon of directly and pulls them back into this proper understanding of the outpouring of affection.
That is a fruit of justification exemplified in the woman's behavior. For instance, Simon gave no kiss, and yet here's this woman. She has not stopped kissing Jesus' feet and then wiping her feet, washing his feet with her tears.
[00:25:19] Jesse Schwamb: Of course, in that culture, Simon withheld this ordinary honor and the woman lavish is extraordinary affection.
You know, we would often call this an reformed theology, evangelical obedience. It's the kind that flows from faith and gratitude, not a plan to earn acceptance. And this is tough for us, loved ones because we want to conflate these two. It's easy to conflate these two, and we're well-meaning sometimes when we do that.
But we have to be careful in understanding that there is an appropriate response of loving worship to one who has set you free. While at the same time understanding that that loving worship never should spill over and, and into any kind of self-proclaimed pride or meritorious earning. And this woman apparently does this so exceptionally well that Jesus calls it out, that all of this is flowing from her faith and her gratitude.
Jesus says, Simon didn't anoint his head with oil and she anoints his feet with perfume again. Notice some really interesting juxtaposition in terms of the top and the bottom of the body here. Here's this woman's costly act, underscoring a pattern, grace received, produces love expressed. I love thinking of it that way.
Grace, perceived, excuse me, grace received produces love expressed.
[00:26:39] Jesse Schwamb: That is the point that Jesus is driving to here, that if we understand the gospel and the gospel tells us that there is a law. That we have transgressed and that this law has accumulated in all of this debt that we cannot pay. And so the weight of this means not just that, oh, it's, it's so hard to have debt in our lives.
Oh, it's so annoying and inconvenient. No, instead it's oppressive. This debt itself, this grand burden is over our heads, pushing down on our necks, weighting us down in every way, and especially in the spiritual realm. And because of this, we would be without hope, unless there was one who could come and release us from this debt.
And the releasing of this debt has to be, again, an A currency acceptable to the debtor, and it has to actually be paid. There's no wiping away. There's no just amnesty for the sake of absolve. Instead, it must be satisfied. And the woman here has received this kind of extraordinary grace has acknowledged, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, through opened eyes and unstopped ears and a clean heart, has been able to understand the severity of the situation.
And then this produces in her love expressed, which again is not the means of her justification, but certainly is one of the fruit of it. And Jesus explains then the reason for her response.
[00:27:58] Jesse Schwamb: The reason why Grace received produces love expressed is because she and her many sins have been forgiven. Hence, her love is great, love the one forgiven, little forgives little.
I think sometimes that verse is often misunderstood as if. Her love caused her forgiveness. But again, we want to hear clearly from Jesus on this. The logic he gives is forgiveness, leading to love. Love is evidence or fruits. And so her love is the sign that forgiveness has already been granted and is truly possessed, not the purchase price.
And Simon's Lovelessness exposes a heart still clinging to self-righteousness, acting like a small debtor who doesn't even need mercy, like one who doesn't understand that they will never, ever be able to repay the thing that is over them. You know, I love that John Val is often quoted along the lines of something like this.
Those forgiven much will love much. And in his writing to me, he captures so much of this moral psychology of grace and I think there is a psychology of grace here. There is a reasonable response. That moves us by the power of the Holy Spirit, from deep within this renewal of the man, such that we express our love to God in all kinds of ways.
I think especially in our age, on the Lord's day, in acts of singing through worship and meditation, through worship, and listening through worship and application, through worship, all of these means in particular as our expression of what it means to have been received, having received grace, producing a loving response.
[00:29:36] Jesse Schwamb: I love that all of this ends as it draws to a close. Jesus speaks these incredible words. He tells her that her sins are forgiven. You know, notice here that Christ speaks an authoritative verdict. This is justifying speech. It's God's court declaration. It's not some like mere the therapeutic. Like reassurance here.
It's not like whistling in the dark. It's Jesus himself saying This woman has been forgiven. Blessed is the one whose sins are forgiven. And of course, like so many other times in Jesus' ministry, and I have to imagine by the way, loved ones that this question got asked all the time, and not just on the occasion in which it was a court of us in scripture, but the other guests ask the right question and that question is.
Who is this? Who even forgives sins, and that is the right question. Only God can forgive sins against God. Jesus is implicitly claiming divine authority. Now, we finally arrived. This is God's currency. This is the currency or the money, so to speak, that is desperately needed, the only one acceptable to discharge the debt, the cosmic treason that has been done against God himself.
So because of that, here's Jesus making the claim that the way that you are led out, the way that you are set free is through me. So even here in the course of just this confronting Simon speaking about sin, he's also providing the way he's saying, I am this way, I am this truth. I am this life. Come through me.
[00:31:14] Jesse Schwamb: What I find amazing about this is in the beginning. With Adam and Eve, they transgress God's law. And from that day in all days forth, we have been building this massive sin, debt that we cannot repay. And part of the, the repercussions of that debt were for Adam and Eve to be driven to be Exodus as it were, out of the garden.
And ever since then, the grand narrative of the redemptive history of God's people has been an exodus instead. Not out of what is idyllic, not out of perfection, but instead. Out of sin, out of bondage, out of sin and death and the devil and the deaths that we have incurred. And so here we have Jesus representing.
He is the, the new and better Moses, he is the exodus, so to speak, who comes and grabs us by the hand almost as in the same way that the angelic representations in the story of la. And Sonor grabbed his hand to pull him, maybe even kicking him, screaming. Out of that sinful place, into the glorious light, into safety and security out from underneath this grand debt that we cannot repay.
I think of Jesus's acal meeting with Moses and Elijah on the mounts of transfiguration. That's also in Luke, right? And Luke tells us that they spoke of his deceased, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. And the word deceased there literally means Exodus. In Jesus, God would affect an infinitely greater deliverance than he had under Moses.
And then interestingly, we see that even in all the way back in Psalm 23, you know David, he's writing as a rescue sinner who has been brought out. Brought to the Heavenly Shepherd, into the security and freedom of a sheep hold in love ones I submit to you. That is what Jesus is after here. He's after it in your life and he's after in mind that there is death, and he wants to take us out from underneath that debt by paying it off that he is the rescuer, the one who is just and justifier that he's the greater Moses, and that he leads us into Exodus.
So we are transferred into the kingdom of a light. And that kingdom of light is also a kingdom of lightness in the sense that what was once a burden on our back, like it was for Pilgrim, has now been taken off. And so we are free. In that freedom, in that financial freedom, in that spiritual freedom as it were, to use both of the sides of this metaphor.
What we find is our response is appropriately one of worship, that we weep and we cry for who we were, that we rejoice for who God is, and that we come proudly into His kingdom because of what he has done. And this changes us. It messes us up. You know, I think we've said before that. The joy of the Christian life of Christian lives is that the transformation process that God undertakes in each of us is very different, and some honestly are more dramatic than others.
But what I think is always dramatic is one, the scripture tells us that it is a miracle. That even one would be saved. So hardhearted are we, and again, so great this debt against us that when God intervenes all get what they deserve. But some get mercy. And if we have been the ones who have received mercy, how joyful ought we to be toward the one who has granted it to us?
And so here we have Christ, the the one who delivers, the one who leads out, the one who pays off, the one who pays it all.
[00:34:45] Jesse Schwamb: I think what's clear is that the cross gives us this sense when we look upon it of just how deep and dark and heavy sin is, and that there is no easy way out of it. That what we find is that sin constantly wants to drag us down.
It constantly wants to take us farther than we wanted to go, and it certainly costs us way more than we were willing to pay. So I think if we come and we behold the wood, if we behold the nails, if we look on this crown pressed into the brow that knew no guilt or disobedience, if we, not in our mind's eye, but by faith, behold, the hands that open, the blind eyes now being opened by iron.
If we see the feet. Walked toward the hurting, now fixed in place for the healing of the world. If we look at the thirst of the one who is living water and the hunger of the one who is the bread of life, we ought to see the one who here, even in this passage, is just and justifier, and he invites us to say with him, come witness the death of death in the death of Jesus Christ.
That is the glorious mission, right? As as, um, Horatio Spafford said, my sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought. My sin not in part, but the whole is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Oh my soul of ones. This is the beauty of, I think of what Jesus is, is teaching here.
It's the lamb. It's the one promise on the mountain provided in place of Isaac. It's the Passover marked with Crimson death passing over doors that were covered. Here's the suffering. Servant despised and rejected a man of sorrows. Who here is one who is truly well acquainted with grief? When we see Jesus lifted up, lifted up on the cross, lifted up between heaven and earth.
Here the instrument of exalted torment but also unexpected triumph, the perfect God man, lifted up between earth and heaven, lifted up in shame so that we might be lifted up in grace, lifted up in cursing. We might be lifted up in blessing lifted up in Forsakenness so that we might be lifted up in divine communion with God the father lifted up to be stared at as he presents himself here, so that we could finally see what sin costs and what love pays.
That is everything that he's teaching us in this passage, and I hope that you are as encouraged about this as I am because. When I think about the gospel framed in this way with the full severity of its repercussions, thinking about sin as debt objectively as a liability, that must be satisfied. My heart is instantly warmed, and I think the warming of that is not because this manufactured some kind of sentimentality around this, but there is something about this that's so resonant to me that in my professional career, in my business, I'm intimately familiar with, with debt and understanding how to manage it, but also the dangers of it.
And what a liability it truly is. And so when I hear that sin not just is like this, but is this way, it makes complete sense to me and I see that this is really the, the true way that we ought to understand, I think the gospel message.
[00:38:18] Jesse Schwamb: So here's what we should remember. Debt highlights objective guilt. I think I've said that a bunch of times and I just feel like it's, it bears repeating one last time.
Sin is not only damage, it is consequences, but it's also a liability. A creditor doesn't need to be convinced you did harm. The ledger already stands and the ledger against us is not on our side. Loved ones. We are deeply in the red, and it really doesn't matter what the balance is because we just cannot repay.
So it's really about our lack of ability, our inability, the no, we have no capability to pay this, and so it doesn't matter. We find ourselves in a place of hopelessness no matter what, and this debt highlights that inability none of these particular borrowers could repay. It's devastating to moral pride.
We lean on this in our reform theological perspective. Even our best works can't erase guilt or generate merit sufficient to square the accounts. It's impossible. It's impossible with two ways, and this is some, I think really like the beautiful nuance of what Jesus after here in the one way that we are enabled to do this.
Is because we just actually cannot earn enough. So in other words, the debt is too big. So think of the biggest number in your head that you could possibly think of, and that's at least minimally the outstanding debt. But then think about this. You don't even have the right currency. So you might find that you spend your entire lifetime working to the bone.
It's like finding out that you have a million dollar loan or lien against you, and you work hard all your life, 50, 60, 70 years. And finally, on your deathbed, you've assembled enough cash with all of your savings to put toward and finally satisfy. So you might die in peace with this $1 million free and clear from your account, and you turn over the money and the creditor says, what is this currency?
I won't accept this. I can't accept this. How debilitating. So it's not even the size of the debt. It's also that we don't have, we cannot earn the right currency. Only. God. God. I think this debt also highlights grace as cancellation. Forgiveness is not God pretending the debt doesn't exist. It is God releasing the debtor.
This is him in triumph, being the greater Moses who walks us out through the waters outside of the city into the glorious light and the broader New Testament explains how God can do that justly. The charge is dealt with through Christ. You can go check out Colossians two. Read the whole thing of Love it.
It's fantastic. I think lastly, this debt explains love, as shall we say, like a downstream effect. People love a little when they imagine that they have little needs and people love much when they were spiritually bankrupt and then freely pardoned freely in that it didn't cost you and I anything, but of course it cost our Lord and Savior everything, and so.
In this way, our hopes to frame the fact that our love should be an outpouring of gratitude, uh, for the grace that God has given us through Jesus Christ.
[00:41:28] Jesse Schwamb: Here's some things I would say that we should all walk away with to help us then both process what we've talked about here, and also put some of this into action.
First thing would be, don't measure your need by comparing debts horizontally. That's a fool's errand, whether 50 or 500. The point is we cannot pay. And this levels the Pharisee and the prostitute alike. That is like Tony talked about elsewhere in the previous Luke 15, where we're talking about the PR prodigal of the father, the prodigal of the two lost sons.
How there's like a great insult against the Pharisee there. And here's the insult, it's also a little bit cutting to us, and again, that the Pharisee and the prostitute are alike. Can't repay. It Doesn't matter what debt you think you have in the corporal sense, or again in this horizontal means, but you cannot repay it.
And so therefore, guess what? We're all like, we need to let forgiveness lead and we need to let love follow. If you reverse that order like I'll love so I can be forgiven. You crush assurance and you turn the gospel into wages and that's again exactly I think what Jesus is against in this. He's making that very clear.
The, the beauty of the gospel is this receiving that Christ has done all these things that we, uh, find ourselves by his arresting, by again, his intervening by his coming forward. He does all this on our behalf. You've heard me say before, I always like take that old phrase, what would Jesus do? That question that was on everybody's bracelets and everybody's minds and what, two decades ago?
And turn that answer into what would Jesus do? Everything And it's already done. We need to watch for Simon symptoms. That's my clever way of saying this, like low love, high judgment. A chilly heart toward Christ often signals a warm heart towards self justification. And so we wanna be about the kind of people that are closely king, clinging to Jesus Christ as all of our hope and stay that the strength for today and hope for tomorrow comes from what Christ has already accomplished on our behalf.
And therefore, there is a dutiful and meaningful and appropriate response for us. But that response again, is not obedience for merit. It is obedience out of warm heartedness for our savior. And for a sincere repentance because a sincere repentance is not payment. It's agreement with God about the debt.
Tears, don't cancel the ledger. Christ does that. Tears are what debtors do when Mercy lands, and I think in some way the challenge here is that have we really meditated on the life of this woman and then more personally on our own experiences on what it means to be saved? Well, I'm not asking you to get yourself worked up into an emotional state, but what I am asking all of us to do is.
Have we spent enough time recently meditating on what it means that Christ has set us free, that we are incredible debtors, and that Christ in our own ledger in this way hasn't just wiped out the debt, but he's filled up the account with righteousness. And so we can exchange these horrible soiled garments for garments of praise.
Now, have we thought about that recently? The call here is to be reminded. That sincere repentance is an agreement with God about the debt, and in that agreement we're sensing that weight. There should be a response.
[00:44:42] Jesse Schwamb: So I leave it to you loved ones, you've heard it here, or at least you've heard me talk for a little while about this parable.
And maybe one day, maybe there'll be an episode one day about Tony's perspective on this, which I can't imagine will be too much different. But again, I saw my opportunity, loved ones. I said, oh, I'm gonna sneak in hard on this one because this one is particularly meaningful and special to me, and I hope that even though it involved a little bit of economics and maybe a lot of finance, that it didn't lose its resonance with you.
I think this is the great weight of the way in which Jesus teaches that he's not just using practical means. But he's using these things to give greater weight and flesh, as it were, to these concepts of a spiritual nature that sometimes feel ephemeral. Instead, he wants them to sink in heaviness upon us.
And I wanna be clear that. This whole parable is both law and gospel. It is the weightiness and the sharp edge knife of the law which cuts against us. And Jesus throwing his weight around literally at this dinner party and in this parable, and you and I should feel that weight. It should knock us around a little bit.
And then. And then comes the reminder that there is good news and that good news, which is the gospel of Jesus Christ, is that he has made a way that the debt that was incurred against us, that we ourselves added to, that we continue to want to try to borrow against, that Jesus has, in fact paid that debt in full and that he's done so in the currency of his own flesh and blood and his own passive and active obedience so that it may be paid in full.
It's true what the hymn says. Jesus paid it all, all to him. I owe. So I hope loved ones that you'll be encouraged with that message that it is both law and gospel, but it ends in this high and elevated state, which is we have been made together alive with Christ for his own sake, for his glory, and for our good.
So now that you know that go out into the world and live that way, meditate on that, enjoy that. Talk about it with a family member or a brother and sister, or you can talk about it with us. You didn't think that we'd get this far without me even a plug for telegram, did you? So if you. Haven't listened to us before, or if this is your 480th time, I say welcome and also come hang, hang out with us online.
You can do that by going to your browser and putting in there. T me slash reformed brotherhood. T. Dummy slash reformed brotherhood, and that will take you to a little app called Telegram, which is just a messaging app. And we have a closed community in there, which you can preview and then become a part of.
And there's lots of lovely brothers, sisters from all over the world interacting, talking about the conversations we're having here, sharing prayer requests, sharing memes, talking about life tasting foods on video. It's really. Absolutely delightful, and I know you want to be a part of it, so come hang out.
It's one other thing you can do. If at any point you felt like this podcast, the conversations have been a blessing to you, may I ask a favor, something at least for you to consider, and that is there are all kinds of expenses to make sure that this thing keeps going on. Keeps going strong. And there are brothers and sisters who after they've satisfied their financial obligations, have said, I want to give a little bit to that.
So if you've been blessed, I'm what I can I boldly ask that you might consider that it's so many people giving so many tiny little gifts because all of these things compound for God's glory in the kingdom. And if you're interested in giving to us one time or reoccurring, here's a website for you to check out.
It's patreon.com. Reform Brotherhood, P-A-T-R-E-O n.com, reform slash reform brotherhood. Go check that out. Alright, that's it. Loved ones, you know what to do. Until next time, honor everyone. Love the brotherhood.
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In this profound exploration of Luke 15, Tony Arsenal and Jesse Schwamb complete their examination of the Parable of the Prodigal Son by focusing on the often-overlooked central figure: the father. Rather than a sentimental character, the father serves as a revelatory figure who demonstrates God's nature toward returning prodigals and resentful religious people alike. This episode challenges common misinterpretations of the parable, particularly regarding the father's running to meet his son, and explores how the parable simultaneously confronts both antinomianism and legalism. The hosts demonstrate how the father's love—not the son's repentance—is the driving force of redemption, offering vital insights into God's character and the nature of grace that should transform how we understand salvation and our relationship with the Heavenly Father.
The parable reveals that the father's compassion is active before any condition is met by the returning son. When the text says "while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion," we witness divine initiative in action. This sequence matters tremendously for our understanding of grace. The son had prepared a speech—a negotiation for hired servant status—but the father's embrace interrupts the transaction. Grace is not extracted from God by human improvement or the quality of our repentance; it flows from God's own character and will.
This theological reality guards against both presumption and despair. We cannot presume upon grace as though sin doesn't matter—the father clearly identifies the son's condition as "death" and "lostness." Yet neither can we despair that our repentance might be insufficient to move God—his love precedes and enables our return. As Ephesians 1:4-6 declares, God chose us "before the foundation of the world...according to the pleasure of His goodwill." The father's running illustrates what was true before time began: God's saving disposition originates in himself, not in us.
Much scholarship has emphasized the supposed shame of a patriarch running, suggesting this represents God's willingness to be embarrassed for our sake. However, this interpretation may miss the mark. The running should be understood as condescension—God stooping to save—rather than a violation of decorum. Throughout Scripture, God is described as "bearing Israel up as a man carries his son" (Deuteronomy 1:31) and having compassion that "grows warm" (Hosea 11:8). These are images of condescension: the infinite God making himself accessible to finite creatures.
The distinction matters because it shapes how we understand God's character. If the father's running is primarily about embarrassment, the focus remains on cost to dignity. But if it's about condescension, the focus shifts to the nature of love that bridges distance. Any parent who has seen a long-lost child return understands this instinct—you don't calculate dignity; you simply run. The father's action isn't surprising or unusual given the circumstances; what's shocking is the older brother's refusal to share in the joy. This interpretation better fits the parable's context and Jesus's purpose in telling it to the Pharisees.
Perhaps the most crucial theological correction this parable offers concerns the relationship between the Father and the Son in the economy of salvation. Some theological circles wrongly pit "the wrathful Father" against "the loving Son," as though Jesus came to change the Father's mind about sinners. This parable demolishes that error. The father's love is the initiating force of the entire narrative. Before the son returns, the father is disposed to welcome him. Before the older son rejects the celebration, the father goes out to plead with him.
This reflects the biblical pattern consistently: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son" (John 3:16)—the Father's love gives the Son. The covenant of redemption originates in the Father's love for the elect. The incarnation, atonement, and application of redemption all flow from the Father's initiative. Wrath, while real and righteous, is God's "alien work"—not foreign to him, but not his primary disposition either. The father in the parable displays nothing but gracious intention toward both sons, never manipulated into love, never coerced into mercy, but freely extending restoration because it flows from who he is.
The love of God the Father is the motivating factor that drives the whole plan of redemption...So it's God the Father's love that drives the whole plan of salvation. The whole covenant of redemption is initiated in light of the Father's love. - Tony Arsenal
The father in this archway is the keystone. He's the load-bearing character in this whole parable. He's not just a sentimental figure, he's a revelatory figure. He shows us what God is like toward returning prodigals and toward resentful older brothers. - Jesse Schwamb
The point that the parable is making is that the love of this father drives him to exert himself and close that distance...There is never a point in the parable where there's anything shown by the father except for love for his people. - Tony Arsenal
[00:00:08] Tony Arsenal: In a lot of theological circles, this takes the form of pitting the son against the father, like God, the Son against God, the Father
the son placated the father. Because the father was wrathful and angry, so Jesus had to come down and die and now the Father can love us. The reality is the love of God the father, is the motivating factor that drives the plan of redemption,
and that's the same love of the Son and the same love of the spirit. In the most famous verse in the Bible, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that's God the Father
So it's God the Father's love that drives the whole plan of salvation. The whole covenant of redemption is initiated in light of the Father's love
[00:00:53] Jesse Schwamb: Welcome to episode 479 of The Reformed Brotherhood. I'm Jesse.
[00:01:00] Tony Arsenal: And I'm Tony. And this is the podcast with ears to hear.
Hey brother.
[00:01:05] Jesse Schwamb: Hey brother.
[00:01:06] Jesse Schwamb: We've been famously in the parable of the Lost Son or The Lost Sons. Or the father. Everybody knows this. And today on this episode, we're at least gonna close out our conversation about Luke Chapter 15. And I think everybody should just imagine that this parable is like a grand stone archway that's being constructed in such a way that it has to bear its own weight.
And the father in this archway is the keystone. He's the load-bearing character in this whole parable. He's not just like a sentimental figure, he's a revelatory figure. He shows us what God is like toward returning prodigals and toward resentful older brothers. And Jesus uses this to fire up our understanding of the kingdom and the gospel, and also to fire up the scribes and the Sadducees.
So we're talking about the Father on this episode, and he's rightfully the culminating character here. He's the keystone. So we're gonna get to arch building, keytones load bearing stuff, all the engineering that you wanted us to talk about in this parable. First we, we gotta do that thing. We just gotta do it, Tony.
[00:02:16] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, we do.
[00:02:17] Jesse Schwamb: It's affirmations and denial. So are you, and your excitement is palpable. Are you affirming or are you denying against,
[00:02:24] Tony Arsenal: I'm denying something tonight? It's a little bit heavy.
[00:02:26] Tony Arsenal: Um, we haven't, and, and we don't typically wade into political discourse or what's going on in politics. Um, that's just not really our, our lane.
And that's not that there's anything wrong with shows that do, or that there's anything wrong with Christians who want to be involved in political discourse. It's just not really our thing. But, um, you know, I, I grew up in Minneapolis and I have family still in Minneapolis and I was texting with my sister the other day who, um, lives and works right in downtown Minneapolis.
And so I think, I think what I'm denying is not necessarily anything related directly to ICE or to the political positions. Um, what I see online. Is that there is a. Bifurcation. There are, there seems to be, and I think this is probably just the, like the nature of online discourse. So I don't think this is necessarily the way it is in the real world, but what I see online is there seems to be sort of progressive leaning Christians who are totally anti-ice.
This is the worst thing ever. Um, you know, nobody who's being arrested and deported deserves it and all of the ice people here, but that's one perspective. And then what I tend to see on the other side is ice is like God's righteous warriors and everyone who they scoop up it deserves it no matter what.
And they can do no wrong. And, uh. I am not making a commentary. Um, if you want to ask me directly in, in privately what I think about it, I, I'm happy to have a conversation. I'm not doing that right now. Um, I have no commentary on the legality of the, the deportations or the legality of the way they're conducting arrests.
That's just, I'm just not interested in talking about that on, on a podcast. But what I do think is challenging and what I think we need to think about as Christians is there is a real.
[00:04:24] Tony Arsenal: Human cost associated with what's going on, and there are lives, um, that are affected and there are people who are scared.
I, I think where this really hit me is I just texted my sister to, you know, to tell her that I was praying for her and, and get sort of a general check-in. And she shared with me, and I'm sure that this is not unique to her context. She shared with me that she has, uh, colleagues at, uh, her place of employment, um, who are, are American citizens born in the us, born to citizens.
Like there's no question about their citizenship. Um, and they are afraid to leave their home and afraid to go to work. Again, I'm not making any commentary on whether there's illegal things going on. I'm not even making any commentary on whether or not, um, I think it's reasonable for them to be afraid.
Um, the fact of the matter is they are afraid to to leave their homes, and some of those people are probably afraid to leave their homes because they feel like ice is going to harass them. Other people are probably afraid to leave their homes because there's a lot of violence and a lot of, uh, unrest going on.
But in, in either case, uh, I think we as Christians should look at this and see that there are a lot of hurting people who need Jesus. And there are a lot of people who are scared and there's a lot of people who are suffering real concrete arm all across the whole spectrum of this situations. So as Christians, I think we should be praying that God's will would be done and God does not delight in suffering for, you know, for suffering sake.
He doesn't delight in people being hurt or harmed or even emotionally scarred. Um. You know, we have sometimes this picture of God who's so abstract that those things he, that they don't bother him. And that's true from like a strictly theological sense, but we also have to reconcile what the scripture says and what it, what the picture it paints.
Um, at the very least, God, uh, reveals himself under the language of grieving, uh, injustice and grieving misery and grieving sorrow and suffering. So we should be a people that reflects that. Uh, although there are times when those things are necessary, both in the life of a Christian and then also as a result of sin in, we, we shouldn't be reveling in it and, and being excited about the fact that this is happening.
So I, I might get some heat for this and I guess I don't really care all that much. Um, but I think this polarized like. Every person who's scooped up by ice is, is a terrible, awful criminal. And it doesn't really matter what their story is. And then anyone who's scooped up by ice is just a total victim.
And it doesn't really matter what their story is like neither of those polls are true for most of the situations, um, to, you know, the story probably drift towards one side or another, and they're not all like right in the middle. But, um, the, the truth is that the world and life is complex and we shouldn't treat it as though it's, it's simple.
It really is not, in most cases,
[00:07:30] Jesse Schwamb: it's a good reminder that there are places that are not here. That there are people, as you said, that are experiencing a different kind of suffering and your rights. Of course, if we're to be the kind of people that even ourselves are taking on our lips that we want to follow our Lord Jesus Christ, then the example that he gives for us is to think about, to identify with.
To come alongside in prayer for those that are suffering. I think also for prayer for Christians in those communities to be strong and to exemplify the love of Christ in ways that they can. And so of course, I immediately go to Isaiah 53, and that's also about really the ubiquity of suffering in our world, but this massive desire on the part of God in an unreserved way to identify with that kind of suffering.
So in verse four, the famous verses, surely our griefs, he himself bore what? A statement, right? Yeah. Like the grief that we're talking about now, that we're not alone. The grief of those who in the midst of this kind of traumatic, uh, sorrow and our sorrows, he carried. We ourselves steamed him, stricken, smitten of God and afflicted.
But he was pierced through for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The chastising for our peace fell upon him, and by his wounds, we are healed. All of us, like sheep have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way, but Yahweh has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on him. And who doesn't have iniquity?
All of us do. So this reminder that we serve a God who can parse out and understand the suffering the best, who is both just and justifier, and what is left to us then is to submit to him, to worship him, to pray that in that great grief, that our world experiences, that he himself would draw close as he has already promised to do, and that his spirit would come with both comforts and conviction to bring all his children onto himself, even in difficult situations like this.
[00:09:22] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, yeah.
[00:09:25] Tony Arsenal: Well, on that note, Jesse, are you affirming or denying something? There's no good transition there.
[00:09:30] Jesse Schwamb: No, it, it's heavy. I hear you. And the problem is partly in our culture right now is you can't, I understand your all, all, both of our desires right now to be measured in what we say because maybe we have opinions, maybe we don't.
But the bottom line is I'm not sure that opinions even help that much in this type of situation because the complexities involved here. And all I think that's left to say is just that it's hard. And I wish there was more I could do. I, I wish this kind of thing wasn't happening. And I, I understand too.
I'm not naive enough to think that's not just happening here, but all over the world, these kind of things take place at any given day. And if, if we are so fortunate not to have to contend with them, then we are just very fortunate and we all take that as blessing. It doesn't mean that we don't have a responsibility to pray and to, I think in some ways try to identify with that suffering if only through our prayers, reminding ourselves that, like you said, we all need to save, we all do.
All of us, you and me and all those involved in this, it's absolutely necessary. It's part of what we're talking about tonight, right? We're saying like, Lord God as father, come. Come in your mercy, come quickly, come and heal. Come and restore. Come and make right. Come and judge, come in comfort. That's what we're asking the father to do.
So it's, it's heavy, but we need those kind of affirmations and denials from time to time. So I,
[00:10:43] Tony Arsenal: yeah,
[00:10:44] Jesse Schwamb: I appreciate you being willing to bring that into the chat.
[00:10:47] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.
[00:10:49] Jesse Schwamb: You want my affirmation into Yeah.
[00:10:51] Tony Arsenal: I feel like I can't, I, I mean, I'll be honest, like I, I think people might be surprised at my overall perspective on this.
And again, I'm not gonna get into it here, and, and I really am being honest when I say, like, if you wanna reach out to me privately, I'm, I'm not shy about my perspective on this. I'm happy to share it, but I think it's just heavy. And I felt the same way about this during the George Floyd riots. You know, like I grew up in Minneapolis and.
It's been a long time since I've been super familiar with Minneapolis, but, and I, like, I grew up on, on the east side of the cities, which is the St. Paul side. So even, even saying I grew up in Minneapolis is not super accurate, but there are times when I look at the news coverage and I can see I, I recognize the landmarks, I recognize, um, the street layout, and I go, I know what street that is.
And there's something, there's something heavier about watching this kind of news coverage and this kind of event when this is the place you grew up. And when, when there are people there that you know, that aren't just names, that they're people with a history, that you're part of their history and they're part of your history, right?
There's something heavy about that. And I think what's been impressed on me and maybe why I am, why I am reflective on this is. Even if those people are not a part of our history, they're part of someone's history. Right. They're, they're of
course,
that that person you saw, and, and I'll just say it like again, I'm not making commentary on the rightness or the wrongness or the justified ness or not justified of, uh, the most recent ice involved shooting.
Um, but that person had a family like that, that person that was killed was an image bearer and had a family, and he had perspectives and he had opinions, and he was a person who, um. Death is terrible. Like all of those things are true regardless of whether he made a good decision to go out that day or a foolish decision to go out that day, whether he was antagonizing ice or whether he wasn't like whatever the situation was, it's still true that he had a family who is mourning him, um, and he was an image bearer, and now that's done.
Like he's, I mean, he's still an image bearer, but like now he's gone and his, his life on earth and his history here is over. And that's a tragedy, like no matter how we slice it, that's a tragedy. And I guess I'm just really sick of people acting as though, and, and I think most people are doing this for.
Political posturing reasons. I think people who wanna paint this as though it's good versus evil and that there's only simple answers in this, they're doing it because it suits a political narrative. And I'm not even making a commentary on whether or not that's good or, or wise or bad. Like I, that that's not even the point.
But that's a lot of what's driving this. And I, I think as Christians we can be and should be political. I think we should be involved in politics in so far that God calls us to. There's nothing wrong with that. But we, we don't have the liberty to do politics the way the world does politics. If we're gonna be involved in political action, whether that's formally by seeking office or whether that's informally by.
Making commentary. We still have to be Christians while we do it. We still have to, we still have to follow God's law while we do it. And that includes both the sixth Commandment and the ninth commandment. All of those things are true. And I guess I'm just really frustrated seeing some Christians or some people who call themselves Christians.
I, the only reason I say that is not to necessarily call their salvation into question. It's people who are identifying as Christians. I just have no knowledge of, it's just random screen names on Twitter. Some of them are probably bots, right? But there are people who identify, who are identifying themselves as Christians who are.
Acting as though the death of an image bearer is not a tragedy. And, and I, I can't think of a situation even when a hardened criminal is, is executed, even when justice is served by the death of an individual, it's still a tragedy and like a cosmic sense. That's not how it was supposed to be. It's not God's design for humans to perish and to, to, you know, to cease to be like, that's, that's just not the way it's supposed to be.
So it's heavy. I do want you to save me and get us out of this. Hopefully you've got some light, fun affirmation to get us back on track, but I've just, just been weighing on me and, and I feel like, I feel like sometimes we do have a platform and we have a responsibility to use it to, to make some statements to, to force us to grapple with these things.
I mean, I not like, it's a huge platform. We have like four or 500 regular listeners. It's not like we have a big reach, but we have a reach and we think, I think that has means we have a responsibility too.
[00:15:52] Jesse Schwamb: Also, this is how you and I talk, isn't it?
[00:15:54] Tony Arsenal: It's true. That's also true.
[00:15:56] Jesse Schwamb: This, and we're being true to the fact that we talk about the things that come up, that grieve us, that hurt us, that help us to process our faith and also our struggles in the midst of that faith.
[00:16:08] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.
[00:16:08] Jesse Schwamb: To make sure that we're honoring the Lord Jesus Christ in like difficult times and difficult circumstances of which again, by some, in almost all relative comparison, it's not that difficult for us, for you and I except that we have to contend with these things. Everybody should. So I think when you bring it forward, you remind us of that.
And I, for one, I'm grateful. So in that spirit, I don't know how my. Affirmation or denial could be heavier than that. Like we would, this would take a really weird turn. If I had one that was like, well, hold on, because I wade into so, and part of maybe its lightness is I'm gonna just break the rules. I'm gonna do an affirmation in denial, which used to be the old school method, but the affirmation is like, dry by, you rarely notice it happens.
So I'm just gonna drop it real quickly. So I've spoken before about two great series by author Brandon Sanderson, who writes amazing fictions in the fantasy genre. Uh, those two are miss Born in Stormlight Archive. So in case you know him as an author and you've been living under a rock, I just wanna say in passing that Apple TV just picked up, uh, some rights to those two series and they're gonna be making movies and, uh, television series.
And I high host because it's Apple and apparently Sanderson is also going to write, produce, and consult and approve and all this stuff. So it's gonna be good. So if you're not into reading. But you've heard me talk about them before. You can just wait and if you are into reading, get super stoked. 'cause you're gonna see people like, you know, VIN and Ellen in person.
Apparently it's gonna be great. So that's news in passing. Nothing else. Say
[00:17:36] Tony Arsenal: Vin and Ellen. Like Vin Diesel and Ellen DeGeneres are starring in
[00:17:40] Jesse Schwamb: this show? No, no. Being the character in Ellen. Ellen,
[00:17:45] Tony Arsenal: you're on like a first name basis with Vin and Ellen.
[00:17:48] Jesse Schwamb: Yes. I mean, if you read, I mean, if you know, you know, if you know, you know, so you have time to read, read, miss, board, read Storm, like archive.
It's actually, there's a lot of books, but, but I'm super stoked that this is gonna happen. So that was just a, that's the drive by I, I gotta leave it there. We're gonna, I've already drawn like just sped past the house, so here's the real denial. I'm also going denial. It is lighter than yours, Tony, but I think that you'll agree with me, but I'm not entirely sure.
So we're gonna find out.
[00:18:13] Jesse Schwamb: So I think the best way I can summarize this denial is like the dislike or vitriol, that's too strong a word, but I'm denying against the, what I think is too much dislike against. The cold weather. So, so hear me out on this in lots of places of the world right now, it's cold, it's super cold, it's colder than average for many people.
And I get that that can be uncomfortable. But there's something for me where I've always found the cold to be kind of life giving. It makes you feel alive. Like you go outside, uh, to take out the trash on a cold night, you breathe in that air and yeah, maybe it burns your lungs a little bit. You look up at the clear sky.
There's something about a beauty of the cold that I don't find the same in winter. Also, you can't get comfy in the, or in the summer, rather, you can't get comfy in the summer. It just doesn't happen. So like even now in my makeshift bedroom studio, it's a nice 61 degrees. I got a sweatshirt on, like I, and I know what the temperature is in the room you're at.
It's definitely
[00:19:13] Tony Arsenal: older than 61 degrees probably.
[00:19:15] Jesse Schwamb: It's, it's around that temp probably. So I, I know that it's like easy. I think it's just like easy to pick on the cold. But I think they, you know, of course there's something that people say about like, the fire is purifying. I don't know. I always kind of think that way about the cold.
It's, it's special. And I think there's something about leaning in and appreciating it, both like the joy then and, uh, appreciating the blessing of having someplace warm to be, but also this amazing juxtaposition of just being out in temperatures that cuts you a little bit, ah, I don't know. There's something about that.
I don't get that with the, the heat, but What's that? You, have I gone too far? Am I not?
[00:19:52] Tony Arsenal: Mm-hmm. No, I think there's a sweet spot. Like, I think, I think there's a such thing as too cold. Um, you know, I think, uh,
[00:20:01] Jesse Schwamb: what, what's too cold? Fahrenheit style. Sorry. We, we can, we'll, we'll do the conversion of Celsius.
[00:20:06] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.
I'm not gonna do the conversion of Celsius. This is a America. Um, I think probably like. 15 to 20 degrees is the sweet spot. I think if you get much colder than that for me. Oh, that's, I
[00:20:19] Jesse Schwamb: thought you'd say
[00:20:20] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. I think if you get much colder than that, for me it, it becomes, and maybe this is 'cause I have kids and so like, it, it becomes a whole different game to try to get kids into the car when it's, it's colder than 15 degrees.
Um, you can get a, you know, you can get away with like rushing the kid out to the car and just wrapping the jacket around them. Something people who don't have toddlers don't realize is you can't put your toddler in the car seat in a winter jacket. So like, it gets to be cumbersome.
[00:20:49] Jesse Schwamb: Gotta do costume change.
[00:20:51] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. And I feel like, I feel like if it gets much colder than that, then the joy of being outside, I guess my, my threshold and maybe. It probably isn't a, like an a specific temperature, but when I take the dog out at night, if I feel like I have to put a jacket on to do that, that's when it's too cold. And, but I agree with you in principle that there's something refreshing about standing outside when it's crisp and cold.
Not just cool, but cold. Something about the, the, uh, the alertness of your nerves and like there's something that just like wakes you up in a really nice way, um, that you don't get in the heat. I feel like in. Converse heat. So like, I think maybe the equivalent of 15 degrees, if I was talking about when it's too hot, would be like 90, 95 degrees would feel the same, like, would be on the same end, end of the spectrum.
You don't walk out and go, ah, it's 95. Like, you walk out and you feel oppressed. You feel like it's heavy on your shoulders. It drains you of your life. Um, I feel like it's cold. There's a sweet spot. There is no sweet spot where like, it, it gets so hot that you feel great about it. So I think, I feel you in pr in principle.
I'm, I'm not sure, I guess maybe you have a, maybe there's a sweet spot for you two. Like I don't think you're, we're not talking like negative 60 degrees air temperature or something like that, but yeah, I think I'm with you.
[00:22:16] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, but I, but I am, I think talking about a little bit of like cold face slapping, if you know what I mean.
Yeah. I mean there's, there's something famously about the heats. Where you, once you get out in it, there's not much you can do if it is oppressive. Right. So, you know, if you're going out, you're exercising or just out and about. It's not like you can like strip down entirely and even then you might not be comfortable.
Right. Obviously where the cold is a little bit different. Hopefully you can prepare yourself. You can put a more clothes. I, I'm with you. I don't know what that temperature would be for me, but it's just funny around here. It's every, every kind of interaction ends with a stay warm out there. Will you? Yeah.
Like, I guess we do that in the heat as well, but I'm, sometimes I'm like, no, it's, it's okay to feel what you feel and it's nice to have, uh, the seasons of cold. I don't know if I would like living in a place where it didn't get at least a little bit once in a while, shockingly cold because there's so beautiful about that shock.
So I think 15 is fine. I'm with you. That's maybe the right for all of our like continental listeners, those out in the rest of the world that's negative nine degrees Celsius. So, you know, take that for what you will. But it's, it's okay. I guess I'm saying it's okay. We can, we can just be like, you know what, it's cold, but it might be good for us.
Does that make sense? Yeah.
[00:23:24] Tony Arsenal: I think on a, a totally different temperature related bit here, I think we should stop saying, uh, that it is 20 degrees and instead we should be, we should say, every time it's 12 degrees below the temperature at which saline freezes at sea level or whatever the, whatever the weird calculation is that makes 32 degrees freezing instead of zero degrees.
I joke about like this being America, but like the Fahrenheit scale is cr is whacked out and it's wild, crazy. It makes no sense. It's wild. It, it makes sense in the laboratory setting that it was created in, but like, it just doesn't make any sense from like a, just a logical human beings think this way.
Um, perspective. Um, but I think I'm with you. I think, I guess maybe where I'm, where my head is at is like. When it's like negative 10 degrees, and I'm not talking about windchill actually, I think negative 10 degrees air temperature when there's no wind is probably not all that uncomfortable. Like, really?
Right. Like I
agree.
I feel like I would not feel totally uncomfortable just walking out to the mail. Like I wouldn't put a jacket on to run out to the mailbox and grab the mail if it was 10 degrees below zero and there was no wind. Um, but whatever it is, like when you're at a low temperature and then you come back up a little bit, your body's like, ah, like you can tolerate that.
I feel like when it's 105 degrees and then it drops to 95 degrees, there's not that same effect where you're like,
[00:24:48] Jesse Schwamb: yes.
[00:24:49] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, yeah. Like,
[00:24:50] Jesse Schwamb: right.
[00:24:50] Tony Arsenal: That, that, my favorite part of the season, this is like super nerdy total, like Northerner Yankee talk. My favorite part of the season is that first like. We had it in January this year, but like that first period of time where it pops back up into the mid twenties mm-hmm.
And everybody is like wearing shorts and a t-shirt for like two days. Yeah.
Right.
Um, or like people are driving all with their windows rolled down on their car because it like, or that's like when you open your house to get all the like winter stale air out. Um, that's my favorite part of the season.
Maybe that's what, maybe that's what I'm talking about with you, but I think I'm with you. I think the cold is refreshing in a really kind of organic way. It wakes you up in a good way.
[00:25:30] Jesse Schwamb: I agree. I think maybe it's okay and maybe we need it. And I've thought about that a lot. Isn't it strange, but also endearing that the way that we feel, the temperature, the way that we actually experience it, is relative to the season.
Yeah. Because you know, you might have, like, if it was like 61, 62 in your house and like the dead of August, you'd be like, man. So refreshing. But in winter you're prone to say, Ooh, there's a little nip in the air, you know? And it's like, what? Same temperature. It's just that like you're oriented, all of your experience is oriented right now to your seasonal reality and circumstances.
So I think I love temperature change. So I'm, I, and I also would say maybe it's just growing up in New England, I much prefer the cold than the heat. I mean,
[00:26:10] Tony Arsenal: yeah,
[00:26:10] Jesse Schwamb: oppressive heat where it feels like you're inside a dog's mouth to me is in no way preferable or has hegemony over going outside in the the minus 10.
So,
[00:26:21] Tony Arsenal: yeah, I
[00:26:22] Jesse Schwamb: agree. Enjoy it. Loved ones. Wherever you're at it, just enjoy it.
[00:26:26] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. I, I also think, um, it's funny how you talk about temperature being relative or exp experience of temperature being relative because, you know, we're, it's winter we're trying to save money. Like fuel oils is crazy expensive in New England and
Right.
Um, all of the fuel oil in this area comes from Canada. So there's all the tariff stuff going on. And so I'm trying to keep my, you know, trying to keep our thermostat down. And so I have it set to like 63 at night, which is lower than I, I think I would've set it in the past. And I remember like the other day, I was up in the middle of the night with one of the kids and I was like, oh man, it's so cold in here.
And I looked at the, the thermostat and I was like, wait a second. Like, I set my air conditioner to 63 in the summer,
right.
And I keep my room that, like, I keep our bedroom that cool, right? It's a small bedroom. We have a nice air conditioner, so we keep that a room that cool. But in the winter that feels cold and I'm trying to turn up the heat.
There's, there's something theological there too. Something about not being satisfied. Maybe there's like a, there's a, an argument. For dissatisfaction, like CS Lewis style, there's an argument that because we can never be comfortable with the temperature, there must therefore be a heaven where temperatures is perfect or something like that.
[00:27:35] Jesse Schwamb: I actually that's, that's pretty good. That's better than I always could come up with. I was gonna go the direction of like the rare jewel cont contentment, like, there
[00:27:42] Tony Arsenal: you go.
[00:27:42] Jesse Schwamb: Puritan style. Obviously that's the best segment We're gonna get into our conclusion of yes, chapter 15 and this rice baked parable of lostness.
[00:27:54] Jesse Schwamb: And we're, we're gonna talk about the father, so I'm just gonna take us right there. Ready? Everybody. We're speeding ahead. We're just gonna go right to verse 18 because I think it's good for us to put in our ears again just the end of this parable so we can see and hear this interaction of the father with his two sons.
And I'm gonna advance us to the point where the first son has gone away. He squandered all his living, he comes to himself and so then he has this little conversation while he's, uh, you know, presumably with the pigs looking at the pods that they eat, that he wishes he could as well. He says, I'll rise up and go to my father and I'll say to him, father, I've sinned against heaven and before you, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.
Make me as one of your hired. So he rose up and he came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, father, I've sinned against heaven and before you, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.
But the father said to his slaves, quickly bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet and bring the fat in calf and slaughter it and let us eat and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and has come to life again. He was lost and he's been found and then began to celebrate.
Now, his older son was in the field and when he came and approached the house, he heard music at dancing and summoning one of the servants. He began inquiring what these things could be, and he said to him, your brother has come and your father has killed the fatten calf because he has received him back safe in sound.
But he became angry and was not wanting to go in, and his father came out and began pleading with him. He answered and said to his father, look, for so many years I've been serving you and never have I neglected a command of yours. And yet never have you given me a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends.
But when this son of yours came who has devoured your wealth with prostitutes, you killed the fat and calf for him. And he said to him, child, you are always with me. And all that is mine is yours. But what we had to celebrate and rejoice for this brother of yours was dead and is alive and was lost and has been found.
[00:29:58] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, I think it's important, you know, we're kind of gonna jump in here and really focus on the father and we made, we made the point last week that this. This parable really probably is about the older son. Like the punchline of this parable is about the older son because it's a parable that's told in response to the Pharisees to shame them for acting like the older brother.
So even though the, the rest of the parable exists that the main point of the parable is probably found in. This lack of rejoicing over the lost brother who was, uh, found. And that lines up with the main point of the other two parables in this sort of triplet of parables is the rejoicing element, right?
There's the, there's the, the shepherd who rejoices when he finds his lost sheep, the angels in heaven that rejoice, you know, they're not part of the parable, but it's explained that the angels will rejoice. And then this woman who rejoices over her lost coin and invites all her friends over to do the same.
Um, the flip side of this, yes, the parable has a lot to say about how. The father rejoices how he throws this big feast, but the, the, the punchline of this parable is that the older son refused to come in. And so it's, it's painting this picture of like, there's these two parables where the only logical answer is to rejoice, and then there's this parable where it seems like, yeah, the only logical answer is to rejoice.
And then there's this totally irrational, insane reaction of the, the older brother to not rejoice, but all of that said. That only functions like that. Punchline only works if you also understand the setup. I don't know if you've ever had this, this happen, Jesse, where you're, you're trying to tell a story that has kind of a funny punchline or you're, you're telling a sort of a narrative joke and either you miss something in the setup or the, the person doesn't get something in the setup and so the joke just doesn't land, or the story just doesn't have the, the impact it's supposed to.
And I think like that's kind of where we're at on this is, yes, we've talked about the punchline and that is the punchline, but we can't fully understand the impact. The insanity of the older brother's response.
[00:32:12] Jesse Schwamb: Right.
[00:32:12] Tony Arsenal: Um, if we don't understand the, just the grace that the father shows both to the younger son, which we've talked a lot about, and to the older son, which we've also talked a lot about, but understanding the nature of the father beyond just like his response, I think is, is really vital.
And that's where we're gonna go tonight.
[00:32:29] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. I think that's really good setup. It, there's this posture of the father, this watchful mercy, which is for both of his children, for the son, that's away. Also for the son that's at home, he notices them both, one coming, one missing. And so I find it interesting that, like you said, the father's compassion is described even before the first son finishes his rehearsed confession.
And it's clear that we're seeing that God's mercy is, is not hired by repentance.
[00:32:56] Jesse Schwamb: Repentance is like this appointed pathway by which mercy is received and it's extended to both of the children in a way. And so in the first, the father's seeing and running really portrays clearly for us that divine initiative, not that the son is contributing some kind of merit, but that the father's already disposed to welcome.
The returning sinner, and he is already disposed to welcome his angry older son into the fray. It's almost a warning as if to say, you know, similar maybe to what Cain receives, like sin is crouching at the door, a desires to master over you. Don't go this way. Don't do this thing. Come and enjoy, come and celebrate.
But you're right, the whole setup is in the father's posture. And then of course, like coheres with that wider biblical portrait of God's fatherly compassion, that he's a father that shows compassion to his children, that the ones he loves, he shows, or the ones that love him. Rather, he shows grace and blessing and mercy to a thousand generations while only punishing the next several contiguous generations that he's a loved us with an everlasting kind of lavish love.
So there's this emphasis right from the beginning, which I think is setting up that punchline that the father's compassion is free. It's prior, it's rooted in God's character, not in the sinner's performance here and, and they're both sinners. That's clear. So you're right. It, it's almost like maybe we should see it coming.
Yeah, maybe they should have seen it coming. But that is all necessary to get to the end result where you get the like, you know, big kind of gotcha moment.
[00:34:18] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. And I think too, um. We rightfully look at the response of the father to the younger son's return, um, as sort of like the locust classicist of the father's character here, right.
The, the, the seminal moment in this, this interaction. But we, we, um, and we're even doing this tonight, right? We started at verse 18, but we start to see glimpses of the father's character earlier in the parable.
[00:34:44] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.
[00:34:45] Tony Arsenal: Right? Of course.
[00:34:45] Tony Arsenal: So first of all, the parable is, is, um, the punchline of the parable is about the older son and the older son's response.
But the parable starts out saying there was a man. The man is not one of the sons. There was a man who had two sons.
[00:34:59] Jesse Schwamb: Right?
[00:34:59] Tony Arsenal: So this is a parable that starts by describing this father as one who had two sons.
[00:35:04] Tony Arsenal: And then we see in the response of the father to this, this younger son's request already, there's an act of grace.
Right. And you know, we've kind of made this comment that there's, this is sort of like a, a lesson in systematic theology, um, in soteriology baked into this parable. But like the fact that the father doesn't reject the son's request to divide up the inheritance early. Um, I I, I've read a lot of commentaries on this that would say like the request of the son was so audacious and disrespectful, that like in Israel, it would've been appropriate for this father to bring him up basically on like capital charges and have him executed, right?
Like, like Leviticus style and. I don't know whether that's all true or not. Like there's a lot of speculation that has to happen with those kinds of cultural, um, extrapolations. But in either case, this father would've been well within his rights. Um, and again, like we've, we've made the point, like this isn't necessarily a lesson in great parenting.
Um, but the father would've been well within his rights to laugh the sun out of his room and be like, of course I'm not dividing up your inheritance. Like, I'm still living, I still need this to live on. Uh, but he doesn't, he grants the request and, and this is a little bit of speculation, I think, but what motivation would there be to grant this request other than loving his son and not wanting to have this relational disruption?
Right. This father.
[00:36:36] Tony Arsenal: Starts off this parable by granting this son's request at, at great cost to himself, right? We've, we've mentioned it in the inheritance laws. Um, the older son gets two thirds of the estate, and so the younger son or the older son gets a double portion. So if we assume that there are only two sons, which it says he had two sons, we, we don't have any reason to think there's more in view, then the younger son is leaving with a full third of this, of this man's estate, um, and has to be a third of the estate that he can take with him.
So whatever he's granted in this request to, to give him his property, he's taking all, you know, at least a third of this man's liquid assets, probably more than a third of his liquid assets. Um, with him, that's a huge, huge amount of, uh, of your own personal, uh, assets that go with you that he, and he just does it.
He just does it. And I think this paints a picture for us of.
[00:37:36] Tony Arsenal: Again, we have to be theologically careful. God does not suffer loss when we depart from him. Right? It doesn't affect God in a, in a absolute proper sense when sinners, you know, are, are distant from him. Um, but there is a reality that this father in the parable grants his son's request a foolish request, right?
And I think he probably understood it was a foolish request. He grants him this request at great cost to himself. And how often do we depart from our father at great, great cost? I'm doing air quotes. If you're not watching this on the video, A great cost to our Heavenly Father in that we now breach communion with him.
Or if we're not, if we're not, uh, regener Christians and we persist in our sin, like the, his image is marred. His image is marred in creation. Uh, he, his glory is not proclaimed by an image bearer that still has the same chief end that all the rest of us do, which is to glorify God and, and enjoy him forever.
There's a, there's a, um, an accommodated language analog loss that the father suffers when that happens. That's a picture of what's going on in this parable as well.
[00:38:54] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, I think that that's absolutely right on. I mean, there's, there's like, you're, you're drawing us something back to this. Juxtaposition between this kind of open, gratuitous rebellion of the first son without like us appropriate appreciating the more like subtle rebellion that's equally sinful of the second.
[00:39:13] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. And
[00:39:14] Jesse Schwamb: that's a problem. And, and that's really what's God is addressing in here. He c he comes for both. The father comes for both in his own way.
[00:39:22] Jesse Schwamb: Can we, since we're talking about the father, can we talk about a pet peeve of mine? I have with some interpretation of this? Yeah. And you can tell me whether you agree, disagree.
Okay. So
[00:39:30] Tony Arsenal: it's peeve all the pets.
[00:39:31] Jesse Schwamb: It's, it's so, it's, it's um, it's about the running. Yeah. There's a lot written about the running and I think a lot of it is good. Some of it might be like going too far, but I understand. Let's just put out there, we can all agree that in that culture, a dignified patriarch running is like socially beneath him.
I get all that right. What I find though interesting is I see a difference here in how we describe it. There's some, I think that would describe that as like undignified, right? I, I don't see it this way. It's not like David's style. Like, I'll become even more undignified than this. I will, you know, tie up my robe and I'll go running and I'll embarrass myself or my son.
What I think we ought to understand, or at least is I'm interpreting it, is a difference between like condescension and not decorum. So in this parable, uh, I don't think this is embarrassment. It is a condescending love. It's God's willingness to cross the distance that our sin has created and that that fits.
We know that I think we should pull in all the, all the Old Testament where God is, we're repeatedly describing as kind of like stooping to save. Whether that's he's boring Israel up as a man, carries his son, or God's compassion grows warm like from Hosea. But I don't see this as in decorum. I see it as condescension and I, I think that's worth mentioning.
[00:40:45] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. I'm with you. I think, I think whether it's this or. There are other parables where this happens, where like people extrapolate, and I guess maybe I did this just now just a little bit, so I'm not like bashing on people too much, but I think we can make way too much out of a, out of a, um, somewhat speculative point.
Sure. Like, like I, like I said, like, do we know for sure that this, uh, this request to divide the inheritance would've been a capital offense,
right?
I, I, I don't think so. Do we have a record of a child asking to have their inheritance early and then being put to I, I don't think so. None of the commentaries that I've read point to an actual account of that happening.
And I think this is probably like the same thing. Like, yeah, I guess like the head of a family and like, yes. All of the commentaries that I've read that make this point talk about how like you'd have to gird your loins and like
[00:41:43] Jesse Schwamb: Yep.
[00:41:43] Tony Arsenal: Like you, there's almost like a level of exposure, of course that happens when you have to do that, like,
[00:41:47] Jesse Schwamb: right.
[00:41:48] Tony Arsenal: Okay. But I, I think I'm with you that even if that's in play here, it's not, it's not really a point that the parable is making.
Right.
The point that the parable is making is that the love of this father drives him to exert himself and close that distance. Whether that's a condescension, like we might talk about it theologically, um, or whether it is a sort of like a self self-abasement or a self-effacement.
Um, I don't know, but I also don't know that it matters that much. That's not really the point. And I think, um. When I think about this as a dad, um, this makes so much sense to me too. Like my, um, my kid does something that is obnoxious and is so frustrating and I'm so angry. And then sometimes he looks at me and he goes, daddy, I'm sorry.
And it's all gone. Like, it's all gone in a second. Like, it, it really is most of the time. Like, and there is something about this that I have such, I guess, let me put it this way. I have such a tough time thinking that being a dad has emotionally changed so much in the last 2000 years that the, the, the, um.
Natural instincts of fatherhood that God gives us are so different now that any father would not run to their child who is returning like this man. I think when he says at, when it's said at the end that your brother who was dead is now alive, like I don't think that that is an exaggeration.
[00:43:28] Jesse Schwamb: Right?
[00:43:29] Tony Arsenal: I think the assumption made in this family, in the context of this parable is that when this son left, they were never gonna see him again because this was a foolish decision.
Right. They knew what he was gonna do with the money. They knew he was gonna run out of the money. And in the, in the ancient world, when you're in a far country and you've got no money. You don't have a lot of prospects, even the men in the world, you know, all, all that's made about like the social difficulties of, uh, widowed and orphaned women in the ancient world.
Like yeah. But like a, a single dude out in some far country in the middle of a famine with no family support structure is gonna starve to death.
Right. So
I think, I think when I see this interpretations that make this running movement towards the sun to be somehow unexpected or unusual or something along those lines, um, they don't resonate with me.
[00:44:25] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, me neither.
[00:44:26] Tony Arsenal: I don't know that they really have ever have resonated with me, but. They just don't resonate with me. And I think this sort of like he com he committed this action. That's sort of semi shameful.
[00:44:38] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.
[00:44:38] Tony Arsenal: Right. That's almost like, right. I just don't, I just don't buy it. That doesn't seem like the shocking part of the parables usually have kind of a shocking element to them.
This does not seem like the shocking element to me.
[00:44:49] Jesse Schwamb: I, I agree. And if we take this and say, well he's done something really embarrassing and that's what shows the love. 'cause he's. He's so degraded himself. Then what are we really saying about God? If he's meant to be even in an emblematic way, a representation of God, like that's problematic.
I think though I'm with you in tracking with what you're saying though I don't have children myself. I'm just considering if you could put yourself in the place of that father, or just imagine yourself, like you're out carrying groceries in one day and at the end of your driveway you see a person you never thought you'd see again, or a friend you haven't seen in so long, or somebody in broken relationship that you really thought you'd never see.
I, I'm guessing what would happen is. You would just turn on your heels, get on your getaway sticks and you would run toward them. You, you went in that moment think like, uh, this is gonna be embarrassing, but the embarrassment is worth it. You would just go, you drop the groceries, you'd let the milk sit there, you would just take off.
[00:45:44] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, and that's what shows this love. It is like a condescension to just move and to go because like you said, to your point, if he anticipated that his son might have been gone from this world, then I'm not sure if he was sitting by the window every day just kind of melancholy looking out, you know, with his hand resting on or his head resting on his, his hand, but still was probably doing something and turned and saw him and just went, and that was it.
And it was a reaction born out of the purest kind of love and condescension that would just go. I think then that's what flows into this whole response of like the kiss and the reconciliation before negotiation. You know, the son expects to bargain. Just make me like one of your Hy servants. But the fathers embrace, like interrupts the whole process.
And of course he just keeps showing us that this reconciliation for both the older and the younger son, it's not a wage for both of them. It's not a wage, it's a gift. And the father, what I find really interesting in both of their cases, he doesn't deny the sin like you're saying. He says, this son of mine was dead, which I think is both literal and figurative.
[00:46:44] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.
[00:46:44] Jesse Schwamb: The sense that he was, he was like cast outside. He, he was outside of himself, outside of the family, outside of the kingdom. But what he does deny is the son's proposed status. Downgrade. Yeah. You know, grace always restores sonship and so I, I think the parable here is resisting like two errors at once that you and I have talked about a lot, which would be kind of this like weird, like lukewarm omi and sentimental sentimentality.
Like sin doesn't matter, right. People like do what you want. It's all good. The father calls it death and lostness. Yeah. And
[00:47:15] Tony Arsenal: you
[00:47:15] Jesse Schwamb: kind of compare that against like legalism, like, well you have to earn your way back. It's good enough to, you know, have grace and mercy, but you have to do something to, to accept it.
You have to elevate yourself to the place deserving poor. You have to come forward with empty hands. The father restores before the son can even offer terms.
[00:47:32] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.
[00:47:32] Jesse Schwamb: So in both ways, the father is going out in one way. There's damage that's already been done through the youngest son, but in the other way I see it for the oldest son, the father's basically saying, don't do this, please don't do this.
And what I think is the most telling in that way. Is at the very end of this chapter in the we, the last phrase that we have, the father says, but we had to celebrate and rejoice not, but I not, but like me and the family, like he pulls him in inclusively already and says, you ought to be celebrating. Which of course is that?
Like we rock hard, sharp witted, like fiery tongue that's coming against the scribes in the Pharisees. But the father is condescending. He's not embarrassed by any of this.
[00:48:15] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.
[00:48:15] Jesse Schwamb: He's, he's condescending and proud, I think, to show his love. And again, I think any of one of us would get on our getaway sticks and run.
And like you're saying, that is just the shadow, that's the argument from the lesser to the greater. So how much more, again, do we see this father pushing us against antinomian behavior and also against legalism? It's all right there for us.
[00:48:34] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.
[00:48:34] Tony Arsenal: And you know what, I think too, maybe to just put a, an exclamation point on this whole little train of thought we have here.
Um, the father is not like. I think these, these interpretations that have this running out and embracing him to be some really unexpected, unusual semis shameful act. Mm-hmm. I think they just miss some of like the immediate context. Right. So the father arises, uh, well, the son was still a long way off. His father saw and felt compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed to him.
The son said, father, I have sinned against you before heaven and earth, and I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. The father said to his servants. Right. They didn't walk back to the village. They didn't walk back to the house. The, the picture is that like the servants ran right after the father, like right.
Everybody recognizes that this son is back and is alive when, when the, the son, the older son is coming in from the field. It's not the father that he asks what happened? The, the servant says, your brothers come home. He's been received back safe and, and sound. Everybody is celebrating. And it's not just that the servants are happy to have a free meal and, and a, you know, a better, some, some dancing and some wine like everybody is celebrating.
And so this idea that like the celebration, the running to the embracing element of this is somehow unusual. That totally contradicts the fact that the, the older son's, um, the older son's response is the only, is like, that's the insane response in the parable,
[00:50:08] Jesse Schwamb: right? Preach.
[00:50:08] Tony Arsenal: Right. The, the, the sane expected response that everybody has is overjoyed.
Um, just, uh, elation that this, this lost son has come home except this boneheaded older brother who refuses to come in and celebrate. So I think that, and, you know, we could even talk about the context of the father, like the fathers created this household with, with also with these servants where they're excited, they're happy, right?
And like, let's not put too fine a point on it. If these are slaves, which we have no reason to think, they're not like slavery was a reality in the ancient world. These are slaves. Their livelihood and their existence depends on the, the livelihood and existence of this, this father of this landowner, he gives away a third of it.
Their, their meals are getting leaner too. So they have every reason to be frustrated and angry with this older son as well, but they're not how, how amazing of a context of a family, of a household has this father created where even the servants who are there. Are rejoicing over the return of this son.
Right? The one person who doesn't rejoice, the one person who we're, we should be surprised is not excited, is the older son. And I think that in itself says a lot about this father and the other. The other point I wanted to make is there is an element, um, of. Almost like the older son's response. You know, I just talked about how that's the insane response.
It's almost like the father is surprised by it, right? And he goes out and he's like, what do you mean you're not exci? Like he's, he is, he's shock, sort of shocked that this son is not willing to come in and, and rejoice. And it, it's almost like it catches him off guard when his, his older son says, you've never even given me a young goat,
right?
Because he's like, what are you talking about? Everything I have is yours. Like, it, like it doesn't even register with him that he had to offer that a, a young goat like you, it's almost like you didn't even even have to ask. Like you didn't even have to ask, it's already yours. You wanted a young goat to have a party with your friends, like, the flock is yours.
Just take the young goat. There's this sense of, of sadness and surprise and. Um, betrayal almost in the words of the father of, I'm always with you. You are always with me, and all that's mine is yours. What do you mean you're not going to celebrate? Because all that's mine is yours, including this son who's come back.
He's also yours, and you're not willing to celebrate. So I think there's so much in this parable about God's nature too. We often, um. We often treat God as though he sort of grudgingly saved us. And I think in a lot of theological circles, this takes, takes the form of kind of like pitting the son against the father, like the, the God, the Son against God, the Father in, in the idea that like.
The son placated the father. And so like, because the father was wrathful and angry, and so Jesus had to come down and die and, and now the Father can love us. The reality is that the, the love of the Father, the love of God the father, um, is the motivating factor that, that drives the plan of redemption, right?
And that's the same love of the Son and the same love of the spirit. But in, in the most famous verse in the Bible, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that's God the Father it's talking about,
right?
So it's, it's God the Father's love that drives the whole plan of salvation. The whole covenant of redemption is initiated in light of the Father's love for, for the elect.
Um, it's not as though he was some frustrated, angry deity and his son somehow got the better of him and placated him. And that's exactly what we see in this parable. There is never a point in the parable where there's anything shown by the father except for love for his people. Including the servants. I mean, in a, in a real sense, the celebration is not like, all right, servants, get outta here.
I'm gonna have a fatted calf with my son who's come back.
Right.
The celebration is for the whole household. So this tells us so much about God's nature. Once that old, old quote, the par the puritans say is, you know, wrath is God's alien work. Yes. Right. It's, it's not to say that wrath is somehow outside of God or it, it's, it's contrary to God, but it, it is his alien work.
It's his work, but it's work that is sort of opposed to his natural inclination. I mean, that's a really risky way to talk about it, but it's sort of like. It's alien to God in a sense because it's alien to God's intention for the world, right? God's intention was, and again, it's so hard to even talk about this stuff, so I'm just gonna say people, we got 480 episodes of us, you
know,
us being really precise technical theology of, of impassability and inseparable operations.
Like just right. Hear this in that context, it, it is God's intention. It was God's intention, right? It was not the way it was supposed to be that Adam fell. God knew it was gonna happen. It was part of his decree, it as part of his plan, but it also was not the way it was supposed to be. And I know those two statements are co decree, but I think you guys understand what I'm getting at because humans fell and that was not the way they were intended to be.
God's wrath towards sin, which was never intended, is alien to his. Sort of inclinations. Again, it's really hard to talk about this stuff.
No,
but the father in this parable has no wrath to speak of, right? Like that's the, that's the crazy part about this parable. He has no wrath to speak of. He shows no wrath to the older son.
He shows no wrath to the younger son. He has nothing but gracious disposition and an intention to redeem and rescue his children. And that's amazing,
[00:55:59] Jesse Schwamb: right? It's not like wrath is foreign to God. I agree with you. I think what you said I think was fine because this is something we hold intention it, but we're all saying that it is like alien to his primary disposition.
It's not foreign to him. So like you said, the father is going out everywhere. It's all act of volitional love. He goes out to the younger, goes out to the elder. And in the, you know, former, the father's purpose is not only to just restore the prodigals, but also to unmasks the elder brothers slavery to wages, status, resentment.
And it's a good reminder for all of us that legalism is now obedience. Right? It's a different kind of lostness. But the great encouragement is in both of those lostness, is that Jesus comes running, he comes out, he comes to restore. He comes in mercy first. Just say, come it back into the kingdom. And that lostness of self-righteousness and distance from the father's heart is equally saveable.
Though it might look like it's some kind of respectable rebellion. It's not. And the point here, I, I think again, like when he gets to Jesus telling the story again, we gotta remember He's telling it when he says like, we had to celebrate. I wonder if he's looking in the eyes of the scribes of Pharisees because he basically, like we, all of us had to celebrate.
Are you not celebrating? Now, all I can think of is like gladiator when he is like, are you not entertained? Do you know what I mean? Like, are you, are we not celebrating, you know, what's happening here in the kingdom of God where sinners are being restored, where the down and out, the downtrodden and the marginalized and the priors are coming back in and finding relief and restoration and redemption.
Are we not celebrating? I think that's like the high calling, the exalted finale of this whole part of Luke 15. And there is an emphasis, especially in reform theology, which is right. Everything you just said. God's saving disposition is grounded in God's own will and love. It's not extracted some from kind of like human improvement or point of view or perspective, and that matters for Luke 15 because the parable can always be misread as God loves you once you come back.
Right. The father's running corrects this. He's going out to the elder son corrects us in this. Let me just read from Ephesians chapter one starting at verse four. Just as God chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we would be wholly and blameless before him in love by predestining us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, to himself according to the pleasure of His goodwill, to the praise and the glory of His grace, which he graciously bestowed on us in the beloved.
That's it.
[00:58:34] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I I don't think there's anything better to say than that. This is, um. It's funny, we could continue. I mean, we make this joke all the time, but it's not even a joke here. Like, we could continue to talk about this parable for many more weeks.
[00:58:51] Tony Arsenal: We're not going to, I know like some people get a little bit of, uh, fatigue when we're going really deep diving in this, and I get that.
Um, but, but there's so much here to unpack. So we are gonna keep marching through the parables. We're not totally done with this little trio of parables. Because if, if you remember, I don't even remember when it was, if you remember way back, like four months ago, three months ago, we were working our way through Matthew.
We hadn't even got out of the first chapter of parables in Matthew,
right
when we had to jump over to Luke because of the way that it, it worked out. But Matthew uses these parables, not the parable of the, of the, um, father son, you know, whatever. Not this parable, but the parable of the lost sheep and the coins he uses.
For a different reason. So we're gonna come back to those a little bit. We're gonna talk about that a little bit next week. Um, and, and then we're gonna keep plugging along so you're not so far into this series that if you missed, if this is your first episode and you want to go back and catch up, um, you can do that.
There's not a huge, huge, huge amount of episodes, um, you know, set aside a work week worth of hours to, to go and listen to it. Um, you can trim that down if you can listen to a couple, couple times speed. Um, but we got a long way to go, so jump in with us. Grab your commentaries Next week we're gonna be back in Matthew 13, I think it was.
Um, we're gonna be talking about the lost, the lost sheep and the lost coin and why it is that Matthew positions it differently than Luke does. So I'm excited about that. This is actually something that's been bubbling up in my head for a long time, so I'm excited to get it out. Then we're gonna keep plugging along in the parables.
We're gonna keep going primarily in Matthew, but we'll jump in in other places when it's appropriate. Uh, and we're gonna keep going until we finish 'em all. It's like, it's like the Pokemon version of podcasting. You gotta catch 'em all and, and it's the parables instead of, you know, little Pokemon creatures.
[01:00:49] Jesse Schwamb: Catch 'em all. I'm not trying to be that guy honest, but just in case people are attracted with us. 'cause we, we don't want the commentary. It's Matthew 18. This will be. 18, I mean, the eight and the three look pretty close. So I, I think they're right on. Remember everybody's, I, I'm just picturing now like this is a game show.
You know, like game shows sometimes have that like al like there's a question up some point in the game show. I think everybody's gonna remember that. The question like, does it parallel? So we're gonna be going to not just like one version of this, but the different versions and the reason why I think we've been like pretty dutiful trying to set up what we think is like a groundwork by deliberately choosing one of the gospels to like kind of center us.
And then we're gonna be going around that because Matthew 18, while it is the same parallel like you and I were just talking about before we started recording, it does have some different perspective for us to take away from it. Yes. And so this is the beauty. We really can't get to the fun of the parallelism.
Like it's, it's no fun or it's not quite as good or effective to like do them side by side in real time. It's much better I think for us to sink in. A process and then to say like, okay, we just went through a lot of the great beautiful details here. What is this other version of the same thing? Tell us, or what are we picking up that even in, in its like perspective or approach that was slightly different from the first version that we looked at.
Yeah, that's the whole joy. So don't, don't like skip the next one. It's not gonna be the same conversation. It's actually gonna be a remarkably different conversation. And speaking of conversation.
[01:02:12] Jesse Schwamb: Tony people want to get in touch with you or they wanna get in touch with me if they wanna talk about what's going around in the world or converse us about the, the theology that we're speaking of here.
If you're new to reform theology and you think, you know, I might have to talk to somebody about that, uh, that we're not experts and not your pastor, what you should do is what, how can you find us?
[01:02:30] Tony Arsenal: You can join our telegram chat. Uh, we have a little corner of the internet that we've carved out. Uh, there's lots of great Christians in there, reform brothers and sisters, so it's not even just like, come talk to Jesse and Tony.
There's a whole group of people that love the Lord and love reform theology. Uh, you can go to, uh, t.me, the letter t.me/reformed brotherhood, and that will point you either to download a little app to use, or if you already have Telegram, which is the messaging app we use, it'll jump you right in there. Um, there's lots of prayer requests going on.
Um, conversations about books, people are reading. Um, you know, today there was a conversation about whether or not the first, uh, the things leading up to the eating of the forbidden fruit were, were actually thin, or whether they were some other category of, uh, sort of like moral neglect. Um, which was, is an interesting, you know, sort of theological conversation.
Um, but most of all, like it's just a place for us to, to. Fellowship with each other. It's not a replacement for your church. It can never be a replacement for your church, but it is a place where you can have some good, genuine, um, fellowship and some good fun times with other people who love the Lord.
[01:03:41] Jesse Schwamb: I love it.
So come hang out with us and if you don't, you can always come back here because as until the Lord comes, if he tarries another week, we will be back here talking about Matthew 18 and lostness all over again because there's some new stuff in there for us to explore and enjoy. So until next time, if you got it, go out in the cold.
And while you're there, honor everyone,
[01:04:05] Tony Arsenal: love that brotherhood.
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In this episode of The Reformed Brotherhood, Tony and Jesse continue their deep dive into the Parable of the Prodigal Son by examining the often-overlooked character of the elder brother. While the younger son's rebellion is obvious, the elder brother's self-righteous moralism represents a more subtle—and perhaps more dangerous—form of lostness. Through careful exegesis of Luke 15:25-32, the hosts explore how religious performance, resentment of grace, and merit-based thinking can keep us far from the Father's heart even while we remain close to the Father's house. This conversation challenges listeners to examine their own hearts for traces of elder brother theology and calls us to celebrate the scandalous grace that restores sinners to sonship.
The genius of Jesus' parable is that it exposes a form of lostness that religious people rarely recognize in themselves. The elder brother never left home, never squandered his inheritance, and never violated explicit commands. Yet his response to his brother's restoration reveals a heart fundamentally opposed to the father's character. His complaint—"I have served you all these years and never disobeyed your command"—demonstrates that he viewed his relationship with the father transactionally, as an employer-employee arrangement rather than a father-son bond. This is the essence of legalism: performing religious duties while remaining distant from God's heart. The tragedy is that the elder brother stood within reach of everything the father had to offer yet experienced none of the joy, fellowship, or security of sonship. This form of lostness is particularly dangerous because it wears the mask of righteousness and often goes undetected until grace is extended to someone we deem less deserving.
Just as the father ran to meet the returning younger son, he also went out to plead with the elder brother to come into the feast. This detail is theologically significant: God pursues both the openly rebellious and the self-righteous with the same gracious initiative. The father's response to the elder brother's complaint is not harsh correction but tender invitation: "Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours." This reveals that the problem was never scarcity or the father's favoritism—the elder brother had always possessed full access to the father's resources and affection. The barrier was entirely on the son's side: his inability to receive sonship as a gift rather than a wage. This mirrors the historical situation of the Pharisees and scribes who grumbled at Jesus for receiving sinners. They stood adjacent to the kingdom, surrounded by the promises and covenant blessings of God, yet remained outside because they could not accept grace as the principle of God's dealing with humanity. The invitation still stood, but it required them to abandon their merit-based system and enter the feast as recipients of unearned favor.
Luke deliberately leaves the parable unfinished—we never learn whether the elder brother eventually joined the celebration. This narrative technique places the reader in the position of the elder brother, forcing us to answer for ourselves: will we enter the feast or remain outside in bitter resentment? For the original audience of Pharisees and scribes, this unresolved ending was a direct challenge to their response to Jesus' ministry. Would they continue to grumble at God's grace toward tax collectors and sinners, or would they recognize their own need and join the celebration? For contemporary readers, the question remains equally pressing. When we hear of a notorious sinner coming to faith, do we genuinely rejoice, or do we scrutinize their repentance with suspicion? When churches extend membership to those with broken pasts, do we celebrate restoration or quietly question whether they deserve a place at the table? The parable's open ending is not a literary flaw but a pastoral strategy: it refuses to let us remain passive observers and demands that we examine whether we harbor elder brother theology in our own hearts.
The father's household is a place where grace produces joy, not just merely relief. The elder brother hears the joy before he sees it. That's often how resentment works, isn't it? We're alerted to the happiness of others and somehow there's this visceral response of wanting to be resentful toward that joy, toward that unmerited favor. — Jesse Schwamb
There is a way to be near the house, church adjacent, religiously active, yet to be really far from the father's heart. The elder brother is not portrayed as an atheist, but as a moralist. And moralism can be a more subtle distance than open rebellion. — Jesse Schwamb
God doesn't keep sinners from repenting. The reprobate are not prohibited or prevented by God from coming to faith. They're being kept out by their own stubborn refusal to come in. That's where this punchline hits so hard. — Tony Arsenal
[00:00:44] Jesse Schwamb: Welcome to episode 477 of The Reformed Brotherhood. I'm Jesse.
[00:00:51] Tony Arsenal: And I'm Tony. And this is the podcast with ears to hear. Hey brother.
[00:00:55] Jesse Schwamb: Hey brother.
[00:00:56] Jesse Schwamb: Speaking of ears to hear, it struck me that this whole thing we've been doing all this parable talk is really after the manner of God's words.
And one of the things I've really grown to appreciate is how God speaks to the condition of those whom he addresses. He considers our ability, our capacity as his hearers to process what he's saying, and that leads into these amazing parables that we've been talking about. He doesn't speak as he is able to speak.
So to speak, but I didn't mean that to happen. But as we were able to hear, and that means he spoke in these lovely parables so that we might better understand him. And today we're gonna get into some of the drama of the best, like the crown jewel as we've been saying, of maybe all the parables. The Parable of the Lost Son.
We spoke a little bit about it in the last episode. Definitely want to hit that up because it's setting you up for this one, which is the definitive episode. But now we're gonna talk about this first, this younger lost son. Get into some of all of these like juicy details about what takes place, and really, again, see if we can find the heart of God.
Spoiler. We can and we'll,
[00:02:04] Tony Arsenal: yeah,
[00:02:04] Jesse Schwamb: but before we do both of those things, it's of course always time at this moment to do a little affirming with or denying against. Of course, if you haven't heard us before, that's where we take a moment to say, is there something that we think is undervalued that we wanna bring forward that we'd recommend or think is awesome?
Or conversely, is there something that's overvalued that's just, we're over it. The vibe is done. We're gonna deny against that. So I say to you, as I often do, Tony, are you affirming with or deny against?
[00:02:31] Tony Arsenal: I'm affirming tonight. Um, I don't know how much the audience realizes of a giant ridiculous nerd I am, but we're about to go to entirely new giant nerd depths.
[00:02:43] Jesse Schwamb: All right. I
[00:02:43] Tony Arsenal: think,
[00:02:44] Jesse Schwamb: let's hear it.
[00:02:44] Tony Arsenal: So, um, I was a huge fan of Stranger Things. Some, there's some issues with the show, and I understand why some people might not, um, might not feel great about watching it. You know, I think it falls within Christian liberty. But one of the main themes of the show, this is not a spoiler, you learn about this in episode one, is the whole game.
The whole show frames itself around Dungeons and Dragons, right? It's kind of like a storytelling device within the show that the kids play, Dungeons and Dragons, and everything that happens in the Dungeons and Dragons game that they're playing, sort of like, um, foreshadows what's actually gonna happen in the show.
Which funny if, you know Dungeons and Dragons lore, you kind of learn the entire plot of the story like ahead of time. Um, but so I, stranger Things just finished up and I've kind of been like itching to get into Dungeons and Dragons. I used to play a little bit of tabletop when I was in high school, in early college and um, I just really like the idea of sort of this collaborative storytelling game.
Um, whether it's Dungeon Dragons or one of the other systems, um, Dungeons and Dragons is the most popular. It's the most well published. It's the most well established and it's probably the easiest to find a group to play with. Although it is very hard to find a group to play with, especially, uh, kind of out in the middle of nowhere where I live.
So this is where the ultra super nerdy part comes in.
[00:04:02] Jesse Schwamb: Alright, here we
[00:04:03] Tony Arsenal: go. I have been painstakingly over the last week teaching Google Gemini. To be a dungeon master for me. So I've been playing Dungeons and Dragons more or less by myself with, uh, with Google Gemini, and I'm just having a lot of fun with it.
Um, you can get a free copy of the rules online if you, I think it's DND, the letter NDND beyond.com. They have a full suite of like tools to create your character. Access to a basic set of the core rules. Um, you can spend a lot of money on Dungeons and Dragons, uh, and if you want to like really get into it, the books are basically textbooks.
Like you're buying $300 or 300 page, $300, 300 page textbooks, um, that are not all that differently costs than like college textbooks. You'll buy a 300 page Dungeon master guide that's like $50 if you want a paper copy. So, but you can get into it for free. You can get the free rolls online, you can use their dungeon, the d and d Beyond app and do all your dice rolls for free.
Um, you, you can get a free dice roller online if you don't want to do their, their app. Um, but it's just a lot of fun. I've just been having a lot of fun and I found that the, I mean. When you play a couple sessions with it, you see that the, the um, the A IDM that I've created, like it follows the same story beats 'cause it's only got so much to work with in its language model.
Um, but I'm finding ways to sort of like break it out of that model by forcing it to refer to certain websites that are like Dungeons and Dragons lore websites and things like build your, build your campaign from this repository of Dungeons and Dragons stuff. So. I think you could do this with just about any sort of narrative storytelling game like this, whether you're playing a different system or d and d Pathfinders.
I mean, there's all sorts of different versions of it, but it's just been a lot of fun to see, see it going. I'm trying to get a group together. 'cause I think I would, I would probably rather play Dungeons and Dragons with people, um, and rather do it in person. But it's hard to do up here. It's hard to get a, get a group going.
So that's my super nerdy affirmation. I'm not just affirming Dungeons and Dragons, which would already be super nerdy. I'm affirming playing it by myself on my phone, on the bus with Google Gemini, AI acting like I'm not. Just this weird antisocial lunatic. So I'm having a lot of fun with it.
[00:06:20] Jesse Schwamb: So there are so many levels of inception there.
Yeah. Like the inception and everything you just said. I love it.
[00:06:27] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Well, what I'm learning is, um, you can give an, and, and this is something I didn't realize, what ai, I guess I probably should have, you know, it's not like an infinite thing. Um, you can give an AI instructions and if your chat gets long enough, it actually isn't referring back to the very beginning of the chat most of the time.
Right. There's a, there's like a win context window of about 30 responses. So like if you tell the AI, don't roll the dice for me, like, let me roll dices that are related to my actions, eventually it will forget that. So part of what I've been doing is basically building, I'm using Google Gemini when the AI does something I don't want it to do, I say, you just did something I don't want it to do.
Gimme a diagnostic report of why you did that. It will explain to me why it did what it did. Right. Why it didn't observe the rules. And then I'm feeding that into another. Prompt that is helping me generate better prompts that it refers back to. So it's kind of this weird iterative, um, yeah, I, I don't, I'm like, I maybe I'm gonna create the singularity.
I'm not sure. Maybe this is gonna be possible. We should sit over the edge. It's gonna, it's gonna learn how to cast magic spells and it's gonna fire bolt us in the face or something like that. Right. But, uh, again, high risk. I, I, for one, welcome our AO AI dungeon masters. So check it out. You should try it.
If you could do this with chat GPT, you could do it with any ai. Um, it, it, it is going to get a little, I have the benefit because I have a Google Workspace account. I have access to Google Pro or the Gemini Pro, which is a better model for this kind of thing. But you could do this with, with chat GPT or something like that.
And it's gonna be more or less the same experience, I think. But I'm having a, I'm having a ton of fun with it. Um. Again, I, I, there's something about just this, Dungeons and Dragons at its core is a, it's like a, an exercise in joint storytelling, which is really fascinating and interesting to me. Um, and that's what most tabletop RPGs are like.
I suppose you get into something like War Hammer and it's a little bit more like a board. It's a mixture of that plus a board game. But Dungeons and Dragons, the DM is creating the, I mean, not the entire world, but is creating the narrative. And then you as a player are an actor within that narrative. And then there's a certain element of chance that dice rolls play.
But for the most part, um, you're driving the story along. You're telling the story together. So it's, it's pretty interesting. I've also been watching live recordings of Dungeons and Dragon Sessions on YouTube. Oh,
[00:08:50] Jesse Schwamb: wow.
[00:08:51] Tony Arsenal: Like, there's a, there's a channel called Critical Role. Like these sessions are like three and a half hours long.
So, wow. I just kinda have 'em on in the background when I'm, when I'm, uh, working or if I'm, you know, doing something else. Um, but it's really interesting stuff. It's, it's pretty cool. I think it's fun. I'm a super nerd. I'm, I'm no shame in that. Um, I'm just really enjoying it.
[00:09:09] Jesse Schwamb: Listen, nerdery is great. That's like part of the zeitgeist now.
Listen to culture. It's cool to be a nerd. I don't know much about d and d. I've heard a lot about this idea of this community that forms around. Yeah. The story, correct me if I'm wrong, can't these things go on for like years, decades?
[00:09:25] Tony Arsenal: Oh yeah, yeah. Like, you can do there. There, some of this has made its way into the official rule books, but basically you could do what's called a one shot, which is like a self-contained story.
Usually a single session, you know, like you get a Dungeon master, game master, whichever you wanna call the person. Three to four, maybe five characters, player characters. And one session is usually about two hours long. So it's not like you sit down for 20 minutes, 30 minutes at a time and play this right.
And you could do a one shot, which is a story that's designed to, to live all within that two hour session. Um, some people will do it where there isn't really any planned like, outcome of the story. The, the DM just kind of makes up things to do as they go. And then you can have campaigns, which is like, sometimes it's like a series of one shots, but more, it is more like a long term serialized period, you know, serialized campaign where you're doing many, um, many, many kinds of, uh, things all in one driving to like a big epic goal or battle at the end, right?
Um, some groups stay together for a really long time and they might do multiple campaigns, so there's a lot to it. Game's been going on for like 50, 60, 70 years, something like that. I don't remember exactly when it started, but
[00:10:41] Jesse Schwamb: yeah.
[00:10:41] Tony Arsenal: Um, it's an old game. It's kinda like the doctor who of of poor games and it's like the original tabletop role playing game, I think.
[00:10:47] Jesse Schwamb: Right. Yeah, that makes sense. Again, there's something really appealing to me about not just that cooperative storytelling, but cooperative gameplay. Everybody's kind of in it together for the most part. Yeah. Those conquest, as I understand them, are joint in nature. You build solidarity, but if you're meeting with people and having fun together and telling stories and interacting with one another, there's a lot of good that comes out of that stuff there.
A lot of lovely common grace in those kind of building, those long-term interactions, relationships, entertainment built on being together and having good, clean, fun together.
[00:11:17] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Well, and it's, you know, it's, um. It's an interesting exercise. It's it, in some ways it's very much like improv. Like you, you think of like an improv comedy like show I've been to somewhere.
Like, you know, you go to the show and it's an improv troupe, but they're like calling people from the crowd up and asking them for like different scenarios they might do. It's kind of like that in that like the GM can plan a whole, can plan a whole thing. But if I as a player character, um. And I've done this to the virtual one just to see what it does, and it's done some interesting things.
One of the campaigns I was playing, I had rescued a merchant from some giant spiders and I was helping, like, I was helping like navigate them through the woods to the next town. And we kept on getting attacked and just outta nowhere. I was like, what if I sort of act as though I'm suspicious of this merchant now because why are we getting attacked all the time?
And so I, I typed in sort of like a little. A mini role play of me accusing this guy. And it was something like, Randall, we get, we're getting attacked a lot for a simple merchant, Randall merchant. What happens if I cast a tech magic? What am I gonna find? And he's like, I don't know what I'm gonna find. I know I don't know anything.
And then I cast a tech magic and it shifted. I mean, I don't know where the campaign was gonna go before that, but it shifted the whole thing now where the person who gave him the package he was carrying had betrayed him. It was, so that happens in real life too in these games, real life in these games.
That happens in real, in-person sessions too, where a player or a group of players may just decide instead of talking to the contact person that is supposed to give them the clue to find the dungeon they're supposed to go to, instead they ambush them and murder them in gold blood. And now the, the dungeon master has to figure out, how do I get them back to this dungeon when this is the only person that was supposed to know where it is?
So it, it does end up really stretching your thinking skills and sort of your improvisational skills. There's an element of, um, you know, like chance with the dice, um, I guess like the dice falls in the lot, but the lot is in the handle. Or like, obviously that's all ordained as well too, but there is this element of chance where even the DM doesn't get to determine everything.
Um, if, if I say I want to, I want to try to sneak into this room, but I'm a giant barbarian who has, you know, is wearing like chain mail, there's still a chance I could do it, but the dice roll determines that. It's not like the, the GM just says you can't do that. Um, so it's, it's a, I, I like it. I'm, I'm really looking forward to trying to, getting into it.
It is hard to start a group and to get going and, um, there's a part of me that's a little bit. Gun shy of maybe like getting too invested with a group of non-Christians for something like this. 'cause it can get a little weird sometimes. But I think that, I think that'll work out. It'll be fun. I know there's actually some people in our telegram chat.
Bing, bing, bing segue. There we go. There's some people in our telegram chat actually, that we're already planning to do a campaign. Um, so we might even do like a virtual reform brotherhood, Dungeons and Dragons group. So that might be a new sub channel in the telegram at some point.
[00:14:13] Jesse Schwamb: There you go. You could jump right in.
Go to t.me back slash reform brotherhood.
[00:14:18] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Jesse, what are you affirming since I just spent the last 15 minutes gushing about my nerdy hobby?
[00:14:23] Jesse Schwamb: Uh, no, that was great. Can I, can I just say two things? One is, so you're basically saying it's a bit like, like a troll shows up and everybody's like, yes. And yeah.
So I love that idea. Second thing, which is follow up question, very brief. What kind of merchant was Randall.
[00:14:39] Tony Arsenal: Uh, he was a spice trader actually.
[00:14:42] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. I don't trust that.
[00:14:43] Tony Arsenal: And, and silk, silk and spices.
[00:14:45] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. That's double, that's too strict.
[00:14:47] Tony Arsenal: He was actually good guy in the, in the story that developed out of this campaign.
He actually became part of my family and like, like, like got adopted into the family because he lost everything on his own. Randy we're
[00:15:00] Jesse Schwamb: talking about Randy.
[00:15:01] Tony Arsenal: Randy Randall with one L. Yeah. The AI was very specific about
that.
[00:15:05] Jesse Schwamb: There's, there's nothing about this guy I trust. I, is this still ongoing? Because I think he's just trying to make his way deeper in,
[00:15:11] Tony Arsenal: uh, no, no.
It, I'll, I'll wait for next week to tell you how much, even more nerdy this thing gets. But there's a whole thing that ha there was a whole thing out of this That's a tease. Tease. There was a, there was a horse and the horse died and there was lots of tears and there was a wedding and a baby. It was, it's all sorts of stuff going on in this campaign.
[00:15:27] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. And I'm sure. Randy was somewhere near that horse when it happened. Right?
[00:15:32] Tony Arsenal: It was his horse.
[00:15:33] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, exactly. That's
[00:15:35] Tony Arsenal: exactly, he didn't, he didn't kill the horse. He had no power to knock down the bridge The horse was standing on.
[00:15:40] Jesse Schwamb: Listen, next week, I'm pretty sure that's what we're gonna learn is that it was all him.
[00:15:45] Tony Arsenal: Alright, Jesse, save us from this. Save us from this, please. Uh,
[00:15:49] Jesse Schwamb: no.
What
[00:15:50] Tony Arsenal: you affirming, this is
[00:15:50] Jesse Schwamb: great.
[00:15:50] Jesse Schwamb: It's possible that there is a crossover between yours and mine if we consider. That the church is like playing a d and d game in the dungeon Masters Christ, and the campaigns, the gospel. So I was thinking maybe is it possible, uh, maybe this is just the, the theology of the cross, but that sometimes, like you need the denial to get to the affirmation.
Have we talked about that kind of truth? Yeah,
[00:16:14] Tony Arsenal: yeah,
[00:16:15] Jesse Schwamb: for sure. So here's a little bit of that. I'll be very, very brief and I'm using this not as like just one thing that happened today, but what I know is for sure happening all over the world. And I mean that very literally, not just figuratively when it comes to the body of Christ, the local church.
So it snowed here overnight. This was, this is the Lord's Day. We're hanging out in the Lord's Day, which is always a beautiful day to talk about God. And overnight it snowed. The snow stopped relatively late in the morning around the time that everybody would be saying, Hey, it's time to go and worship the Lord.
So for those in my area, I got up, we did the whole clearing off the Kai thing. I went to church and I was there a little bit early for a practice for music. And when I pulled in, there weren't many there yet, but the whole parking lot unplowed. So there's like three inches of snow, unplowed parking lot. So I guess the denial is like the plow people decided like, not this time I, I don't think so.
They understood they were contracted with the church, but my understanding is that when one of the deacons called, they were like, Ooh, yeah, we're like 35 minutes away right now, so that's gonna be a problem. So when I pulled in, here's what I was. Like surprise to find, but in a totally unexpected way, even though I understand what a surprise is.
And that is that, uh, that first the elders and the deacons, everybody was just decided we're going to shovel an entire parking lot. And at some point big, I was a little bit early there, but at some point then this massive text change just started with everybody, which was, Hey, when you come to church, bring your shovel.
And I, I will tell you like when I got out of the car. I was so like somebody was immediately running to clear a path with me. One of those like snow pushers, you know what I mean? Yeah. Like one, those beastly kind of like blade things.
[00:17:57] Tony Arsenal: Those things are, those things are the best.
[00:17:59] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. You just run. And so you have never met a group of people that was more happy to shovel an entire large asphalt area, which normally shouldn't even be required.
And. It just struck me, even in hindsight now thinking about it, it was this lovely confluence of people serving each other and serving God. It was as if they got up that morning and said, do you know what would be the best thing in the world for me to do is to shovel. And so everybody was coming out.
Everybody was shoveling it. It was to protect everyone and to allow one into elaborate, one access. It was just incredible. And so I started this because the affirmation is, I know this happens in, in all of our churches, every God fearing God, loving God serving church, something like this is happening, I think on almost every Lord's day or maybe every day of the week in various capacities.
And I just think this is God's people coming together because everybody, I think when we sat down for the message was exhausted, but. But there was so much joy in doing this. I think what you normally would find to be a mundane and annoying task, and the fact that it wasn't just, it was redeemed as if like we, we found a greater purpose in it.
But that's, everyone saw this as a way to love each other and to love God, and it became unexpected worship in the parking lot. That's really what it was, and it was fantastic. I really almost hope that we just get rid of the plow company and just do it this way from now on. Yeah, so I'm affirming, recognize people, recognize brothers and sisters that your, your church is doing this stuff all the time and, and be a part of it.
Jump in with the kinda stuff because I love how it brings forward the gospel.
[00:19:35] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. That's a great story. It's a great, uh, a great example of the body of Christ being, what the body of Christ is and just pulling together to get it done. Um, which, you know, we do on a spiritual level, I think, more often than a physical level these days.
Right, right. But, um, that's great. I'm sitting here going three inches of snow. I would've just pulled into the lot and then pulled out of the lot. But New Hampshire, it hits different in New Hampshire. Like we all d have snow tires and four wheel drive.
[00:20:02] Jesse Schwamb: It's, it's enough snow where it was like pretty wet and heavy that it, if, you know, you pack that stuff down, it gets slick.
You can't see the people, like you can't have your elderly people just flying in, coming in hot and then trying to get outta the vehicle, like making their way into church.
[00:20:14] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.
[00:20:15] Jesse Schwamb: So there was, there was a lot more of that. But I think again, you would, one of the options would've been like, Hey, why don't we shovel out some sp spaces for the, for those who need it, for, you know, those who need to have access in a way that's a little bit less encumbered.
Oh, no, no. These people are like, I see your challenge and I am going to shovel the entire parking lots.
[00:20:35] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. It used to happen once in a while, uh, at the last church, uh, at, um, your dad's church. We would, where the plow would just not come on a Sunday morning or, or more often than not. Um, you know, what happens a lot of times is the plows don't want to come more than once.
Right. If they don't have to. Or sometimes they won't come if they think it's gonna melt because they don't want to deal with, uh, with like customers who are mad that you plowed and that it all melts. But either way, once in a while. The plow wouldn't come or it wouldn't come in time. And what we would do is instead of trying to shovel an entire driveway thing, we would just went, the first couple people who would get there, the young guys in the church, there was only a couple of us, but the younger guys in the church would just, we would just be making trips, helping people into the, yeah.
Helping people into the building. So, um, it was a pretty, you know, it was a small church, so it was like six trips and we'd have everybody in, but um, we just kind of, that was the way we pulled together. Um, yeah, that's a great, it's a great story. I love, I love stuff like that. Yeah, me too. Whether it's, whether it's, you know, plowing a, a parking lot with shovels instead of a plow, or it's just watching, um, watching the tables and the chairs from the fellowship, you know, all just like disappear because everybody's just, uh, picks up after themselves and cleans and stuff.
That's, that's like the most concrete example of the body of Christ doing what the body of Christ does. Um, it's always nice, you know, we always hear jokes about like, who can carry the most, the most chairs,
[00:22:04] Jesse Schwamb: most
[00:22:04] Tony Arsenal: chairs. Uh, I think it's true. Like a lot of times I think like I could do like seven or eight sometimes.
[00:22:10] Jesse Schwamb: Uh, you, that's, so, one more thing I wanna say. I, I wanted to tell you this privately, Tony, 'cause it just cracked me up 'cause I, you'll appreciate this. But now I'm realizing I think the brothers and sisters who listened to us talk for any length of time and in the context of this conversation, but the church will appreciate this too.
On my way out, I, I happened because I was there early and the snow was crazy. I parked way further out, way on the edge of the lot to just allow for greater access because of all the shoveling that was happening. And by the way, I really hope there were a ton of visitors this morning because they were like, wow, this, this church is wild.
They love to shovel their own lot and they're the happiest people doing it. Some sweaty person just ushered me in while they were casting snow. Like,
[00:22:47] Tony Arsenal: is this some new version of snake handling? You shovel your own lot and your impervious to back injuries.
[00:22:53] Jesse Schwamb: Uh. So I was walking out and as I walked past, uh, there was a, uh, two young gentlemen who were congregating by this very large lifted pickup truck, which I don't have much experience with, but it looked super cool and it was started, it was warming up, and they were just like casually, like in the way that only like people with large beards wearing flannel and Carhartt kind of do, like casually leaning against the truck, talking in a way that you're like, wow, these guys are rugged.
And they sound, they're super cool, and they're probably like in their twenties. And all I hear as I pass by is one guy going, yeah, well, I mean that's, I was, I said to them too, but I said, listen, I'd rather go to a church with God-fearing women than anywhere else.
[00:23:36] Tony Arsenal: Nice.
[00:23:37] Jesse Schwamb: I was just like, yep. On the prowl and I love it.
And they're not wrong. This is the place to be.
[00:23:42] Tony Arsenal: It is.
[00:23:43] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. This is the place to be. Yeah. So all kinds of, all kinds of good things I think going on in that in the house of the Lord and where wherever you're at, I would say be happy and be joyful and look for those things and participate in, like you said, whether it's physical or not, but as soon as you said like the, our young men, our youth somehow have this competition of when we need to like pack up the sanctuary.
How many chairs can I take at one time? Yeah. It's like the classic and it just happens. Nobody says like, okay, everybody line up. We're about to embark on the competition now. Like the strong man usher competition. It's just like, it just happens and
[00:24:17] Tony Arsenal: it's
[00:24:17] Jesse Schwamb: incredible.
[00:24:18] Tony Arsenal: I mean, peacocks fan out their tail feathers.
Young Christian guys fan out. All of the table chairs, chairs they can carry. It's uh, it's a real phenomena. So I feel like if you watch after a men's gathering, everybody is like carrying one chair at a time because they don't wanna hurt their backs and their arms. Oh, that's
[00:24:36] Jesse Schwamb: true. That's
[00:24:37] Tony Arsenal: what I do. Yeah.
But it's when the women are around, that's when you see guys carrying like 19 chairs. Yeah. Putting themselves in the hospital.
[00:24:42] Jesse Schwamb: That's what I, listen, it comes for all of us. Like I, you know, I'm certainly not young anymore by almost any definition, but even when I'm in the mix, I'm like, oh, I see you guys.
You wanna play this game? Mm-hmm. Let's do this. And then, you know, I'm stacking chairs until I hurt myself. So it's great. That's, that is what we do for each other. It's
[00:25:01] Tony Arsenal: just, I hurt my neck getting outta bed the other day. So it happens. It's real.
[00:25:05] Jesse Schwamb: The struggle. Yeah, the struggle is real.
[00:25:07] Jesse Schwamb: Speaking of struggle, speaking of family issues, speaking of all kinds of drama, let's get into Luke 15 and let me read just, I would say the first part of this parable, which as we've agreed to talk about, if we can even get this far, it's just the younger son.
[00:25:24] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.
[00:25:25] Jesse Schwamb: And again, don't worry, we're gonna get to all of it, but let me read beginning in, uh, verse 11 here. This is Luke chapter 15. Come follow along as you will accept if you're operating heavy machinery. And Jesus said, A man had two sons and the younger of them said to his father, father, give me the share of the estate that falls to me.
So he divided his wealth between them. And not many days later, the younger son gathered everything together and went on a journey into a distant country. And there he squandered his estate living recklessly. Now, when he had spent everything, a severe famine occurred in that country and it began to be impoverished.
So he went and hired himself to one of the citizens of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. So he went and as he was desiring to be fed with the pods that the swine were eating because no one was giving anything to him. But when he came to himself, he said, how many of my father's men have more than enough bread, but I am dying here with hunger.
I'll rise up and go to my father, and I'll say to him, father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me as one of your hired men. So he rose up, came to his father, but while he was still a long way off. His father saw him and felt compassion and ran and embraced him.
And the son said to him, father, I've sinned against heaven and before you, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father said to his slaves, quickly, bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet and bring the fat in calf and slaughter it and let us celebrate.
For the son of mine was dead and has come to life again. He was lost and he has been found and they began to celebrate.
[00:27:09] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. This is such a, um, such a, I don't know, like pivotal seminal parable in the Ministry of Christ. Um, it's one of those parables and we, we mentioned this briefly last week that even most.
It, it hasn't passed out of the cultural zeitgeist yet. A lot of biblical teaching has, I mean, a lot, I think a lot of things that used to be common knowledge where, where you could make a reference to something in the Bible and people would just get it. Um, even if they weren't Christian or weren't believers, they would still know what you were talking about.
There's a lot of things in the Bible that have passed out of that cultural memory. The, the parable of the prodigal son, lost son, however you wanna phrase it, um, that's not one of them. Right. So I think it's really important for us, um, and especially since it is such a beautiful picture of the gospel and it has so many different theological touch points, it's really incumbent on us to spend time thinking about this because I would be willing to bet that if you weave.
Elements of this parable into your conversations with nonbelievers that you are praying for and, and, you know, witnessing to and sharing the gospel with, if you weave this in there, you're gonna help like plant some seeds that when it comes time to try to harvest, are gonna pay dividends. Right. So I think it's a really, it's a really great thing that we're gonna be able to spend, you know, a couple weeks really just digging into this.
[00:28:40] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, and to define the beginning, maybe from the end, just slightly here, I like what you said about this cultural acknowledgement of this. I think one of the correctives we can provide, which is clear in the story, is in the general cultural sense. We speak of this prodigal as something that just returns comes back, was lost, but now is found.
And often maybe there is this component of, in the familial relationship, it's as if they've been restored. Here we're gonna of course find that this coming to one senses is in fact the work of God. That there is, again, a little bit of denial that has to bring forward the affirmation here that is the return.
And so again, from the beginning here, we're just talking about the younger son. We have more than youthful ambition.
[00:29:19] Jesse Schwamb: This heart of, give me the stuff now, like so many have said before, is really to say. Give me the gifts and not you, which is, I think, a common fault of all Christians. We think, for instance of heaven, and we think of all the blessings that come with it, but not necessarily of the joy of just being with our savior, being with Christ.
And I think there's something here right from the beginning, there's a little bit of this betrayal in showing idolatry, the ugliness of treating God's gifts as if there's something owed. And then this idea that of course. He receives these things and imme more or less immediately sometime after he goes and takes these things and squanderers them.
And sin and idolatry, I think tends to accelerate in this way. The distance from the father becomes distance from wisdom. We are pulled away from that, which is good. The father here being in his presence and being under his care and his wisdom and in his fear of influence and concern, desiring then to say, I don't want you just give me the gifts that you allegedly owe me.
And then you see how quickly like sin does everything you, we always say like, sin always costs more than you want to pay. And it always takes you further than you want to go. And that's exactly what we see here. Like encapsulated in an actual story of relationship and distance.
[00:30:33] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, I think, um.
It's interesting to me.
[00:30:39] Tony Arsenal: You know, I, I, I'm a big fan of saying you don't need to study Greek to understand your Bible, but I'm also a big fan of saying understanding a little bit of Greek is really helpful. And one of the things that I think is really intriguing, and I haven't quite parsed out exactly what I think this means, but the word property in this parable, it actually is two different Greek words that is translated as property, at least in the ESV.
And neither one of them really fit. What our normal understanding of property would be. And there are Greek words that refer to like all of your material possessions, but it says, father, give me the share of property. And he uses the word usia, which those of us who have heard anything about the trinity, which is all of us, um, know that that word means something about existence.
It's the core essence of a person. So it says, father, give me the share of usia that is coming to me. And then it says, and he divided his bias, his, his life between them. Then it says, not many days later, the younger son gathered all that he had took a journey into the far country. There he squandered his usia again.
So this, this parable, Christ is not using the ordinary words to refer to material, uh, material accumulation and property like. I think probably, you know, Christ isn't like randomly using these words. So there probably is an element that these were somehow figuratively used of one's life possessions. But the fact that he's using them in these particular ways, I think is significant.
[00:32:10] Tony Arsenal: And so the, the, the younger son here, and I don't even like calling this the prodigal sun parable because the word prodigal doesn't like the equivalent word in Greek doesn't appear in this passage. And prodigal doesn't mean like the lost in returned, like prodigal is a word that means like the one who spends lavishly, right?
So we call him the prodigal son because he went and he squandered all of his stuff and he spent all of his money. So it doesn't even really describe the main feature or the main point of why this, this parable is here. It's just sort of like a random adjective that gets attached to it. But all of that aside, um.
This parable starts off not just about wasting our property, like wasting our things, but it's a parable that even within the very embedded language of the parable itself is talking about squandering our very life, our very essence, our very existence is squandered and wasted as we depart from the Father.
Right? And this is so like, um, it's almost so on the head, on the on the nose that it's almost a little like, really Jesus. Like this is, this is so like, slap you in the face kind of stuff. This is right outta like Romans, uh, Romans one, like they did not give thanks to God. They did not show gratitude to God or acknowledge him as God.
This is what's happening in this parable. The son doesn't go to his father and say, father, I love you. I'm so happy to stay with you. I'm so happy to be here. He, he basically says like. Give me your very life essence, and I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go spend it on prostitutes. I'm gonna go waste your life, father, I'm gonna waste your life, your existence, your bias.
I'm gonna go take that and I'm gonna squander it on reckless living. And I guess we don't know for sure. He, it doesn't say he spends it on prostitutes. That's something his brother says later and assumes he did. So I, I don't know that we do that. But either way, I'm gonna take what's yours, your very life, your very essence.
And also that my life, my essence, the gift you've given me as my father, you've given me my life. In addition now to your life or a portion of your life. And I'm gonna go squander that on reckless living, right? Like, how much of a picture of sin is that, that we, we take what we've been given by God, our very life, our very essence, we owe him everything, and we squander that on sinful, reckless living.
That that's just a slap in the face in the best way right out of the gate here.
[00:34:28] Jesse Schwamb: Yes, that, that's a great point because it's, it would be one thing to rebel over disobedience, another thing to use the very life essence that you've been given for destructive, self-destructive purposes. And then to use that very energy, which is not yours to begin with, but has been imbued in yours, external, all of these things.
And then to use that very thing as the force of your rebellion. So it's double insult all the way around. I'm with you in the use of Greek there. Thank you. Locus Bio software. Not a sponsor of the podcast, but could be. And I think that's why sometimes in translations you get the word like a state because it's like the closest thing we can have to understanding that it's property earned through someone's life more or less.
Yeah. And then is passed down, but as representative, not just of like, here's like 20 bucks of cash, but something that I spent all of me trying to earn and. And to your point, also emphasizing in the same way that this son felt it was owed him. So it's like really bad all around and I think we would really be doing ourselves a disservice if we didn't think that there's like a little bit of Paul washer saying in this, like I'm talking about you though.
So like just be like, look at how disrespectful the sun is. Yeah. Haven't we all done this? To God and bringing up the idea of prodigal being, so that, that is like the amazing juxtaposition, isn't it? Like Prodigal is, is spent recklessly, parsimonious would be like to, to save recklessly, so to speak. And then you have the love the father demonstrates coming against all of that in the same way with like a totally different kind of force.
So.
[00:36:02] Jesse Schwamb: What I find interesting, and I think this is like set up in exactly what you said, is that when you get to verse 14 and this famine comes, it's showing us, I think that like providence exposes what Sin conceals.
[00:36:16] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.
[00:36:16] Jesse Schwamb: And want arrives. Not just because like the money ran out, but because again, like these idols, what he's replaced the father with, they don't satisfy.
And repentance then often begins when God shows the emptiness of light apart life apart from him. That's like the affirmation being born out of the denial. And so I think that this also is evolving for us, this idea that God is going to use hardship, not as mere punishment, but as mercy that wakes us up and that the son here is being woken up, but not, of course, it's not as if he goes into the land, like you said, starts to spend, is like, whoa, hold on a second.
This seems like a bad idea. It's not until all of that sin ever, like the worship of false things collapses under its own weight before it, which is like the precursor of the antecedent, I think, to this grand repentance or this waking up.
[00:37:05] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I also think it's, um.
[00:37:08] Tony Arsenal: A feature of this that I haven't reflected on too deeply, but is, is worth thinking about is the famine that's described here only occurs in this far country that he's in.
[00:37:17] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah.
[00:37:17] Tony Arsenal: Right. So even that's right. And this is like a multitude of foolish decisions. This is compounding foolish decisions that don't, don't make any sense. Like they don't really actually make any sense. Um. There's not a logic to this, this lost son's decision making. He takes the property. Okay. I guess maybe like you could be anxious to get your inheritance, but then like he takes it to a far country.
Like there's no reason for him to do that. If at any point through this sort of insane process he had stopped short, he would not have been in the situation he was in. Yes. And that, I love that phrase, that providence, you know, reveals, I don't know exactly how you said it, but like providence reveals what our sin can bring to us.
Like he first see sins against his father by sort of like demanding, demanding his inheritance early. Then he takes it and he leaves his country for no reason. He goes to this far country, then he spends everything and then the famine arises. Right? And the famine arises in this other country.
[00:38:13] Jesse Schwamb: Right.
[00:38:13] Tony Arsenal: And that's, I think that is still again, like a picture of sin.
Like we. We don't just, we don't just take what the father has and, and like spend it like that would be bad enough if we weren't grateful for what we have and what we've been given, and we just waste it. But on top of that, now we also have taken ourselves to a far country. Like we've gone away from the good, the good land of the Lord, as those who are not regenerate.
We've gone away from the, the Lord into this far country. And it's not until we start to have this famine that we recognize what we've done. And again, this is, this is where I think we get a picture. There's so many theological, like points in this parable particular that it almost feels a little bit like a, like a.
Parable that's intended to teach some systematic theology about for sure, the oral salus, which I think there's probably a lot of like biblical theology people that are ready to just crawl through the screen and strangle me for saying that. But this is such a glorious picture of, of regeneration too.
[00:39:16] Tony Arsenal: Like he comes to himself, there's nothing, there's nothing in the story that's like, oh, and the servant that he was, the other servant he was talking to mentioned that the famine, like there's nothing here that should prompt him to want to go back to his home, to think that his father could or would do anything about it, except that he comes to himself.
He just comes to the realization that his father is a good man and is wise and has resources, and has takes care of his, of his servants on top of how he takes care of his sons. That is a picture of regeneration. There's no, yeah. Logical, like I'm thinking my way into it, he just one day realizes how much, how many of my father's servants have more than enough bread.
Right. But I'm perishing here in this, this foolish other country with nothing. Right. I can't even, and the, the pods that the pigs ate, we can even, we can get into the pods a little bit here, but like. He wants to eat the pods. The pods that he's giving the pigs are not something that's even edible to humans.
He's that destitute, that he's willing to eat these pods that are like, this is the leftover stuff that you throw to the pigs because no, no, nobody and nothing else can actually eat it. And that's the state he's in at the very bottom, in the very end of himself where he realizes my father is good and he loves me, and even if I can never be his son again, surely he'll take care of me.
I mentioned it last week, like he wasn't going back thinking that this was gonna be a failing proposition. He went back because he knew or he, he was confident that his father was going to be able to take care of him and would accept him back. Right. Otherwise, what would be the point of going back? It wasn't like a, it wasn't like a, um, a mission he expected to fail at.
He expected there to be a positive outcome or he wouldn't have done it. Like, it wouldn't make any sense to try that if there wasn't the hope of some sort of realistic option.
[00:41:09] Jesse Schwamb: And I think his confidence in that option, as you were saying, is in this way where he's constructed a transaction. Yeah. That he's gonna go back and say, if you'll just take me out as a slave, I know you have slaves, I will work for you.
Right. Therefore, I feel confident that you'll accept me under those terms because I'll humble myself. And why would you not want to remunerate? Me for the work that I put forward. So you're right, like it's, it's strange that he basically comes to this, I think, sense that slavery exists in his life and who would he rather be the slave of,
[00:41:38] Tony Arsenal: right?
[00:41:39] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. And so he says, listen, I'm gonna come to the father and give him this offer. And I'm very confident that given that offer and his behavior, what I know about how he treats his other slaves, that he will hire me back because there's work to do. And therefore, as a result of the work I put forward, he will take care of me.
How much of like contemporary theology is being preached in that very way right now?
[00:41:58] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.
[00:41:59] Jesse Schwamb: And that's really like why the minimum wages of sin is all of this stuff. It's death. It's the consequences that we're speaking about here. By the way, the idea about famine is really interesting. I hadn't thought about that.
It is interesting, again, that sin casts him out into this foreign place where the famine occurs. And that famine is the beginning of his realization of the true destruction, really how far he's devolved and degraded in his person and in his relationships and in his current states. And then of course, the Bible is replete with references and God moving through famine.
And whereas in Genesis, we have a local famine, essentially casting Joseph brothers into a foreign land to be freed and to be saved.
[00:42:39] Tony Arsenal: Right.
[00:42:40] Jesse Schwamb: We have the exact opposite, which is really kind of interesting. Yeah. So we probably should talk about, you know, verse 15 and the, and the pig stuff. I mean, I think the obvious statement here is that.
It would be scandalous, like a Jewish hero would certainly feel the shame of the pigs. They represent UNC cleanliness and social humiliation. I'm interested again, in, in this idea, like you've started us on that the freedom that this younger brother sought for becomes slavery. It's kind of bondage of the wills style.
Yeah. Stuff. There's like an, an attentiveness in the story to the degrading reversal in his condition. And it is interesting that we get there finally, like the bottom of the pit maybe, or the barrel is like you said, the pods, which it's a bit like looking at Tide pods and being like, these are delicious.
I wish I could just eat these. So I, I think your point isn't lost. Like it's not just that like he looked at something gross and was so his stomach was grumbling so much that he might find something in there that he would find palatable. It, it's more than that. It's like this is just total nonsense. It, this is Romans one.
[00:43:45] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And these pods, like, these aren't, um, you know, I guess I, I don't know exactly what these are. I'm sure somebody has done all of the historical linguistic studies, but the Greek word is related to the, the word for keratin. So like the, the same, the same root word. And we have to be careful not to define a Greek word based on how we use it.
That's a reverse etymology fallacy. Like dunamis doesn't mean dynamite, it's the other direction. But the Greek word is used in other places, in Greek literature to describe like the horns of rhinoc, like,
[00:44:21] Jesse Schwamb: right,
[00:44:21] Tony Arsenal: this, these aren't like. These aren't pea pods. I've heard this described like these are like little vegetable pods.
No, this is like they're throwing pieces of bone to the pigs.
[00:44:31] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah.
[00:44:31] Tony Arsenal: And the pigs, the pigs can manage it. And this is what this also like, reinforces how destitute and how deep the famine is. Like this isn't as though, like this is the normal food you give to pigs. Like usually you feed pigs, like you feed pigs, like the extra scraps from your table and like other kinds of like agricultural waste.
These are, these are like chunks of bony keratin that are being fed to the pigs. So that's how terrible the famine is that not even the pigs are able to get food.
[00:45:00] Jesse Schwamb: Right?
[00:45:00] Tony Arsenal: They're given things that are basically inedible, but the pigs can manage it. And this, this kid is so hungry, he's so destitute that he says, man, I wish I could chew on those bony, those bony pods that I'm feeding them because that's how hungry and starved I am.
You get the picture that this, um. This lost son is actually probably not just metaphorically on the brink of death, but he's in real risk of starvation, real risk of death that he, he can't even steal. He can't even steal from the pigs what they're eating, right? Like he can't even, he can't even glean off of what the pigs are eating just to stay alive.
He, he's literally in a position where he has no hope of actually rescuing himself. The only thing that he can do, and this is the realization he has, the only thing he can do is throw himself back on the mercy of his father.
[00:45:50] Jesse Schwamb: That's
[00:45:50] Tony Arsenal: right. And, and hope, again, I think hope with confidence, but hope that his father will show mercy on him and his, his conception.
I wanna be careful in this parable not to, I, I think there's something to what you're getting at or kinda what you're hinting at, that like his conception of mercy is. Not the full picture of the gospel. Yes. His conception of mercy is that he's going to be able to go and work and be rewarded for his laborers in a way that he can survive.
And the gospel is so much broader and so much bigger than that. But at the same time, I think it's, it's actually also a confident hope, a faith-filled hope that his father's mercy is going to rescue him, is going to save him. So it is this picture of what we do. And, and I think, I think sometimes, um, I want to be careful how we say this 'cause I don't wanna, I don't want to get a bunch of angry emails and letters, but I think sometimes we, um, we make salvation too much of a theology test.
And there's probably people that are like, Tony, did you really just say that? I think there are people who trust in the Lord Jesus thinking that that means something akin to what. This lost son thinks
[00:47:03] Jesse Schwamb: Right.
[00:47:03] Tony Arsenal: Exactly. They trust. They trust that Jesus is merciful and, and I'm not necessarily thinking of Roman Catholics.
I'm not thinking of Roman Catholic theology for sure. I do think there are a fair number of Roman Catholic individuals that fall into this category where they trust Jesus to save them. Right. They just don't fully understand exactly what Jesus means, what that means for them to be saved. They think that Christ is a savior who will provide a way for them to be saved by His grace that requires them to contribute something to it.
Arminians fall into that category. Right. I actually think, and I, I think there's gonna be if, if there's, if the one Lutheran who listens to our show hears this is gonna be mad, but I actually think Lutheran theology kind of falls into this in a sort of negative fashion in that you have to not resist grace in order to be saved.
So I think. That is something we should grapple with is that there are people who fit into that category, but this is still a faith-filled, hope-filled confidence in the mercy of the father in this parable that he's even willing to make the journey back. Right? This isn't like right, he walks from his house down the street or from the other side of town.
He's wandering back from a far country. He, he went into a far country. He has to come back from a far country. And yes, the father greets him from afar and sees him from afar. But we're not talking about like from a far country. Like he sees him coming down the road, it, he has to travel to him, and this is a picture of.
The hope and the faith that we have to have to return to God, to throw ourselves on the mercy of Christ, trusting that he has our best interest in mind, that he has died for us, and that it is for us. Right? There's the, the knowledge of what Christ has done, and then there's the ascent to the truth of it.
And then the final part of faith is the confidence or the, the faith in trust in the fact that, that is for me as well, right? This, this is a picture of that right here. I, I don't know why we thought we were gonna get through the whole thing in one week, Jesse. We're gonna spend at least two weeks on this lost son, or at least part of the second week here.
But he, this is, this is also like a picture of faith. This is why I say this as like a systematic theology lesson on soteriology all packed into here. Because not only do we have, like what is repentance and or what does regeneration look like? It's coming to himself. What does repentance look like? Yes.
Turning from your sins and coming back. What is, what is the orde solis? Well, there's a whole, there's a whole thing in here. What is the definition of faith? Well, he knows that his father is good. That he has more than enough food for his servants. He, uh, is willing to acknowledge the truth of that, and he's willing to trust in that, in that he's willing to walk back from a far country in order to lay claim to that or to try to lay claim to it.
That's a picture of faith right there, just in all three parts. Right. It's, it's really quite amazing how, how in depth this parable goes on this stuff,
[00:49:54] Jesse Schwamb: right? Yeah. It's wild to note that as he comes to himself, he's still working. Yeah, in that far off country. So this shows again that sin is this cruel master.
He hits the bottom, he wants the animal food, but he's still unfed. And this is all the while again, he has some kind of arrangement where he is trying to work his way out of that and he sees the desperation. And so I'm with you, you know, before coming to Christ, A person really, I think must come to themselves and that really is like to say they need to have a sober self-knowledge under God, right?
Yeah. Which is, as we said before, like all this talk about, well Jesus is the answer. We better be sure what the question is. And that question is who am I before God? And this is why, of course, you have to have the law and gospel, or you have to have the the bad news before you can have the good news. And really, there's all of this bad news that's delivered here and this repentance, like you've been saying, it's not just mere regret, we know this.
It's a turning, it's a reorientation back to the father. He says, I will arise and go to my father. So yeah, also it demonstrates to me. When we do come to ourselves when there's a sober self-knowledge under God, there is a true working out of salvation that necessarily requires and results in some kind of action, right?
And that is the mortification of sin that is moving toward God again, under his power and direction of the Holy Spirit. But still there is some kind of movement on our part. And so that I think is what leads then in verse 19, as you're saying, the son and I do love this 'cause I think this goes right back to like the true hope that he has, even though it might be slightly corrupted or slightly washed out because it's not like the full, bright colors of the gospel in its entirety.
But he doesn't deny that he's the son. He just ows that he's his worthiness. And so there's like a tender conscience somewhere in there concluding like I must, we can say like, well, I must not really be truly God's own, or God would never take me as I am. And so what we have here, I think is this lesson reminder of God, the difference between identity and harmony with God.
That harmony often gets disrupted because of our own sin, but this son here recognizes that he is still the son. And so I think he, he knows his father, like you're saying. I think he hopes for the best, but what he wants to put forward is, can I just come and be a slave in your house? Which incidentally is what he will become, but under better pretenses of saying, well, you will maintain you sonship because of some kind of meritorious earning, which is where we're all tempted to go because it feels better.
It feels more safe than trusting and embracing and receiving the fathers recklessly spend thrift love, which actually is the thing that keeps us in the identity of being a son or a daughter of God. So you're right, there's so much that's happening. Underneath there that, I mean, I'm sure some Puritan has written about that in probably 50,000 words.
[00:52:36] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.
[00:52:36] Jesse Schwamb: But there's so much there because I'm with you. I think there is a great hope because of understanding his identity, and yet he knows the harmony is disrupted to such a degree that what he also trusts in is that worst case scenario, I would rather be a slave for my father than I would rather be a slave to sin.
And I think only until you come to that place, only when you understand that you are a slave to something, into someone, that you actually start to ask, well, how good is my master? That there is a coming to yourself, which leads to repentance and God uses in his grand providence, all kinds of past, all kinds of undertakings, all kinds of campaigns, if you will, to bring us to that place.
But he must bring us to that place before we can have true repentance.
[00:53:19] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:53:20] Tony Arsenal: And, you know, we'll, we'll get into it more, but just because I, I don't feel great about, uh. Sort of throwing out the law in some ways and not finishing with the gospel.
[00:53:30] Jesse Schwamb: Let's get to the gospel.
[00:53:31] Tony Arsenal: The, the father's correction of this is again, like this is the systematic theology correction.
The son comes and he says, or he's planning on saying, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants. When we get to the father. The father cuts him off as I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.
[00:53:49] Jesse Schwamb: Right? Right.
[00:53:49] Tony Arsenal: So he doesn't, he doesn't let him get to the point of, of proposing the meritorious salvation that he thought he was going to get.
He, he lets him acknowledge, right? He, the father, lets him acknowledge that he's no longer worthy of being his son, and then essentially says, but that doesn't matter because I am worthy of being your father, and I will make you my son again. That that's what he does. He brings the robe, he brings the sandal, he brings the ring, he restores and elevates him to a position of sonship that he didn't even before he left, didn't fully have.
We'll talk about that and we'll talk about it again. He, he doesn't come home and come back to being the second son. He comes back home. And this is part of why the older son is so annoyed, is he's actually elevated to the place of the firstborn.
[00:54:35] Jesse Schwamb: That's right.
[00:54:36] Tony Arsenal: By, by begin being given all these symbols of inheritance.
And, and this is, you know, this is the other thing, and maybe we'll talk about this more when we get to the, get to what the father gives him. But in Jewish custom and in the Jewish law, the second born son would get, would get one third of the estate. And so he comes back and one third of, I mean, who knows?
We don't know how long this trip is. We don't know how long he's been gone. We don't know how, um, how much the estate has been rebuilt. Obviously, the father is still working. It's not as though like his estate is just like stagnant and neutral, but when he comes back, a third of the estate has been wiped out by his reckless living.
When he comes back, he's
basically
given all the symbols to say
that
he's now guaranteed to have
the,
the two thirds.
[00:55:22] Jesse Schwamb: Right?
[00:55:23] Tony Arsenal: So he comes back to this position,
into this estate
where the father elevates him
back to and
above his previous station
of sonship.
That is the gospel of Jesus Christ
right there.
[00:55:34] Jesse Schwamb: That's right.
[00:55:34] Tony Arsenal: That's double imputation baked into the pie.
Amen. It's not,
it's not just that. He goes, well.
Yeah,
you spent all this stuff, but I guess
like we can,
we can overlook that. That would be more akin to come back.
You can
start at zero,
I guess.
Zero is a servant in my house.
Go ahead and
work your way back up if you can.
Right. He comes back and the father says like, well, I've been working hard. I mean, I'm kind of like importing this into the text a little bit, but I've been working hard to rebuild the estate while you were gone. You took a third of it and I've been working hard and now I'm granting you at the, at a minimum, like I'm granting you back what you took away, what you squandered.
I'm giving it back to you. I'm restoring you, not just to neutral. I'm restoring you to this place of positive, favorable, gracious, loving communion with me, such that I'm gonna celebrate, I'm gonna give you the best things. I'm gonna kill the animal, and we're gonna have the best feasts, we're gonna have the most fun, we're gonna celebrate because you're alive.
You're back, and you're alive. Right. That's an element that I had never even thought of in this. You know, the, the father is not supposed to be pictured in this parable as omniscient, right? He has to see the son coming back. I, I don't, you know, I'm, I'm my kid's only almost four years old, but I know a lot of people who have teenagers that they go out and like, they don't come back for days at a time.
And that's a terrifying thing for a parent. Now imagine if he was off in a far country and you don't have phones, you don't have a cell phone, you can't track him on your iPhone. This, this father is, so, he probably had counted his son as dead right there. There probably wasn't another conclusion to make that when he disappears like that, this is a, this is a real return and a real resurrection in a sense, in this parable that we, we should not overlook, right?
I think we think about the, the phrasing at the end there that your brother was lost and now he's fine. He was, he was dead and now he's alive. We think of that as like poetic or metaphorical or, or, or some sort of like hyperbolic statement. But in a very real sense in this instance, this son really did come back to life for this family and he was brought back to life and restored back to life by the grace of the father in in restoring him to this place of sonship.
[00:57:45] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, I think that's right. That initial interaction, that requesting, that demanding is like a severing of the relationship. Yeah. It's basically saying, I wish to go away and to disconnect with you completely as if you were dead and I was a different person.
[00:58:00] Jesse Schwamb: And so I think a great place to end, like you said, is let's be reminded that God's mercy is not reluctant, like God's mercy comes in hot.
The embrace comes faster than the son's repair attempts. That's exactly how God treats us. He delights to bring that mercy to his children when they come before him in repentance day after day after day. Thank goodness. Praise God that his mercies are new every day. And here there are mercies for this son Yeah. By the way, before we end, I have to ask Tony, what flavor is the double imputation pie? Is that like a, is it a fruit pie or is that like a more of a cold, like custard based pie?
[00:58:42] Tony Arsenal: Well, you know, we do have a precedent on this podcast of talking about Exactly. Salvation.
[00:58:46] Jesse Schwamb: Exactly.
[00:58:46] Tony Arsenal: Being the pie or the cake, right?
So the cake is salvation. I don't know. Whatever it is, it's sweet and delicious. Maybe it's like a meat pie. Maybe it's like a good, like minced meat pie with all the, like, are you
[00:58:57] Jesse Schwamb: going
[00:58:57] Tony Arsenal: savory? Good protein? Yeah. Maybe it's a savory pie. Okay. I don't know.
[00:59:00] Jesse Schwamb: Okay.
[00:59:00] Tony Arsenal: I've never had a savory pie.
[00:59:02] Jesse Schwamb: I, I like, I, you know how you say that?
I haven't either, but I would love like, what's it like steak and kidney? Isn't that like a famous.
[00:59:09] Tony Arsenal: That sounds awful.
[00:59:11] Jesse Schwamb: Well, isn't that like a, listen, do we have any brothers, sisters who are listening in in any of like the, yeah, the United Kingdom. Where are you guys at? Yeah, Daniel is a steak and kidney.
Daniel, you
[00:59:19] Tony Arsenal: tell us. Daniel Steak and kidney a real thing.
[00:59:22] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, we need to know.
[00:59:24] Tony Arsenal: Okay.
[00:59:24] Jesse Schwamb: Is it good? Is it delicious? Would you describe it as a pie of double imputation again, steak, kidney? I'm thinking,
[00:59:34] Tony Arsenal: I don't even
[00:59:34] Jesse Schwamb: know. Tony's not, not convinced. So look at his face is like, we need to end this episode right
[00:59:39] Tony Arsenal: now.
Yeah. Well, Jesse, I know how to end the episode. It's funny, it's funny. People, I'm glad people picked up on the little joke from last week, although it wasn't really a joke.
[00:59:49] Jesse Schwamb: No.
[00:59:50] Tony Arsenal: And I still have this recurring nightmare than we're gonna forget how to end the podcast. But last week we were trying a, a slightly different recording setup.
[00:59:57] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.
[00:59:57] Tony Arsenal: And somehow, maybe this is our AI overlords playing some sort of joke on us. Somehow, right after talking about how we were gonna blow the ending, the system magically muted Jesse's microphone. I could see his hands. They were nowhere near the keyboard. There's no possible way
[01:00:13] Jesse Schwamb: in the air.
[01:00:14] Tony Arsenal: Just absolutely.
The, the, the phone was like, or the recording software was like, not today boys. So we're on a different platform this time. Hopefully it won't do it.
[01:00:25] Jesse Schwamb: We're about to find out.
[01:00:27] Tony Arsenal: We will. When I say until next time, Jesse Honor. Everyone
[01:00:33] Jesse Schwamb: just kidding. Everybody
[01:00:34] Tony Arsenal: love the brotherhood.
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What happens when a son demands his father's life essence, squanders it in a far country, and returns expecting servanthood? In this theologically rich episode, Tony Arsenal and Jesse Schwamb conduct a detailed exegetical study of Luke 15:11-24, revealing how the Parable of the Lost Son illustrates the core doctrines of regeneration, repentance, and double imputation. Through careful attention to the Greek text and systematic theology, the hosts demonstrate how this familiar parable captures the entire ordo salutis—the order of salvation. From the son's rebellion and spiritual death to his miraculous "coming to himself" and the father's extravagant restoration, this episode unpacks the gospel embedded in one of Scripture's most beloved stories, showing how God's mercy isn't reluctant but runs to meet repentant sinners.
The Greek words used in this parable are theologically significant. When the son asks for "the share of property," Luke uses ousia (verse 12)—a word meaning "essence" or "being," familiar to students of Trinitarian theology. Later, the text says the father divided his bios (life) between them. As Tony Arsenal notes, these aren't the ordinary Greek words for material possessions. This linguistic choice reveals that the son isn't just asking for money—he's demanding his father's very life essence while rejecting the father himself.
This captures the core nature of sin and idolatry: we want God's blessings, provisions, and gifts while spurning relationship with Him. We desire heaven's benefits without heaven's God. We want meaning, purpose, love, and satisfaction—all gifts that flow from the Father—but we want them on our terms, in our timing, apart from submission to His lordship. The parable's opening immediately confronts us with the audacity of our own hearts, which daily make the same demand: "Give me what I want, and then leave me alone." Every act of sin is fundamentally this request: the demand for God's good gifts while rejecting the Giver.
Verse 14 marks a turning point: "When he had spent everything, a severe famine occurred in that country, and he began to be impoverished." Jesse Schwamb's observation is crucial: "Providence exposes what sin conceals." The famine doesn't occur everywhere—only in the far country where the son has fled. This isn't random; it's part of the parable's theological architecture.
Sin promises freedom, pleasure, and satisfaction, but these promises are lies that only hardship exposes. The son believed his father's house was restrictive and that true life existed elsewhere. Only when famine struck did the deception become clear. God often uses difficulty not as mere punishment but as mercy—a severe mercy that strips away sin's facade and reveals its bankruptcy. The son needed to hit bottom, to desire even the inedible pods fed to pigs, before he could "come to himself."
This pattern appears throughout Scripture and Christian experience. God allows us to taste the bitter fruit of our choices, not because He delights in our suffering, but because He loves us too much to leave us comfortable in our delusions. Hardship becomes the catalyst for repentance, the circumstance that makes us reconsider what we've rejected. As C.S. Lewis wrote, "Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world." The famine was God's megaphone to this lost son.
When the father sees his son returning, he doesn't wait for the full confession. He doesn't require a probationary period of servanthood. He doesn't negotiate terms. Instead, he runs—a shocking image in ancient Middle Eastern culture where patriarchs maintained dignity—and embraces his son before any words are spoken. Then come the symbols: the best robe, a ring, and sandals.
These aren't random acts of generosity; they're covenant symbols of restored sonship and, remarkably, symbols of the firstborn's inheritance. The second-born son, who was entitled to one-third of the estate (which he'd already squandered), is now given the symbols that mark him as having the firstborn's two-thirds inheritance. He's elevated beyond his original position.
This is the gospel of double imputation in parable form. In justification, God doesn't merely forgive our sins (removing our debt); He credits us with Christ's perfect righteousness (giving us Christ's inheritance). We don't return to spiritual neutrality; we're adopted as sons and daughters, made co-heirs with Christ, given "every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 1:3). The father's response to the lost son illustrates what Paul teaches in Romans 5:1-2: we have not just peace with God but access into grace and the hope of glory. We're not merely forgiven servants—we're beloved children clothed in our Elder Brother's righteousness, welcomed into the family feast.
This son felt it was owed to him. Haven't we all done this to God? We take what we've been given by God, our very life, our very essence, we owe him everything, and we squander that on sinful, reckless living. That's just a slap in the face in the best way right out of the gate here. - Tony Arsenal
He comes to himself. There's nothing in the story that should prompt him to want to go back to his home, to think that his father could or would do anything about it, except that he comes to himself. He just comes to the realization that his father is a good man and is wise and has resources. That is a picture of regeneration. - Tony Arsenal
God's mercy is not reluctant. God's mercy comes in hot. The embrace comes faster than the son's repair attempts. That's exactly how God treats us. He delights to bring that mercy to his children when they come before him in repentance day after day after day. Thank goodness his mercies are new every day. - Jesse Schwamb
[00:00:08] Tony Arsenal: When he comes back, he's given all the symbols to say he's now guaranteed to have the two thirds.
So he comes back to this position, where the father elevates him above his previous station That is the gospel of Jesus Christ
that's double imputation baked into the pie. It's not just that. He goes, well. you spent all this stuff, but I guess we can overlook that. That would be more akin to come back. start at zero, Zero is a servant in my house. work your way back up if you can.
[00:00:44] Jesse Schwamb: Welcome to episode 477 of The Reformed Brotherhood. I'm Jesse.
[00:00:51] Tony Arsenal: And I'm Tony. And this is the podcast with ears to hear. Hey brother.
[00:00:55] Jesse Schwamb: Hey brother.
[00:00:56] Jesse Schwamb: Speaking of ears to hear, it struck me that this whole thing we've been doing all this parable talk is really after the manner of God's words.
And one of the things I've really grown to appreciate is how God speaks to the condition of those whom he addresses. He considers our ability, our capacity as his hearers to process what he's saying, and that leads into these amazing parables that we've been talking about. He doesn't speak as he is able to speak.
So to speak, but I didn't mean that to happen. But as we were able to hear, and that means he spoke in these lovely parables so that we might better understand him. And today we're gonna get into some of the drama of the best, like the crown jewel as we've been saying, of maybe all the parables. The Parable of the Lost Son.
We spoke a little bit about it in the last episode. Definitely want to hit that up because it's setting you up for this one, which is the definitive episode. But now we're gonna talk about this first, this younger lost son. Get into some of all of these like juicy details about what takes place, and really, again, see if we can find the heart of God.
Spoiler. We can and we'll,
[00:02:04] Tony Arsenal: yeah,
[00:02:04] Jesse Schwamb: but before we do both of those things, it's of course always time at this moment to do a little affirming with or denying against. Of course, if you haven't heard us before, that's where we take a moment to say, is there something that we think is undervalued that we wanna bring forward that we'd recommend or think is awesome?
Or conversely, is there something that's overvalued that's just, we're over it. The vibe is done. We're gonna deny against that. So I say to you, as I often do, Tony, are you affirming with or deny against?
[00:02:31] Tony Arsenal: I'm affirming tonight. Um, I don't know how much the audience realizes of a giant ridiculous nerd I am, but we're about to go to entirely new giant nerd depths.
[00:02:43] Jesse Schwamb: All right. I
[00:02:43] Tony Arsenal: think,
[00:02:44] Jesse Schwamb: let's hear it.
[00:02:44] Tony Arsenal: So, um, I was a huge fan of Stranger Things. Some, there's some issues with the show, and I understand why some people might not, um, might not feel great about watching it. You know, I think it falls within Christian liberty. But one of the main themes of the show, this is not a spoiler, you learn about this in episode one, is the whole game.
The whole show frames itself around Dungeons and Dragons, right? It's kind of like a storytelling device within the show that the kids play, Dungeons and Dragons, and everything that happens in the Dungeons and Dragons game that they're playing, sort of like, um, foreshadows what's actually gonna happen in the show.
Which funny if, you know Dungeons and Dragons lore, you kind of learn the entire plot of the story like ahead of time. Um, but so I, stranger Things just finished up and I've kind of been like itching to get into Dungeons and Dragons. I used to play a little bit of tabletop when I was in high school, in early college and um, I just really like the idea of sort of this collaborative storytelling game.
Um, whether it's Dungeon Dragons or one of the other systems, um, Dungeons and Dragons is the most popular. It's the most well published. It's the most well established and it's probably the easiest to find a group to play with. Although it is very hard to find a group to play with, especially, uh, kind of out in the middle of nowhere where I live.
So this is where the ultra super nerdy part comes in.
[00:04:02] Jesse Schwamb: Alright, here we
[00:04:03] Tony Arsenal: go. I have been painstakingly over the last week teaching Google Gemini. To be a dungeon master for me. So I've been playing Dungeons and Dragons more or less by myself with, uh, with Google Gemini, and I'm just having a lot of fun with it.
Um, you can get a free copy of the rules online if you, I think it's DND, the letter NDND beyond.com. They have a full suite of like tools to create your character. Access to a basic set of the core rules. Um, you can spend a lot of money on Dungeons and Dragons, uh, and if you want to like really get into it, the books are basically textbooks.
Like you're buying $300 or 300 page, $300, 300 page textbooks, um, that are not all that differently costs than like college textbooks. You'll buy a 300 page Dungeon master guide that's like $50 if you want a paper copy. So, but you can get into it for free. You can get the free rolls online, you can use their dungeon, the d and d Beyond app and do all your dice rolls for free.
Um, you, you can get a free dice roller online if you don't want to do their, their app. Um, but it's just a lot of fun. I've just been having a lot of fun and I found that the, I mean. When you play a couple sessions with it, you see that the, the um, the A IDM that I've created, like it follows the same story beats 'cause it's only got so much to work with in its language model.
Um, but I'm finding ways to sort of like break it out of that model by forcing it to refer to certain websites that are like Dungeons and Dragons lore websites and things like build your, build your campaign from this repository of Dungeons and Dragons stuff. So. I think you could do this with just about any sort of narrative storytelling game like this, whether you're playing a different system or d and d Pathfinders.
I mean, there's all sorts of different versions of it, but it's just been a lot of fun to see, see it going. I'm trying to get a group together. 'cause I think I would, I would probably rather play Dungeons and Dragons with people, um, and rather do it in person. But it's hard to do up here. It's hard to get a, get a group going.
So that's my super nerdy affirmation. I'm not just affirming Dungeons and Dragons, which would already be super nerdy. I'm affirming playing it by myself on my phone, on the bus with Google Gemini, AI acting like I'm not. Just this weird antisocial lunatic. So I'm having a lot of fun with it.
[00:06:20] Jesse Schwamb: So there are so many levels of inception there.
Yeah. Like the inception and everything you just said. I love it.
[00:06:27] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Well, what I'm learning is, um, you can give an, and, and this is something I didn't realize, what ai, I guess I probably should have, you know, it's not like an infinite thing. Um, you can give an AI instructions and if your chat gets long enough, it actually isn't referring back to the very beginning of the chat most of the time.
Right. There's a, there's like a win context window of about 30 responses. So like if you tell the AI, don't roll the dice for me, like, let me roll dices that are related to my actions, eventually it will forget that. So part of what I've been doing is basically building, I'm using Google Gemini when the AI does something I don't want it to do, I say, you just did something I don't want it to do.
Gimme a diagnostic report of why you did that. It will explain to me why it did what it did. Right. Why it didn't observe the rules. And then I'm feeding that into another. Prompt that is helping me generate better prompts that it refers back to. So it's kind of this weird iterative, um, yeah, I, I don't, I'm like, I maybe I'm gonna create the singularity.
I'm not sure. Maybe this is gonna be possible. We should sit over the edge. It's gonna, it's gonna learn how to cast magic spells and it's gonna fire bolt us in the face or something like that. Right. But, uh, again, high risk. I, I, for one, welcome our AO AI dungeon masters. So check it out. You should try it.
If you could do this with chat GPT, you could do it with any ai. Um, it, it, it is going to get a little, I have the benefit because I have a Google Workspace account. I have access to Google Pro or the Gemini Pro, which is a better model for this kind of thing. But you could do this with, with chat GPT or something like that.
And it's gonna be more or less the same experience, I think. But I'm having a, I'm having a ton of fun with it. Um. Again, I, I, there's something about just this, Dungeons and Dragons at its core is a, it's like a, an exercise in joint storytelling, which is really fascinating and interesting to me. Um, and that's what most tabletop RPGs are like.
I suppose you get into something like War Hammer and it's a little bit more like a board. It's a mixture of that plus a board game. But Dungeons and Dragons, the DM is creating the, I mean, not the entire world, but is creating the narrative. And then you as a player are an actor within that narrative. And then there's a certain element of chance that dice rolls play.
But for the most part, um, you're driving the story along. You're telling the story together. So it's, it's pretty interesting. I've also been watching live recordings of Dungeons and Dragon Sessions on YouTube. Oh,
[00:08:50] Jesse Schwamb: wow.
[00:08:51] Tony Arsenal: Like, there's a, there's a channel called Critical Role. Like these sessions are like three and a half hours long.
So, wow. I just kinda have 'em on in the background when I'm, when I'm, uh, working or if I'm, you know, doing something else. Um, but it's really interesting stuff. It's, it's pretty cool. I think it's fun. I'm a super nerd. I'm, I'm no shame in that. Um, I'm just really enjoying it.
[00:09:09] Jesse Schwamb: Listen, nerdery is great. That's like part of the zeitgeist now.
Listen to culture. It's cool to be a nerd. I don't know much about d and d. I've heard a lot about this idea of this community that forms around. Yeah. The story, correct me if I'm wrong, can't these things go on for like years, decades?
[00:09:25] Tony Arsenal: Oh yeah, yeah. Like, you can do there. There, some of this has made its way into the official rule books, but basically you could do what's called a one shot, which is like a self-contained story.
Usually a single session, you know, like you get a Dungeon master, game master, whichever you wanna call the person. Three to four, maybe five characters, player characters. And one session is usually about two hours long. So it's not like you sit down for 20 minutes, 30 minutes at a time and play this right.
And you could do a one shot, which is a story that's designed to, to live all within that two hour session. Um, some people will do it where there isn't really any planned like, outcome of the story. The, the DM just kind of makes up things to do as they go. And then you can have campaigns, which is like, sometimes it's like a series of one shots, but more, it is more like a long term serialized period, you know, serialized campaign where you're doing many, um, many, many kinds of, uh, things all in one driving to like a big epic goal or battle at the end, right?
Um, some groups stay together for a really long time and they might do multiple campaigns, so there's a lot to it. Game's been going on for like 50, 60, 70 years, something like that. I don't remember exactly when it started, but
[00:10:41] Jesse Schwamb: yeah.
[00:10:41] Tony Arsenal: Um, it's an old game. It's kinda like the doctor who of of poor games and it's like the original tabletop role playing game, I think.
[00:10:47] Jesse Schwamb: Right. Yeah, that makes sense. Again, there's something really appealing to me about not just that cooperative storytelling, but cooperative gameplay. Everybody's kind of in it together for the most part. Yeah. Those conquest, as I understand them, are joint in nature. You build solidarity, but if you're meeting with people and having fun together and telling stories and interacting with one another, there's a lot of good that comes out of that stuff there.
A lot of lovely common grace in those kind of building, those long-term interactions, relationships, entertainment built on being together and having good, clean, fun together.
[00:11:17] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Well, and it's, you know, it's, um. It's an interesting exercise. It's it, in some ways it's very much like improv. Like you, you think of like an improv comedy like show I've been to somewhere.
Like, you know, you go to the show and it's an improv troupe, but they're like calling people from the crowd up and asking them for like different scenarios they might do. It's kind of like that in that like the GM can plan a whole, can plan a whole thing. But if I as a player character, um. And I've done this to the virtual one just to see what it does, and it's done some interesting things.
One of the campaigns I was playing, I had rescued a merchant from some giant spiders and I was helping, like, I was helping like navigate them through the woods to the next town. And we kept on getting attacked and just outta nowhere. I was like, what if I sort of act as though I'm suspicious of this merchant now because why are we getting attacked all the time?
And so I, I typed in sort of like a little. A mini role play of me accusing this guy. And it was something like, Randall, we get, we're getting attacked a lot for a simple merchant, Randall merchant. What happens if I cast a tech magic? What am I gonna find? And he's like, I don't know what I'm gonna find. I know I don't know anything.
And then I cast a tech magic and it shifted. I mean, I don't know where the campaign was gonna go before that, but it shifted the whole thing now where the person who gave him the package he was carrying had betrayed him. It was, so that happens in real life too in these games, real life in these games.
That happens in real, in-person sessions too, where a player or a group of players may just decide instead of talking to the contact person that is supposed to give them the clue to find the dungeon they're supposed to go to, instead they ambush them and murder them in gold blood. And now the, the dungeon master has to figure out, how do I get them back to this dungeon when this is the only person that was supposed to know where it is?
So it, it does end up really stretching your thinking skills and sort of your improvisational skills. There's an element of, um, you know, like chance with the dice, um, I guess like the dice falls in the lot, but the lot is in the handle. Or like, obviously that's all ordained as well too, but there is this element of chance where even the DM doesn't get to determine everything.
Um, if, if I say I want to, I want to try to sneak into this room, but I'm a giant barbarian who has, you know, is wearing like chain mail, there's still a chance I could do it, but the dice roll determines that. It's not like the, the GM just says you can't do that. Um, so it's, it's a, I, I like it. I'm, I'm really looking forward to trying to, getting into it.
It is hard to start a group and to get going and, um, there's a part of me that's a little bit. Gun shy of maybe like getting too invested with a group of non-Christians for something like this. 'cause it can get a little weird sometimes. But I think that, I think that'll work out. It'll be fun. I know there's actually some people in our telegram chat.
Bing, bing, bing segue. There we go. There's some people in our telegram chat actually, that we're already planning to do a campaign. Um, so we might even do like a virtual reform brotherhood, Dungeons and Dragons group. So that might be a new sub channel in the telegram at some point.
[00:14:13] Jesse Schwamb: There you go. You could jump right in.
Go to t.me back slash reform brotherhood.
[00:14:18] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Jesse, what are you affirming since I just spent the last 15 minutes gushing about my nerdy hobby?
[00:14:23] Jesse Schwamb: Uh, no, that was great. Can I, can I just say two things? One is, so you're basically saying it's a bit like, like a troll shows up and everybody's like, yes. And yeah.
So I love that idea. Second thing, which is follow up question, very brief. What kind of merchant was Randall.
[00:14:39] Tony Arsenal: Uh, he was a spice trader actually.
[00:14:42] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. I don't trust that.
[00:14:43] Tony Arsenal: And, and silk, silk and spices.
[00:14:45] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. That's double, that's too strict.
[00:14:47] Tony Arsenal: He was actually good guy in the, in the story that developed out of this campaign.
He actually became part of my family and like, like, like got adopted into the family because he lost everything on his own. Randy we're
[00:15:00] Jesse Schwamb: talking about Randy.
[00:15:01] Tony Arsenal: Randy Randall with one L. Yeah. The AI was very specific about
that.
[00:15:05] Jesse Schwamb: There's, there's nothing about this guy I trust. I, is this still ongoing? Because I think he's just trying to make his way deeper in,
[00:15:11] Tony Arsenal: uh, no, no.
It, I'll, I'll wait for next week to tell you how much, even more nerdy this thing gets. But there's a whole thing that ha there was a whole thing out of this That's a tease. Tease. There was a, there was a horse and the horse died and there was lots of tears and there was a wedding and a baby. It was, it's all sorts of stuff going on in this campaign.
[00:15:27] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. And I'm sure. Randy was somewhere near that horse when it happened. Right?
[00:15:32] Tony Arsenal: It was his horse.
[00:15:33] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, exactly. That's
[00:15:35] Tony Arsenal: exactly, he didn't, he didn't kill the horse. He had no power to knock down the bridge The horse was standing on.
[00:15:40] Jesse Schwamb: Listen, next week, I'm pretty sure that's what we're gonna learn is that it was all him.
[00:15:45] Tony Arsenal: Alright, Jesse, save us from this. Save us from this, please. Uh,
[00:15:49] Jesse Schwamb: no.
What
[00:15:50] Tony Arsenal: you affirming, this is
[00:15:50] Jesse Schwamb: great.
[00:15:50] Jesse Schwamb: It's possible that there is a crossover between yours and mine if we consider. That the church is like playing a d and d game in the dungeon Masters Christ, and the campaigns, the gospel. So I was thinking maybe is it possible, uh, maybe this is just the, the theology of the cross, but that sometimes, like you need the denial to get to the affirmation.
Have we talked about that kind of truth? Yeah,
[00:16:14] Tony Arsenal: yeah,
[00:16:15] Jesse Schwamb: for sure. So here's a little bit of that. I'll be very, very brief and I'm using this not as like just one thing that happened today, but what I know is for sure happening all over the world. And I mean that very literally, not just figuratively when it comes to the body of Christ, the local church.
So it snowed here overnight. This was, this is the Lord's Day. We're hanging out in the Lord's Day, which is always a beautiful day to talk about God. And overnight it snowed. The snow stopped relatively late in the morning around the time that everybody would be saying, Hey, it's time to go and worship the Lord.
So for those in my area, I got up, we did the whole clearing off the Kai thing. I went to church and I was there a little bit early for a practice for music. And when I pulled in, there weren't many there yet, but the whole parking lot unplowed. So there's like three inches of snow, unplowed parking lot. So I guess the denial is like the plow people decided like, not this time I, I don't think so.
They understood they were contracted with the church, but my understanding is that when one of the deacons called, they were like, Ooh, yeah, we're like 35 minutes away right now, so that's gonna be a problem. So when I pulled in, here's what I was. Like surprise to find, but in a totally unexpected way, even though I understand what a surprise is.
And that is that, uh, that first the elders and the deacons, everybody was just decided we're going to shovel an entire parking lot. And at some point big, I was a little bit early there, but at some point then this massive text change just started with everybody, which was, Hey, when you come to church, bring your shovel.
And I, I will tell you like when I got out of the car. I was so like somebody was immediately running to clear a path with me. One of those like snow pushers, you know what I mean? Yeah. Like one, those beastly kind of like blade things.
[00:17:57] Tony Arsenal: Those things are, those things are the best.
[00:17:59] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. You just run. And so you have never met a group of people that was more happy to shovel an entire large asphalt area, which normally shouldn't even be required.
And. It just struck me, even in hindsight now thinking about it, it was this lovely confluence of people serving each other and serving God. It was as if they got up that morning and said, do you know what would be the best thing in the world for me to do is to shovel. And so everybody was coming out.
Everybody was shoveling it. It was to protect everyone and to allow one into elaborate, one access. It was just incredible. And so I started this because the affirmation is, I know this happens in, in all of our churches, every God fearing God, loving God serving church, something like this is happening, I think on almost every Lord's day or maybe every day of the week in various capacities.
And I just think this is God's people coming together because everybody, I think when we sat down for the message was exhausted, but. But there was so much joy in doing this. I think what you normally would find to be a mundane and annoying task, and the fact that it wasn't just, it was redeemed as if like we, we found a greater purpose in it.
But that's, everyone saw this as a way to love each other and to love God, and it became unexpected worship in the parking lot. That's really what it was, and it was fantastic. I really almost hope that we just get rid of the plow company and just do it this way from now on. Yeah, so I'm affirming, recognize people, recognize brothers and sisters that your, your church is doing this stuff all the time and, and be a part of it.
Jump in with the kinda stuff because I love how it brings forward the gospel.
[00:19:35] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. That's a great story. It's a great, uh, a great example of the body of Christ being, what the body of Christ is and just pulling together to get it done. Um, which, you know, we do on a spiritual level, I think, more often than a physical level these days.
Right, right. But, um, that's great. I'm sitting here going three inches of snow. I would've just pulled into the lot and then pulled out of the lot. But New Hampshire, it hits different in New Hampshire. Like we all d have snow tires and four wheel drive.
[00:20:02] Jesse Schwamb: It's, it's enough snow where it was like pretty wet and heavy that it, if, you know, you pack that stuff down, it gets slick.
You can't see the people, like you can't have your elderly people just flying in, coming in hot and then trying to get outta the vehicle, like making their way into church.
[00:20:14] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.
[00:20:15] Jesse Schwamb: So there was, there was a lot more of that. But I think again, you would, one of the options would've been like, Hey, why don't we shovel out some sp spaces for the, for those who need it, for, you know, those who need to have access in a way that's a little bit less encumbered.
Oh, no, no. These people are like, I see your challenge and I am going to shovel the entire parking lots.
[00:20:35] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. It used to happen once in a while, uh, at the last church, uh, at, um, your dad's church. We would, where the plow would just not come on a Sunday morning or, or more often than not. Um, you know, what happens a lot of times is the plows don't want to come more than once.
Right. If they don't have to. Or sometimes they won't come if they think it's gonna melt because they don't want to deal with, uh, with like customers who are mad that you plowed and that it all melts. But either way, once in a while. The plow wouldn't come or it wouldn't come in time. And what we would do is instead of trying to shovel an entire driveway thing, we would just went, the first couple people who would get there, the young guys in the church, there was only a couple of us, but the younger guys in the church would just, we would just be making trips, helping people into the, yeah.
Helping people into the building. So, um, it was a pretty, you know, it was a small church, so it was like six trips and we'd have everybody in, but um, we just kind of, that was the way we pulled together. Um, yeah, that's a great, it's a great story. I love, I love stuff like that. Yeah, me too. Whether it's, whether it's, you know, plowing a, a parking lot with shovels instead of a plow, or it's just watching, um, watching the tables and the chairs from the fellowship, you know, all just like disappear because everybody's just, uh, picks up after themselves and cleans and stuff.
That's, that's like the most concrete example of the body of Christ doing what the body of Christ does. Um, it's always nice, you know, we always hear jokes about like, who can carry the most, the most chairs,
[00:22:04] Jesse Schwamb: most
[00:22:04] Tony Arsenal: chairs. Uh, I think it's true. Like a lot of times I think like I could do like seven or eight sometimes.
[00:22:10] Jesse Schwamb: Uh, you, that's, so, one more thing I wanna say. I, I wanted to tell you this privately, Tony, 'cause it just cracked me up 'cause I, you'll appreciate this. But now I'm realizing I think the brothers and sisters who listened to us talk for any length of time and in the context of this conversation, but the church will appreciate this too.
On my way out, I, I happened because I was there early and the snow was crazy. I parked way further out, way on the edge of the lot to just allow for greater access because of all the shoveling that was happening. And by the way, I really hope there were a ton of visitors this morning because they were like, wow, this, this church is wild.
They love to shovel their own lot and they're the happiest people doing it. Some sweaty person just ushered me in while they were casting snow. Like,
[00:22:47] Tony Arsenal: is this some new version of snake handling? You shovel your own lot and your impervious to back injuries.
[00:22:53] Jesse Schwamb: Uh. So I was walking out and as I walked past, uh, there was a, uh, two young gentlemen who were congregating by this very large lifted pickup truck, which I don't have much experience with, but it looked super cool and it was started, it was warming up, and they were just like casually, like in the way that only like people with large beards wearing flannel and Carhartt kind of do, like casually leaning against the truck, talking in a way that you're like, wow, these guys are rugged.
And they sound, they're super cool, and they're probably like in their twenties. And all I hear as I pass by is one guy going, yeah, well, I mean that's, I was, I said to them too, but I said, listen, I'd rather go to a church with God-fearing women than anywhere else.
[00:23:36] Tony Arsenal: Nice.
[00:23:37] Jesse Schwamb: I was just like, yep. On the prowl and I love it.
And they're not wrong. This is the place to be.
[00:23:42] Tony Arsenal: It is.
[00:23:43] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. This is the place to be. Yeah. So all kinds of, all kinds of good things I think going on in that in the house of the Lord and where wherever you're at, I would say be happy and be joyful and look for those things and participate in, like you said, whether it's physical or not, but as soon as you said like the, our young men, our youth somehow have this competition of when we need to like pack up the sanctuary.
How many chairs can I take at one time? Yeah. It's like the classic and it just happens. Nobody says like, okay, everybody line up. We're about to embark on the competition now. Like the strong man usher competition. It's just like, it just happens and
[00:24:17] Tony Arsenal: it's
[00:24:17] Jesse Schwamb: incredible.
[00:24:18] Tony Arsenal: I mean, peacocks fan out their tail feathers.
Young Christian guys fan out. All of the table chairs, chairs they can carry. It's uh, it's a real phenomena. So I feel like if you watch after a men's gathering, everybody is like carrying one chair at a time because they don't wanna hurt their backs and their arms. Oh, that's
[00:24:36] Jesse Schwamb: true. That's
[00:24:37] Tony Arsenal: what I do. Yeah.
But it's when the women are around, that's when you see guys carrying like 19 chairs. Yeah. Putting themselves in the hospital.
[00:24:42] Jesse Schwamb: That's what I, listen, it comes for all of us. Like I, you know, I'm certainly not young anymore by almost any definition, but even when I'm in the mix, I'm like, oh, I see you guys.
You wanna play this game? Mm-hmm. Let's do this. And then, you know, I'm stacking chairs until I hurt myself. So it's great. That's, that is what we do for each other. It's
[00:25:01] Tony Arsenal: just, I hurt my neck getting outta bed the other day. So it happens. It's real.
[00:25:05] Jesse Schwamb: The struggle. Yeah, the struggle is real.
[00:25:07] Jesse Schwamb: Speaking of struggle, speaking of family issues, speaking of all kinds of drama, let's get into Luke 15 and let me read just, I would say the first part of this parable, which as we've agreed to talk about, if we can even get this far, it's just the younger son.
[00:25:24] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.
[00:25:25] Jesse Schwamb: And again, don't worry, we're gonna get to all of it, but let me read beginning in, uh, verse 11 here. This is Luke chapter 15. Come follow along as you will accept if you're operating heavy machinery. And Jesus said, A man had two sons and the younger of them said to his father, father, give me the share of the estate that falls to me.
So he divided his wealth between them. And not many days later, the younger son gathered everything together and went on a journey into a distant country. And there he squandered his estate living recklessly. Now, when he had spent everything, a severe famine occurred in that country and it began to be impoverished.
So he went and hired himself to one of the citizens of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. So he went and as he was desiring to be fed with the pods that the swine were eating because no one was giving anything to him. But when he came to himself, he said, how many of my father's men have more than enough bread, but I am dying here with hunger.
I'll rise up and go to my father, and I'll say to him, father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me as one of your hired men. So he rose up, came to his father, but while he was still a long way off. His father saw him and felt compassion and ran and embraced him.
And the son said to him, father, I've sinned against heaven and before you, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father said to his slaves, quickly, bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet and bring the fat in calf and slaughter it and let us celebrate.
For the son of mine was dead and has come to life again. He was lost and he has been found and they began to celebrate.
[00:27:09] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. This is such a, um, such a, I don't know, like pivotal seminal parable in the Ministry of Christ. Um, it's one of those parables and we, we mentioned this briefly last week that even most.
It, it hasn't passed out of the cultural zeitgeist yet. A lot of biblical teaching has, I mean, a lot, I think a lot of things that used to be common knowledge where, where you could make a reference to something in the Bible and people would just get it. Um, even if they weren't Christian or weren't believers, they would still know what you were talking about.
There's a lot of things in the Bible that have passed out of that cultural memory. The, the parable of the prodigal son, lost son, however you wanna phrase it, um, that's not one of them. Right. So I think it's really important for us, um, and especially since it is such a beautiful picture of the gospel and it has so many different theological touch points, it's really incumbent on us to spend time thinking about this because I would be willing to bet that if you weave.
Elements of this parable into your conversations with nonbelievers that you are praying for and, and, you know, witnessing to and sharing the gospel with, if you weave this in there, you're gonna help like plant some seeds that when it comes time to try to harvest, are gonna pay dividends. Right. So I think it's a really, it's a really great thing that we're gonna be able to spend, you know, a couple weeks really just digging into this.
[00:28:40] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, and to define the beginning, maybe from the end, just slightly here, I like what you said about this cultural acknowledgement of this. I think one of the correctives we can provide, which is clear in the story, is in the general cultural sense. We speak of this prodigal as something that just returns comes back, was lost, but now is found.
And often maybe there is this component of, in the familial relationship, it's as if they've been restored. Here we're gonna of course find that this coming to one senses is in fact the work of God. That there is, again, a little bit of denial that has to bring forward the affirmation here that is the return.
And so again, from the beginning here, we're just talking about the younger son. We have more than youthful ambition.
[00:29:19] Jesse Schwamb: This heart of, give me the stuff now, like so many have said before, is really to say. Give me the gifts and not you, which is, I think, a common fault of all Christians. We think, for instance of heaven, and we think of all the blessings that come with it, but not necessarily of the joy of just being with our savior, being with Christ.
And I think there's something here right from the beginning, there's a little bit of this betrayal in showing idolatry, the ugliness of treating God's gifts as if there's something owed. And then this idea that of course. He receives these things and imme more or less immediately sometime after he goes and takes these things and squanderers them.
And sin and idolatry, I think tends to accelerate in this way. The distance from the father becomes distance from wisdom. We are pulled away from that, which is good. The father here being in his presence and being under his care and his wisdom and in his fear of influence and concern, desiring then to say, I don't want you just give me the gifts that you allegedly owe me.
And then you see how quickly like sin does everything you, we always say like, sin always costs more than you want to pay. And it always takes you further than you want to go. And that's exactly what we see here. Like encapsulated in an actual story of relationship and distance.
[00:30:33] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, I think, um.
It's interesting to me.
[00:30:39] Tony Arsenal: You know, I, I, I'm a big fan of saying you don't need to study Greek to understand your Bible, but I'm also a big fan of saying understanding a little bit of Greek is really helpful. And one of the things that I think is really intriguing, and I haven't quite parsed out exactly what I think this means, but the word property in this parable, it actually is two different Greek words that is translated as property, at least in the ESV.
And neither one of them really fit. What our normal understanding of property would be. And there are Greek words that refer to like all of your material possessions, but it says, father, give me the share of property. And he uses the word usia, which those of us who have heard anything about the trinity, which is all of us, um, know that that word means something about existence.
It's the core essence of a person. So it says, father, give me the share of usia that is coming to me. And then it says, and he divided his bias, his, his life between them. Then it says, not many days later, the younger son gathered all that he had took a journey into the far country. There he squandered his usia again.
So this, this parable, Christ is not using the ordinary words to refer to material, uh, material accumulation and property like. I think probably, you know, Christ isn't like randomly using these words. So there probably is an element that these were somehow figuratively used of one's life possessions. But the fact that he's using them in these particular ways, I think is significant.
[00:32:10] Tony Arsenal: And so the, the, the younger son here, and I don't even like calling this the prodigal sun parable because the word prodigal doesn't like the equivalent word in Greek doesn't appear in this passage. And prodigal doesn't mean like the lost in returned, like prodigal is a word that means like the one who spends lavishly, right?
So we call him the prodigal son because he went and he squandered all of his stuff and he spent all of his money. So it doesn't even really describe the main feature or the main point of why this, this parable is here. It's just sort of like a random adjective that gets attached to it. But all of that aside, um.
This parable starts off not just about wasting our property, like wasting our things, but it's a parable that even within the very embedded language of the parable itself is talking about squandering our very life, our very essence, our very existence is squandered and wasted as we depart from the Father.
Right? And this is so like, um, it's almost so on the head, on the on the nose that it's almost a little like, really Jesus. Like this is, this is so like, slap you in the face kind of stuff. This is right outta like Romans, uh, Romans one, like they did not give thanks to God. They did not show gratitude to God or acknowledge him as God.
This is what's happening in this parable. The son doesn't go to his father and say, father, I love you. I'm so happy to stay with you. I'm so happy to be here. He, he basically says like. Give me your very life essence, and I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go spend it on prostitutes. I'm gonna go waste your life, father, I'm gonna waste your life, your existence, your bias.
I'm gonna go take that and I'm gonna squander it on reckless living. And I guess we don't know for sure. He, it doesn't say he spends it on prostitutes. That's something his brother says later and assumes he did. So I, I don't know that we do that. But either way, I'm gonna take what's yours, your very life, your very essence.
And also that my life, my essence, the gift you've given me as my father, you've given me my life. In addition now to your life or a portion of your life. And I'm gonna go squander that on reckless living, right? Like, how much of a picture of sin is that, that we, we take what we've been given by God, our very life, our very essence, we owe him everything, and we squander that on sinful, reckless living.
That that's just a slap in the face in the best way right out of the gate here.
[00:34:28] Jesse Schwamb: Yes, that, that's a great point because it's, it would be one thing to rebel over disobedience, another thing to use the very life essence that you've been given for destructive, self-destructive purposes. And then to use that very energy, which is not yours to begin with, but has been imbued in yours, external, all of these things.
And then to use that very thing as the force of your rebellion. So it's double insult all the way around. I'm with you in the use of Greek there. Thank you. Locus Bio software. Not a sponsor of the podcast, but could be. And I think that's why sometimes in translations you get the word like a state because it's like the closest thing we can have to understanding that it's property earned through someone's life more or less.
Yeah. And then is passed down, but as representative, not just of like, here's like 20 bucks of cash, but something that I spent all of me trying to earn and. And to your point, also emphasizing in the same way that this son felt it was owed him. So it's like really bad all around and I think we would really be doing ourselves a disservice if we didn't think that there's like a little bit of Paul washer saying in this, like I'm talking about you though.
So like just be like, look at how disrespectful the sun is. Yeah. Haven't we all done this? To God and bringing up the idea of prodigal being, so that, that is like the amazing juxtaposition, isn't it? Like Prodigal is, is spent recklessly, parsimonious would be like to, to save recklessly, so to speak. And then you have the love the father demonstrates coming against all of that in the same way with like a totally different kind of force.
So.
[00:36:02] Jesse Schwamb: What I find interesting, and I think this is like set up in exactly what you said, is that when you get to verse 14 and this famine comes, it's showing us, I think that like providence exposes what Sin conceals.
[00:36:16] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.
[00:36:16] Jesse Schwamb: And want arrives. Not just because like the money ran out, but because again, like these idols, what he's replaced the father with, they don't satisfy.
And repentance then often begins when God shows the emptiness of light apart life apart from him. That's like the affirmation being born out of the denial. And so I think that this also is evolving for us, this idea that God is going to use hardship, not as mere punishment, but as mercy that wakes us up and that the son here is being woken up, but not, of course, it's not as if he goes into the land, like you said, starts to spend, is like, whoa, hold on a second.
This seems like a bad idea. It's not until all of that sin ever, like the worship of false things collapses under its own weight before it, which is like the precursor of the antecedent, I think, to this grand repentance or this waking up.
[00:37:05] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I also think it's, um.
[00:37:08] Tony Arsenal: A feature of this that I haven't reflected on too deeply, but is, is worth thinking about is the famine that's described here only occurs in this far country that he's in.
[00:37:17] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah.
[00:37:17] Tony Arsenal: Right. So even that's right. And this is like a multitude of foolish decisions. This is compounding foolish decisions that don't, don't make any sense. Like they don't really actually make any sense. Um. There's not a logic to this, this lost son's decision making. He takes the property. Okay. I guess maybe like you could be anxious to get your inheritance, but then like he takes it to a far country.
Like there's no reason for him to do that. If at any point through this sort of insane process he had stopped short, he would not have been in the situation he was in. Yes. And that, I love that phrase, that providence, you know, reveals, I don't know exactly how you said it, but like providence reveals what our sin can bring to us.
Like he first see sins against his father by sort of like demanding, demanding his inheritance early. Then he takes it and he leaves his country for no reason. He goes to this far country, then he spends everything and then the famine arises. Right? And the famine arises in this other country.
[00:38:13] Jesse Schwamb: Right.
[00:38:13] Tony Arsenal: And that's, I think that is still again, like a picture of sin.
Like we. We don't just, we don't just take what the father has and, and like spend it like that would be bad enough if we weren't grateful for what we have and what we've been given, and we just waste it. But on top of that, now we also have taken ourselves to a far country. Like we've gone away from the good, the good land of the Lord, as those who are not regenerate.
We've gone away from the, the Lord into this far country. And it's not until we start to have this famine that we recognize what we've done. And again, this is, this is where I think we get a picture. There's so many theological, like points in this parable particular that it almost feels a little bit like a, like a.
Parable that's intended to teach some systematic theology about for sure, the oral salus, which I think there's probably a lot of like biblical theology people that are ready to just crawl through the screen and strangle me for saying that. But this is such a glorious picture of, of regeneration too.
[00:39:16] Tony Arsenal: Like he comes to himself, there's nothing, there's nothing in the story that's like, oh, and the servant that he was, the other servant he was talking to mentioned that the famine, like there's nothing here that should prompt him to want to go back to his home, to think that his father could or would do anything about it, except that he comes to himself.
He just comes to the realization that his father is a good man and is wise and has resources, and has takes care of his, of his servants on top of how he takes care of his sons. That is a picture of regeneration. There's no, yeah. Logical, like I'm thinking my way into it, he just one day realizes how much, how many of my father's servants have more than enough bread.
Right. But I'm perishing here in this, this foolish other country with nothing. Right. I can't even, and the, the pods that the pigs ate, we can even, we can get into the pods a little bit here, but like. He wants to eat the pods. The pods that he's giving the pigs are not something that's even edible to humans.
He's that destitute, that he's willing to eat these pods that are like, this is the leftover stuff that you throw to the pigs because no, no, nobody and nothing else can actually eat it. And that's the state he's in at the very bottom, in the very end of himself where he realizes my father is good and he loves me, and even if I can never be his son again, surely he'll take care of me.
I mentioned it last week, like he wasn't going back thinking that this was gonna be a failing proposition. He went back because he knew or he, he was confident that his father was going to be able to take care of him and would accept him back. Right. Otherwise, what would be the point of going back? It wasn't like a, it wasn't like a, um, a mission he expected to fail at.
He expected there to be a positive outcome or he wouldn't have done it. Like, it wouldn't make any sense to try that if there wasn't the hope of some sort of realistic option.
[00:41:09] Jesse Schwamb: And I think his confidence in that option, as you were saying, is in this way where he's constructed a transaction. Yeah. That he's gonna go back and say, if you'll just take me out as a slave, I know you have slaves, I will work for you.
Right. Therefore, I feel confident that you'll accept me under those terms because I'll humble myself. And why would you not want to remunerate? Me for the work that I put forward. So you're right, like it's, it's strange that he basically comes to this, I think, sense that slavery exists in his life and who would he rather be the slave of,
[00:41:38] Tony Arsenal: right?
[00:41:39] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. And so he says, listen, I'm gonna come to the father and give him this offer. And I'm very confident that given that offer and his behavior, what I know about how he treats his other slaves, that he will hire me back because there's work to do. And therefore, as a result of the work I put forward, he will take care of me.
How much of like contemporary theology is being preached in that very way right now?
[00:41:58] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.
[00:41:59] Jesse Schwamb: And that's really like why the minimum wages of sin is all of this stuff. It's death. It's the consequences that we're speaking about here. By the way, the idea about famine is really interesting. I hadn't thought about that.
It is interesting, again, that sin casts him out into this foreign place where the famine occurs. And that famine is the beginning of his realization of the true destruction, really how far he's devolved and degraded in his person and in his relationships and in his current states. And then of course, the Bible is replete with references and God moving through famine.
And whereas in Genesis, we have a local famine, essentially casting Joseph brothers into a foreign land to be freed and to be saved.
[00:42:39] Tony Arsenal: Right.
[00:42:40] Jesse Schwamb: We have the exact opposite, which is really kind of interesting. Yeah. So we probably should talk about, you know, verse 15 and the, and the pig stuff. I mean, I think the obvious statement here is that.
It would be scandalous, like a Jewish hero would certainly feel the shame of the pigs. They represent UNC cleanliness and social humiliation. I'm interested again, in, in this idea, like you've started us on that the freedom that this younger brother sought for becomes slavery. It's kind of bondage of the wills style.
Yeah. Stuff. There's like an, an attentiveness in the story to the degrading reversal in his condition. And it is interesting that we get there finally, like the bottom of the pit maybe, or the barrel is like you said, the pods, which it's a bit like looking at Tide pods and being like, these are delicious.
I wish I could just eat these. So I, I think your point isn't lost. Like it's not just that like he looked at something gross and was so his stomach was grumbling so much that he might find something in there that he would find palatable. It, it's more than that. It's like this is just total nonsense. It, this is Romans one.
[00:43:45] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And these pods, like, these aren't, um, you know, I guess I, I don't know exactly what these are. I'm sure somebody has done all of the historical linguistic studies, but the Greek word is related to the, the word for keratin. So like the, the same, the same root word. And we have to be careful not to define a Greek word based on how we use it.
That's a reverse etymology fallacy. Like dunamis doesn't mean dynamite, it's the other direction. But the Greek word is used in other places, in Greek literature to describe like the horns of rhinoc, like,
[00:44:21] Jesse Schwamb: right,
[00:44:21] Tony Arsenal: this, these aren't like. These aren't pea pods. I've heard this described like these are like little vegetable pods.
No, this is like they're throwing pieces of bone to the pigs.
[00:44:31] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah.
[00:44:31] Tony Arsenal: And the pigs, the pigs can manage it. And this is what this also like, reinforces how destitute and how deep the famine is. Like this isn't as though, like this is the normal food you give to pigs. Like usually you feed pigs, like you feed pigs, like the extra scraps from your table and like other kinds of like agricultural waste.
These are, these are like chunks of bony keratin that are being fed to the pigs. So that's how terrible the famine is that not even the pigs are able to get food.
[00:45:00] Jesse Schwamb: Right?
[00:45:00] Tony Arsenal: They're given things that are basically inedible, but the pigs can manage it. And this, this kid is so hungry, he's so destitute that he says, man, I wish I could chew on those bony, those bony pods that I'm feeding them because that's how hungry and starved I am.
You get the picture that this, um. This lost son is actually probably not just metaphorically on the brink of death, but he's in real risk of starvation, real risk of death that he, he can't even steal. He can't even steal from the pigs what they're eating, right? Like he can't even, he can't even glean off of what the pigs are eating just to stay alive.
He, he's literally in a position where he has no hope of actually rescuing himself. The only thing that he can do, and this is the realization he has, the only thing he can do is throw himself back on the mercy of his father.
[00:45:50] Jesse Schwamb: That's
[00:45:50] Tony Arsenal: right. And, and hope, again, I think hope with confidence, but hope that his father will show mercy on him and his, his conception.
I wanna be careful in this parable not to, I, I think there's something to what you're getting at or kinda what you're hinting at, that like his conception of mercy is. Not the full picture of the gospel. Yes. His conception of mercy is that he's going to be able to go and work and be rewarded for his laborers in a way that he can survive.
And the gospel is so much broader and so much bigger than that. But at the same time, I think it's, it's actually also a confident hope, a faith-filled hope that his father's mercy is going to rescue him, is going to save him. So it is this picture of what we do. And, and I think, I think sometimes, um, I want to be careful how we say this 'cause I don't wanna, I don't want to get a bunch of angry emails and letters, but I think sometimes we, um, we make salvation too much of a theology test.
And there's probably people that are like, Tony, did you really just say that? I think there are people who trust in the Lord Jesus thinking that that means something akin to what. This lost son thinks
[00:47:03] Jesse Schwamb: Right.
[00:47:03] Tony Arsenal: Exactly. They trust. They trust that Jesus is merciful and, and I'm not necessarily thinking of Roman Catholics.
I'm not thinking of Roman Catholic theology for sure. I do think there are a fair number of Roman Catholic individuals that fall into this category where they trust Jesus to save them. Right. They just don't fully understand exactly what Jesus means, what that means for them to be saved. They think that Christ is a savior who will provide a way for them to be saved by His grace that requires them to contribute something to it.
Arminians fall into that category. Right. I actually think, and I, I think there's gonna be if, if there's, if the one Lutheran who listens to our show hears this is gonna be mad, but I actually think Lutheran theology kind of falls into this in a sort of negative fashion in that you have to not resist grace in order to be saved.
So I think. That is something we should grapple with is that there are people who fit into that category, but this is still a faith-filled, hope-filled confidence in the mercy of the father in this parable that he's even willing to make the journey back. Right? This isn't like right, he walks from his house down the street or from the other side of town.
He's wandering back from a far country. He, he went into a far country. He has to come back from a far country. And yes, the father greets him from afar and sees him from afar. But we're not talking about like from a far country. Like he sees him coming down the road, it, he has to travel to him, and this is a picture of.
The hope and the faith that we have to have to return to God, to throw ourselves on the mercy of Christ, trusting that he has our best interest in mind, that he has died for us, and that it is for us. Right? There's the, the knowledge of what Christ has done, and then there's the ascent to the truth of it.
And then the final part of faith is the confidence or the, the faith in trust in the fact that, that is for me as well, right? This, this is a picture of that right here. I, I don't know why we thought we were gonna get through the whole thing in one week, Jesse. We're gonna spend at least two weeks on this lost son, or at least part of the second week here.
But he, this is, this is also like a picture of faith. This is why I say this as like a systematic theology lesson on soteriology all packed into here. Because not only do we have, like what is repentance and or what does regeneration look like? It's coming to himself. What does repentance look like? Yes.
Turning from your sins and coming back. What is, what is the orde solis? Well, there's a whole, there's a whole thing in here. What is the definition of faith? Well, he knows that his father is good. That he has more than enough food for his servants. He, uh, is willing to acknowledge the truth of that, and he's willing to trust in that, in that he's willing to walk back from a far country in order to lay claim to that or to try to lay claim to it.
That's a picture of faith right there, just in all three parts. Right. It's, it's really quite amazing how, how in depth this parable goes on this stuff,
[00:49:54] Jesse Schwamb: right? Yeah. It's wild to note that as he comes to himself, he's still working. Yeah, in that far off country. So this shows again that sin is this cruel master.
He hits the bottom, he wants the animal food, but he's still unfed. And this is all the while again, he has some kind of arrangement where he is trying to work his way out of that and he sees the desperation. And so I'm with you, you know, before coming to Christ, A person really, I think must come to themselves and that really is like to say they need to have a sober self-knowledge under God, right?
Yeah. Which is, as we said before, like all this talk about, well Jesus is the answer. We better be sure what the question is. And that question is who am I before God? And this is why, of course, you have to have the law and gospel, or you have to have the the bad news before you can have the good news. And really, there's all of this bad news that's delivered here and this repentance, like you've been saying, it's not just mere regret, we know this.
It's a turning, it's a reorientation back to the father. He says, I will arise and go to my father. So yeah, also it demonstrates to me. When we do come to ourselves when there's a sober self-knowledge under God, there is a true working out of salvation that necessarily requires and results in some kind of action, right?
And that is the mortification of sin that is moving toward God again, under his power and direction of the Holy Spirit. But still there is some kind of movement on our part. And so that I think is what leads then in verse 19, as you're saying, the son and I do love this 'cause I think this goes right back to like the true hope that he has, even though it might be slightly corrupted or slightly washed out because it's not like the full, bright colors of the gospel in its entirety.
But he doesn't deny that he's the son. He just ows that he's his worthiness. And so there's like a tender conscience somewhere in there concluding like I must, we can say like, well, I must not really be truly God's own, or God would never take me as I am. And so what we have here, I think is this lesson reminder of God, the difference between identity and harmony with God.
That harmony often gets disrupted because of our own sin, but this son here recognizes that he is still the son. And so I think he, he knows his father, like you're saying. I think he hopes for the best, but what he wants to put forward is, can I just come and be a slave in your house? Which incidentally is what he will become, but under better pretenses of saying, well, you will maintain you sonship because of some kind of meritorious earning, which is where we're all tempted to go because it feels better.
It feels more safe than trusting and embracing and receiving the fathers recklessly spend thrift love, which actually is the thing that keeps us in the identity of being a son or a daughter of God. So you're right, there's so much that's happening. Underneath there that, I mean, I'm sure some Puritan has written about that in probably 50,000 words.
[00:52:36] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.
[00:52:36] Jesse Schwamb: But there's so much there because I'm with you. I think there is a great hope because of understanding his identity, and yet he knows the harmony is disrupted to such a degree that what he also trusts in is that worst case scenario, I would rather be a slave for my father than I would rather be a slave to sin.
And I think only until you come to that place, only when you understand that you are a slave to something, into someone, that you actually start to ask, well, how good is my master? That there is a coming to yourself, which leads to repentance and God uses in his grand providence, all kinds of past, all kinds of undertakings, all kinds of campaigns, if you will, to bring us to that place.
But he must bring us to that place before we can have true repentance.
[00:53:19] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:53:20] Tony Arsenal: And, you know, we'll, we'll get into it more, but just because I, I don't feel great about, uh. Sort of throwing out the law in some ways and not finishing with the gospel.
[00:53:30] Jesse Schwamb: Let's get to the gospel.
[00:53:31] Tony Arsenal: The, the father's correction of this is again, like this is the systematic theology correction.
The son comes and he says, or he's planning on saying, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants. When we get to the father. The father cuts him off as I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.
[00:53:49] Jesse Schwamb: Right? Right.
[00:53:49] Tony Arsenal: So he doesn't, he doesn't let him get to the point of, of proposing the meritorious salvation that he thought he was going to get.
He, he lets him acknowledge, right? He, the father, lets him acknowledge that he's no longer worthy of being his son, and then essentially says, but that doesn't matter because I am worthy of being your father, and I will make you my son again. That that's what he does. He brings the robe, he brings the sandal, he brings the ring, he restores and elevates him to a position of sonship that he didn't even before he left, didn't fully have.
We'll talk about that and we'll talk about it again. He, he doesn't come home and come back to being the second son. He comes back home. And this is part of why the older son is so annoyed, is he's actually elevated to the place of the firstborn.
[00:54:35] Jesse Schwamb: That's right.
[00:54:36] Tony Arsenal: By, by begin being given all these symbols of inheritance.
And, and this is, you know, this is the other thing, and maybe we'll talk about this more when we get to the, get to what the father gives him. But in Jewish custom and in the Jewish law, the second born son would get, would get one third of the estate. And so he comes back and one third of, I mean, who knows?
We don't know how long this trip is. We don't know how long he's been gone. We don't know how, um, how much the estate has been rebuilt. Obviously, the father is still working. It's not as though like his estate is just like stagnant and neutral, but when he comes back, a third of the estate has been wiped out by his reckless living.
When he comes back, he's
basically
given all the symbols to say
that
he's now guaranteed to have
the,
the two thirds.
[00:55:22] Jesse Schwamb: Right?
[00:55:23] Tony Arsenal: So he comes back to this position,
into this estate
where the father elevates him
back to and
above his previous station
of sonship.
That is the gospel of Jesus Christ
right there.
[00:55:34] Jesse Schwamb: That's right.
[00:55:34] Tony Arsenal: That's double imputation baked into the pie.
Amen. It's not,
it's not just that. He goes, well.
Yeah,
you spent all this stuff, but I guess
like we can,
we can overlook that. That would be more akin to come back.
You can
start at zero,
I guess.
Zero is a servant in my house.
Go ahead and
work your way back up if you can.
Right. He comes back and the father says like, well, I've been working hard. I mean, I'm kind of like importing this into the text a little bit, but I've been working hard to rebuild the estate while you were gone. You took a third of it and I've been working hard and now I'm granting you at the, at a minimum, like I'm granting you back what you took away, what you squandered.
I'm giving it back to you. I'm restoring you, not just to neutral. I'm restoring you to this place of positive, favorable, gracious, loving communion with me, such that I'm gonna celebrate, I'm gonna give you the best things. I'm gonna kill the animal, and we're gonna have the best feasts, we're gonna have the most fun, we're gonna celebrate because you're alive.
You're back, and you're alive. Right. That's an element that I had never even thought of in this. You know, the, the father is not supposed to be pictured in this parable as omniscient, right? He has to see the son coming back. I, I don't, you know, I'm, I'm my kid's only almost four years old, but I know a lot of people who have teenagers that they go out and like, they don't come back for days at a time.
And that's a terrifying thing for a parent. Now imagine if he was off in a far country and you don't have phones, you don't have a cell phone, you can't track him on your iPhone. This, this father is, so, he probably had counted his son as dead right there. There probably wasn't another conclusion to make that when he disappears like that, this is a, this is a real return and a real resurrection in a sense, in this parable that we, we should not overlook, right?
I think we think about the, the phrasing at the end there that your brother was lost and now he's fine. He was, he was dead and now he's alive. We think of that as like poetic or metaphorical or, or, or some sort of like hyperbolic statement. But in a very real sense in this instance, this son really did come back to life for this family and he was brought back to life and restored back to life by the grace of the father in in restoring him to this place of sonship.
[00:57:45] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, I think that's right. That initial interaction, that requesting, that demanding is like a severing of the relationship. Yeah. It's basically saying, I wish to go away and to disconnect with you completely as if you were dead and I was a different person.
[00:58:00] Jesse Schwamb: And so I think a great place to end, like you said, is let's be reminded that God's mercy is not reluctant, like God's mercy comes in hot.
The embrace comes faster than the son's repair attempts. That's exactly how God treats us. He delights to bring that mercy to his children when they come before him in repentance day after day after day. Thank goodness. Praise God that his mercies are new every day. And here there are mercies for this son Yeah. By the way, before we end, I have to ask Tony, what flavor is the double imputation pie? Is that like a, is it a fruit pie or is that like a more of a cold, like custard based pie?
[00:58:42] Tony Arsenal: Well, you know, we do have a precedent on this podcast of talking about Exactly. Salvation.
[00:58:46] Jesse Schwamb: Exactly.
[00:58:46] Tony Arsenal: Being the pie or the cake, right?
So the cake is salvation. I don't know. Whatever it is, it's sweet and delicious. Maybe it's like a meat pie. Maybe it's like a good, like minced meat pie with all the, like, are you
[00:58:57] Jesse Schwamb: going
[00:58:57] Tony Arsenal: savory? Good protein? Yeah. Maybe it's a savory pie. Okay. I don't know.
[00:59:00] Jesse Schwamb: Okay.
[00:59:00] Tony Arsenal: I've never had a savory pie.
[00:59:02] Jesse Schwamb: I, I like, I, you know how you say that?
I haven't either, but I would love like, what's it like steak and kidney? Isn't that like a famous.
[00:59:09] Tony Arsenal: That sounds awful.
[00:59:11] Jesse Schwamb: Well, isn't that like a, listen, do we have any brothers, sisters who are listening in in any of like the, yeah, the United Kingdom. Where are you guys at? Yeah, Daniel is a steak and kidney.
Daniel, you
[00:59:19] Tony Arsenal: tell us. Daniel Steak and kidney a real thing.
[00:59:22] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, we need to know.
[00:59:24] Tony Arsenal: Okay.
[00:59:24] Jesse Schwamb: Is it good? Is it delicious? Would you describe it as a pie of double imputation again, steak, kidney? I'm thinking,
[00:59:34] Tony Arsenal: I don't even
[00:59:34] Jesse Schwamb: know. Tony's not, not convinced. So look at his face is like, we need to end this episode right
[00:59:39] Tony Arsenal: now.
Yeah. Well, Jesse, I know how to end the episode. It's funny, it's funny. People, I'm glad people picked up on the little joke from last week, although it wasn't really a joke.
[00:59:49] Jesse Schwamb: No.
[00:59:50] Tony Arsenal: And I still have this recurring nightmare than we're gonna forget how to end the podcast. But last week we were trying a, a slightly different recording setup.
[00:59:57] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.
[00:59:57] Tony Arsenal: And somehow, maybe this is our AI overlords playing some sort of joke on us. Somehow, right after talking about how we were gonna blow the ending, the system magically muted Jesse's microphone. I could see his hands. They were nowhere near the keyboard. There's no possible way
[01:00:13] Jesse Schwamb: in the air.
[01:00:14] Tony Arsenal: Just absolutely.
The, the, the phone was like, or the recording software was like, not today boys. So we're on a different platform this time. Hopefully it won't do it.
[01:00:25] Jesse Schwamb: We're about to find out.
[01:00:27] Tony Arsenal: We will. When I say until next time, Jesse Honor. Everyone
[01:00:33] Jesse Schwamb: just kidding. Everybody
[01:00:34] Tony Arsenal: love the brotherhood.
What if the most famous parable in Scripture isn't primarily about the prodigal son at all? In this episode of The Reformed Brotherhood, Tony Arsenal and Jesse Schwamb begin an in-depth exploration of Luke 15:11-32, arguing that this beloved parable is fundamentally about the Father's lavish, shocking grace rather than the son's waywardness. The hosts unpack how Jesus uses this story to reveal God's character as one who not only forgives repentant sinners but elevates them to the status of beloved children and heirs—a grace so radical it scandalizes our human sensibilities. They also examine the often-overlooked older brother as a picture of "gospel complainers" who struggle to rejoice in God's mercy. This episode sets the foundation for a multi-part series that promises to reveal new depths in one of the Bible's most profound stories.
Throughout church history, interpreters have often focused on the journey of the younger son—his rebellion, his descent into poverty, his moment of realization, and his return home. However, Tony and Jesse argue compellingly that this emphasis misses the parable's primary purpose. Jesus tells this story in response to the Pharisees' complaint that he welcomes sinners and eats with them. The parable's answer isn't primarily about how sinners should behave, but about who God is—a Father who runs to meet returning sinners, who interrupts their prepared speeches of repentance with immediate restoration, who celebrates extravagantly rather than reluctantly. Every detail—the best robe, the ring, the fatted calf, the music and dancing—points to a God whose grace overflows beyond what we could ask or imagine. When we shift our focus from the son's unworthiness to the Father's overwhelming generosity, the gospel comes into sharper focus.
One of the most striking insights in this episode is the observation that the younger son returns expecting at best to be treated as a hired servant, but instead receives treatment that appears to elevate him even beyond his original status as a son. The father doesn't simply restore him to his previous position; he clothes him in the best robe, places a ring on his finger (a symbol of authority), puts shoes on his feet (distinguishing him from barefoot servants), and throws a celebration with the fatted calf (reserved for the most special occasions). This, Tony and Jesse argue, is a picture of what God's salvation accomplishes. We don't simply receive forgiveness that neutralizes our debt; we receive adoption that makes us heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ. First John 1:9 doesn't merely promise forgiveness of sins, but cleansing from all unrighteousness—the removal of our guilt and the imputation of Christ's righteousness. This is the scandal of the gospel: God doesn't merely pardon rebels; he makes them sons and daughters.
The parable's second half introduces the older brother, whose response to his father's grace reveals a different kind of lostness. His complaint seems, on the surface, entirely reasonable: he has been faithful and obedient, yet never received such celebration, while his wasteful brother returns and is honored. Yet his anger reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of grace. He sees his relationship with the father in transactional terms—work deserves reward, and his brother's work deserves punishment. He cannot rejoice in mercy shown to another because he doesn't recognize his own need for mercy. The hosts connect this to the Pharisees who complained about Jesus welcoming sinners, and to the persistent temptation among believers to resent God's grace toward those we deem less deserving. The older brother's position outside the celebration—in the "outer darkness" of the parable—serves as a sobering warning about the possibility of being near to the Father's house while remaining far from the Father's heart.
This parable has something to tell us about the nature of the Father, the nature of God as the gracious God who is eager and ready to forgive his people, to forgive his son. It tells us about people who have come to faith, who have been regenerated, who have come to ourselves and have recognized the nature of the Father and recognized the gracious disposition of the Father. — Tony Arsenal
No human mind could invent or conceive of the gospel... You could give people all the time in the world to write some kind of amazing, try to come up with some kind of story, some kind of redemption narrative that would be this good, and we wouldn't be able to do it because it is just so far away from how our minds think. — Jesse Schwamb
He could have redeemed us from destruction and brought us out of that, but he's chosen not only to redeem us from destruction, to protect us from destruction and to bring us out of that, but he's chosen to make us his children, to adopt us as his heirs, as his inheritors. — Tony Arsenal
[00:00:48] Jesse Schwamb: Welcome to episode 476. Of the Reformed Brotherhood, I'm Jesse.
[00:00:55] Tony Arsenal: and I'm Tony, and this is the podcast that Tony is actually on. Hey brother.
[00:01:02] Jesse Schwamb: Hey, brother.
[00:01:03] Tony Arsenal: lives, I'm alive. Yes. It's,
[00:01:07] Jesse Schwamb: As, as I said, the rumors of your demise were greatly exaggerated and here you are.
[00:01:12] Tony Arsenal: just barely. Yeah. I mean, the words your brother who was once lost has now been found, have double meaning on this episode.
[00:01:21] Jesse Schwamb: That's right. You're leading us right into this topic, which we've teased and teased and teased to extreme lengths, but finally, brothers and sisters, I think today on this episode we're gonna talk a little bit about the Parable of the Lost Son. After all of that, I think it was good buildup, but it's time.
[00:01:40] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. And it's worth the buildup. This is one of the, uh, one of the like, big daddy parables. I mean, all the parables are profitable and useful, of course. But, uh, as far as like the, the, the major parables, this is, I don't know if this is probably the most major parable or the, it's certainly the most famous.
It's right up there with the Good Samaritan. So I'm, I'm stoked. I've been like wrestling and chewing on this parable for like a month now.
[00:02:07] Jesse Schwamb: I know. How about it? We're finally here. There's so much to talk about. I don't wanna bury the lead. We're gonna get there. It, there's just. There's so much ex escalation, like so much evolution, evolution, evolution and escalation of this idea of like, it's three parables in one and really it's one parable in three parts, and we're, you're going from the sheep to the coin to a person now, and then there's this like, you can complain about the gospel.
All that's happening within this, I mean, there's, we could just do a, a podcast or an episode of the podcast. You could do a whole podcast just on the setup, but we're not gonna do that.
[00:02:43] Jesse Schwamb: Well, we'll probably do part of that, but the other thing I'm sure that people have missed are affirmations, denials. And they're back.
It's 2026. We've got 'em. You want 'em? So as I've been want to do, Tony, my brother, are you affirming with, are you denying against.
[00:02:58] Tony Arsenal: I am going to affirm this is a very recent popcorn, coconut oil affirmation. Uh, both of us have been reading, um, James Linton's newest entry in the hierarchy
[00:03:10] Jesse Schwamb: Oh, that's right.
[00:03:11] Tony Arsenal: and both of us have now finished it. And I do have to
[00:03:14] Jesse Schwamb: Yep.
[00:03:14] Tony Arsenal: um. The book was better than I thought it was gonna be, and I had pretty high expectations going into it. so if you haven't had a chance to check out the hierarchy, I know it, I think it's either gonna be a trilogy or a Quad trilogy. I've read that there's a plan for three books, maybe four books. Um, if you haven't checked it out despite our several recommendations, please do. It was. It was amazing book and kept you confused in all the right ways until, until suddenly you weren't so confused, which was like a really, it was like the opposite feeling as the first book, which was you thought you knew what was going on the entire time, and then all of a sudden it was just a totally different situation.
This I. I kind of felt like I sort of understood what was going on. And then in maybe like the last, I don't know, five pages, everything got upended again. Um, so yeah, it, it was very good. Uh, it's eminently appropriate. Um, there's no sex. There's. Sort of veiled swearing, but it's, it's sort of like fantasy world.
Different words, swearing. Um, it can be a little bit, um, violent at some points, but he does a good job of not making it overly graphic. Um, and there are some graphic things that happen, but he does a good job of not describing them overly graphically. So, um, I don't know that I would like read it to your kids at bedtime, but it's a.
It's a good book and it's worth, it's, it's a little bit of a slog. I mean, it was a long book, but it's worth the
[00:04:45] Jesse Schwamb: Right.
[00:04:46] Tony Arsenal: you put into it. Um, I don't know when the next book's gonna come out. Probably a year and a half, maybe two years. Um, seems to be the pace. So you got time to go back and read Will of the Mini, which is the first one, uh, strength of the Few, which is the second one. And the forthcoming volume I've heard is called the Justice of One. I don't
[00:05:04] Jesse Schwamb: That's right.
[00:05:04] Tony Arsenal: if there's a fourth volume, what it's gonna be called. Um, but yeah, check it out. It was super good. It was super, super satisfying. Um, it was shocking in all the right ways. Surprising in all the right ways, but also sort of predictable in some of the right ways.
There were some things that happened that. Felt right, and like they're expected and they should have happened, and then they did happen. Um, I I, I get really frustrated with books when you really feel like it's supposed to go some way and then it just doesn't, like something fits and it doesn't happen.
So yeah. Strength of the Few by James Islington. I'm gonna try to pick up his other trilogy, I think it's called the Lactus Trilogy, um, just to get a feel for it. And I've heard rumors that, uh, James Islington is actually a reformed Christian, so we are gonna try to hunt him down if anyone happens to have contact information for James is LinkedIn please. Uh, please send it my way 'cause I would love to book him for the show and see if we could get him, uh, get him visiting.
[00:06:02] Jesse Schwamb: We got 20, 26 goals. We got those squad goals. Actually, what's a really good way for people to get you? Let's say somebody has the contact information, they're listening and they're saying, we. I do with this hot little ticket that's in my hands. How could they get that information to us in a really fun way?
[00:06:17] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, we have a Telegram channel. Telegram is just this little messaging app. Uh, you just go to t Me slash Reform Brotherhood. Uh, you can use it on any browser or any mobile device. You can access Telegram. If you go to your browser and point it to t me slash Reform Brotherhood, it will take you either to download the app or if you already have the app, it'll jump you straight into the, uh, into the conversation. Uh, there's several different channels or a little. Categories in there. Um, you know, anything from memes to, um, like a book reading club to prayer requests, um, there's a lot going on in there and it really is just a friendly place. There's about a hundred people in there, so it's not gonna blow up your phone all the time. Um, but if you have a question or you want to chat things or you happen to have James Linton's email address and you wanna share it with me, that is the place to do it. t.me/reform brotherhood.
[00:07:08] Jesse Schwamb: This is a great book. Like you said, the storytelling is epic's. Super fun. It keeps you guessing. In fact, you almost can't even guess at certain points. You've just gotta come along for the ride. And one of the things I also appreciate about James Islington is he's pretty responsive. So he has a website and he posts regular updates.
So I'm looking at an update that was dated December 2nd. He talks about the justice of one. He says he's got it up to 150,000 words in draft form, but he also is saying that he's going to release like a shorter sci-fi novel this year. So that man is just cranking books.
[00:07:40] Tony Arsenal: He
[00:07:40] Jesse Schwamb: He's just out there crushing it.
[00:07:43] Tony Arsenal: of
[00:07:43] Jesse Schwamb: Yes, that's, you just stole that. That's exactly what I was gonna say. He's the Sin Sinclair Ferguson of fantasy authorship. So he's doing his thing. But I love that he keeps touch kind of with his readership and he provides these little tidbits to just say like, I'm out here and I'm work. 'cause isn't there you, you and I have talked about this before.
There's almost nothing less satisfying than a really good series that you either start reading or you think is gonna be complete and at some point like it drops off and you have no idea what happened to the author. It's, it's hard. I mean, it's a small thing in the world of course, but there's nothing more satisfying than knowing that you're gonna get this whole series.
And I kind of like the breaks in between 'cause it allows you to kind of track and digest. And I've already like looked up videos. Maybe you've done the same thing, reading all this stuff about people's theories about what's going on. 'cause it's that good that like you wanna get. Other people together and talk about, it's that kind of book.
[00:08:35] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. And, and Jesse and I have swapped theories about what's going to happen. I think we more or less independently came up with basically
[00:08:44] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah.
[00:08:44] Tony Arsenal: theory. Um,
[00:08:45] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah.
[00:08:46] Tony Arsenal: sure some of the nuances are different, but I would love it if, if, uh, someone in our telegram chat or other people have read, read this book. To hear what your thoughts are about what's gonna happen in the next book and what the kind of the next resolutions. I can't even, like, there's no way I can even tilt my hand about what my theory might be without spoiling like all of the best surprises in the whole book. So I think that's enough. Uh, fanboying over strength of the few.
For now, for now. Um, but do check it out. Strength of the few. James Islington. Um, I got it on Kindle. It was, it was easy enough to read on a eReader. Sometimes books aren't formatted well for eBooks. This, the formatting's good. The, the pacing is good. Um, just check it out. You, you won't be sorry. Probably if, if you like science fiction, fantasy kind of books, you won't be sorry that you invested the time in this.
[00:09:39] Jesse Schwamb: Agreed. Yeah. Good. That is a good strong starting affirmation.
[00:09:44] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Jesse, what do you got for us tonight?
[00:09:46] Jesse Schwamb: I'm gonna do an affirmation as well, and I'm just gonna fan boy with two authors and I'm coming in 'cause you, you actually asked me about this for some opinion on it and I'm willing to give some, even though it's too early in the year, I suppose, but I.
I have really grown to appreciate some really good quote unquote devotional reads. You know, something that gives you a little bit to process and digest every day. And I was gifted walking in Faith 365 days with John Calvin, which is edited by Joel Beaky. So you got a powerhouse there, and it turns out.
Not shockingly, it's good and I'm just loving, again, the ability to have like snippets of really good writing that don't overwhelm you in the volume so you can really slow down and chew on them a bit. And additionally, one of the things I really like about this particular volume is that it's in.
Technical order, so it moves you through the scriptures as if like you were perhaps just reading through one book of the Bible and it's taking these like little pieces and snippets along the way. So of course it's in Genesis, we're early in the year as you and I are talking, and so it's just moving you through.
I'm just at Jacob and Esau and just drawing out some really lovely distinctions, some theological truths from a little piece of scripture, some commentary on that. Then some kind of additional Bible reading paired along with that for you to take in the process as well. It's just. Good, Joe Bke is great. I mean, what can we say about Calvin?
[00:11:08] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.
[00:11:09] Jesse Schwamb: So it's really a lovely pairing and he is curated it very nicely. And again, I love that it's kind of moving through the scriptures in a way that's familiar to us, just in terms of the order of the scriptures themselves, at least that they've been ordered for us. So if you're looking for something, it's not too late.
I mean, I suppose you could just pick this up and do it whenever you wanted, but still early in the year. So I don't know. Wherever books are sold, I'm sure you can find it. Walking in faith. 3, 6, 5 days with John Calvin, who doesn't wanna spend that much time with John Calvin. Everybody does. So go well. Most everybody does.
Go. Go and check it out.
[00:11:38] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, I think that curation aspect is really important because anyone, I mean, and people should and do this and it's fine and, and edifying, like you can, you can pick up a like year through the institute's like
[00:11:53] Jesse Schwamb: Right.
[00:11:53] Tony Arsenal: plan. Um, but some of the institute's, like, it's just not, not theologically bad, but it's just not good writing.
Like there are parts of the institutes that are just really. Dull and dry and hard to get through. So a good book like this that's gonna curate and I'm assuming if he's going through the scriptures, they're pulling from his commentaries and other works. Do, um.
[00:12:15] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.
[00:12:16] Tony Arsenal: It's important because even the best writers have bad parts of their writing, either because the writing is bad or because sometimes the material they're covering is dry and something like a biblical commentary, like you're gonna cover the genealogies.
And that's probably not the most compelling commentary to read is what John Calvin thinks about the, the. You know, six chapters at the beginning of First Kings or, uh, first Chronicles, although I don't think he did a
[00:12:44] Jesse Schwamb: Right.
[00:12:45] Tony Arsenal: on First Chronicles, but. The point stands that having someone who is knowledgeable and has s slugged their way through all of that to curate and to arrange it and to give it thematic cohesion, uh, is really helpful.
I would love to see more books like that. Like, like, let's Beaky, can you do one for like a brothel and. And Bob Inc. Can you
[00:13:07] Jesse Schwamb: It's a good idea.
[00:13:08] Tony Arsenal: go through all of the major reformed, uh, writers and create this resource for us? Please, if you have Joel Bey's email also go to the telegram chat and, uh, and let us know.
Uh, it's probably not unrealistic that someone in our Telegram chat actually does have Joel Bey's email. Um, and I would be willing to bet that you could probably just find Joel Bee's email on like the Pure Term Reform Seminary website. He's probably not too hard to get hold of.
[00:13:33] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, but that's, that's not the one we're talking about. We, we want the burn it to the ground email. We want the Yahoo or the a OL address. We want that personal one.
[00:13:44] Tony Arsenal: it's like j Bke Puritan master@geocities.com.
[00:13:50] Jesse Schwamb: That's the one we want. We. Listen, Dr. Pki, we know that you have that email. Just just, just give it to us. Just give it to us. Join our Telegram group. It'll be amazing. And then just give it to us and then you can come and you can talk to us and we will give you all these amazing ideas like you've just done for free.
I like that. Think about like if there was like a volume set of these and then you could just have them at your disposal. You might like take one year and go through broccoli. You might go through Calvin. How awesome would that be? Like you just cycle through them just in perpetuity, alongside like your general reading or study of the scriptures.
I, I love it because it's like a, it's like a theological, oh, this could be a horrible comparison, but it's kinda like a theological dessert. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, I'm not saying it's, it's full of empty calories. I'm saying it's a rich, it's delicious. It's a great like night cap of your worship, as it were.
And. It is the best to have somebody who's gone through it and said, Hey, here's something really worthwhile that you should hear from Calvin every day on a particular part of the scriptures. And that's just how it, it's like it's the greatest hits, so you're just getting them. It's like they just, they're bangers.
They don't stop. They just keep hitting you hard every day. So I love your idea of like, can we just get more of that from everybody
[00:15:01] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, for sure. Well, Jesse, I have a feeling we're gonna need all the time we can get for this
[00:15:08] Jesse Schwamb: the time?
[00:15:08] Tony Arsenal: So rather than trying to segue our in our way into some clever transition, why don't
[00:15:14] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:15:14] Tony Arsenal: why don't we just get at it?
[00:15:16] Jesse Schwamb: We, we should get a, and I have a feeling that maybe some of the brothers sisters said that we're gonna need some of the time, but what you actually said was, we need all the time. And that is factually correct.
[00:15:26] Tony Arsenal: the times. Yeah, we're gonna
[00:15:28] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah.
[00:15:28] Tony Arsenal: episodes for this one. I think I'll call it now.
[00:15:31] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, that's, that is absolutely true. So there is a choice ahead of us though. And that is, and I, this is where I'm at. I dunno where you're at. We're having the meeting as we actually record the conversation.
[00:15:41] Jesse Schwamb: I'm thinking, why don't we just read this whole thing to start with, just to set it up. We're certainly not gonna get through everything and I think even, we probably have some things we'd like to say in this set up itself.
But, uh, what, say you, let's just read the whole thing.
[00:15:53] Tony Arsenal: do it. Do you want me to read?
[00:15:55] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, go ahead.
[00:15:56] Tony Arsenal: I'm reading from the ESV and I'm reading out of Luke chapter 15, starting in verse 11. And he said he being Jesus. He said there was a man who had two sons and the younger of them said to his father, father, give me the share of property that is coming to me. He divided his property between them. Not many days later, the young son gathered all he had took a journey into the far country and there he squandered his property in reckless living. And when he had spent everything severe famine arose in the country and he began to be in need. he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country who sent him into the field to feed his pigs. And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself, he said, how many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger. I will arise and go to my father. And I'll say to him, father, I've sinned against heaven and earth before you. I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants. And he arose and came to his father, but while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father said to his servants, bring quickly the best robe and put it on him and bring a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet, and bring the fatted calf and kill it and let us eat and celebrate for this. My son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found, and they began to celebrate. Now, his older son was in the field and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. And he said to him, your brother has come and your father has killed the fatted calf because he received him back safe and sound. But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and and treated him, but he answered his father. Look, these many years I've served you, I've never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him. And he said to him, son, you are always with me, and all that is mine. Is yours. Was fitting to celebrate and be glad for this. Your brother was dead and is alive. He was lost and is found.
[00:18:25] Jesse Schwamb: So glad those dulce tones are back. It's so easy to really get caught up in this. I mean, just listening to you give it to us, deliver it to us. It's so easy to, to get embedded in this story and to feel something about what's going, especially the end. I was just really struck by that older brother saying very directly like, you know, listen, you didn't gimme anything and this fool over here squatted everything with prostitutes, and now you've come back and you've welcomed him and celebrated him.
I mean, there, there's so much here. That is the beauty of this like three in one parable format, isn't it? We get the first two, which I think are really, like we talked about, designed to impress us upon us with this love of God. It's an activity which seeks out the sinner, which takes like infinite trouble in order to find him, rescue him.
And then there's this joy that's shown by God and all the host of heaven when even just the one is saved. And we've said again that we gotta remember the setup here. All that message is coming against this great accusation, which of course the Pharisees mean to be pejorative. But what is a true flection of our savior, of his loving and kindness that he welcomes?
He makes himself approachable by the least in society. The ones who had rejected religion once, for which like religion was not gonna do anything anymore. They're outside of it. That was for good men, and these were decidedly not good men. And so then there's this. Like I said before, I guess what was the word I used?
Evolution, which I think is like an elaboration and an elevation of this whole storyline. And now we're going from sheep and coins to this idea that God is stressing his activity alone, that he goes in this, there's this reaction condition of the sinner. And so the parable, I think here, at least to my mind, and I wanna hear what you have to say even as we start, which is that impresses upon us again, this aspect of this other like side matter.
Nobody should be so foolish to think that we should be automatically saved by God's love, even as the sheep and the last coin were found. And so the great outstanding point is still the same, but it's application. It seems to me, even, again, just hearing you say this to us is made more direct and more personal, and so we really need to get well, what is that additional direct and personal message?
What, what is the thing that we need to look at here and understand that connects us to the other two parts, being peace wise. Of this whole formulaic approach to salvation from God's view, but also is much more different and much more direct.
[00:20:48] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, I mean, I think the, the sort of like intensification of these parables, know, maybe not, it's not like a progressive intensification, but we go from, we go from kind of like a herd animal that's wandered away. Has somewhat of an agency, but like does nothing to bring itself back. We go from that to a coin, which is totally inanimate and it is
[00:21:10] Jesse Schwamb: Right?
[00:21:11] Tony Arsenal: and, and now we have this like fully orbed, fully fleshed out picture of salvation that fills in some of the gaps, right? I think if you just had the first two parables and you were using those, it gives this impression that we are entirely. Inert, I won't say passive. 'cause we are passive in our justification. We receive justification from external to us, and we don't contribute anything to the effecting of our justification. But we're not inert even in our justification. We're not inert, we're not just sitting there. Um, we, we respond in faith to God's regeneration and calling and justification comes to us through that faith. So this parable really does. Give us a bigger picture because it's not as though the son is dead in a ditch somewhere and the father comes and finds him like the son does and come back.
So it's, it's now not just a picture of. The redemption that God, you know, brings to his people and the redemption that Christ purchases, that the Holy Spirit applies to his people. It's also now a picture of what repentance looks like, and it's a picture of what recalcitrant looks like. It's a picture of what it looks like to refuse to trust the grace of God and to rejoice in the grace of God. We have a, all of those pictures are all there and it, it really is a. A pretty complex, it's a complex flavor profile. I, I feel like maybe it's because distilling theology's back and I was listening to it the other day, but it, it, it really is this complex picture of really a lot of elements of soteriology that I don't know that I picked up on, you know, in my casual study of this parable and, you know, and up until now, really kind of deep diving it.
[00:23:01] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, I'm with, I'm with you, and there's like a lovely kind of book ending here, or there's maybe like a huge punchline. That's a better way to say it because even as we start at the beginning, of course, with. Two sons, which is a wonderful way to begin this. I mean, that's just like pregnant and poignant with so much meaning.
So much like anticipation, because what's gonna happen, what are the two sons they seem to be, even from the beginning at odds or even as you're thinking of the younger you have in your mind. Well, I was told there was two, so they must come into play. They. I love that because there is this enjoin or this kind of attack where the Pharisees are kind of even made to be like the elder brother and 'cause they're not joining in in heaven's joy.
And the punchline comes later and of course it's still in response. The very last thing is still in response to the fact that you can say something totally true about Jesus Amina as an accusation and they're gospel complainers and the Bible's actually full of gospel complainers. I sometimes worry and, and as we were.
Setting up to talk about this. I was thinking what are the ways that like the modern ways, even the reform circles that we have or complain about grace and. I always think of Jonah and think, I would never be Jonah, but of course, like you get to the end of Jonah's legacy really. And the way that we know him at the end is he's just angry because of God's mercy.
And it's almost laughable because at the end of Jonah four, when Jonah's sitting out looking on Nineveh and there's been this grand repentance, and then, you know. Yahweh essentially says to him, do you have a good reason to be angry? And he's like, yes, because I knew you'd be merciful. And then God instill his mercy to Jonah in particular, of course, in the heat of the day, gives a plant to grow beside him and give him shade.
And then God brings in his. True providence and control over all things, a scorching east wind and it strikes down that plant. And then Jonah loses his shade and he's angry again. And this is why I chuckle, 'cause it's almost laughable. God says to Jonah, listen, do you have a good reason? He says the same question, do you have a good reason to be angry about the plant?
And of course Jonah's response is, yeah, I'm angry enough to die. And it's just like, isn't that our proclivity? And so like even all of this story is to. Challenge the idea that the gospel, I think if we're, if we're honest with ourselves, is sometimes gonna come cause us to complain about this incredible grace, this amazing grace.
That's what makes it so amazing. So the whole star story from start to finish puts us in both of the characters, doesn't it? I mean, I know that's a very common interpretation, but it's probably worth, I think, not forgetting that to the, from the beginning, from the end here. That the punchline is that. The Pharisees are being accused to be the elder brothers and we along with them at times, but that it's easy to complain about the gospel, even if you're totally down with, we're presumably gonna get to all the other parables about the workers, for instance, and their pay and all that good stuff.
But we're gonna see this theme over and over and over again that the gospel truly is radical. I think for me, the way it summarized the whole thing is that we're seeing like the recklessly spend, thrift love of God. I think I've said before in our conversations elsewhere that like there's so much in here that's not.
Not like good earthly human advice. This is probably not good, like in total, like parenting advice, for instance, in every situation it, it is showing though the incredible breadth and scope of God's love. And still, like you said, Tony, I like this. We should go onto this, this elaboration of this point where.
I think for many people like myself, one of my favorite parts in this is, and he came to himself, but that coming to himself isn't, he came to himself by himself, but that he came to himself under the realization of the father, that he ought to go back and to humble himself before him. And you're right.
There is this confluence of those two things. Maybe it's Erie is a better word in which they're coming together in harmony. They're not opposed to one another. We're not saying that he somehow earned himself the right and still, like he just got smart enough and therefore said, if I just go back to the father and I plead mercy, that maybe I'll have some opportunity to come back into the household.
You know, still is all God's work, but we're seeing the work of God in the sinner in this place, in the thing that was lost, which we don't see in the other two parables or the other two parts that proceeded.
[00:27:16] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I think, um, this is one of those parables too, where. If you look at a parable and say, it can only have one point, which I know is, is a common interpretive lens that a lot of people look through parables, look at parables through.
[00:27:38] Tony Arsenal: Um, if you look at this and say, well, it can only have one point that I think you're really selling yourself short. 'cause this, this parable has something to tell us about. The nature of the Father, right? The nature of God as the gracious God who is eager and ready to forgive his people, right, to forgive his son. it tells us about us. It tells us about people who have come to faith, who have been regenerated, who have come to ourselves and have recognized the nature of the Father and recognized the gracious disposition of the Father. Um, even, even. In the sons, the, the lost sons or the the prodigal sons, even in his, So maybe we should, we should just talk through it a little bit.
[00:28:28] Tony Arsenal: The son turns, when he comes to himself, he doesn't think he's gonna go back and become a son again. Right. He doesn't, he doesn't think he's going to achieve full forgiveness and restoration, but even his minimalistic understanding of what his father. Could, and, and I think it's reasonable to say like, likely will, he's going home because he anticipates that it will be successful, right? It's a, it's a
[00:28:53] Jesse Schwamb: Right.
[00:28:54] Tony Arsenal: effort, but he's not, he's not thinking he's gonna get like thrown out again. He's thinking that when he goes home and he pleads with his father to become a higher, become a hired servant in his house, that the father's going to accept that proposition.
So even in that. That still would be a gracious response.
[00:29:14] Tony Arsenal: Um, I've read lots of commentaries on this over the years, and most of them make the point that the disrespect. Shown to the father by this son, um, would've been a justification for stoning under the mosaic economy. so he, he, uh, is going back to someone who has the right to.
Take his life, and he's anticipating that he won't. Right? So even that is a recognition of the graciousness of this father. And then he gets there and the graciousness of the father overflows beyond his wildest imaginations, right? He comes back and, and. I have to think, especially since the other son isn't like, oh yeah, we wear the best robes and the best rings and we have feasts all the time. This is not normal. It's not like this is just restoration. Back to the original state of sun sonship, he's now elevated in his sonship. He comes back and he's wearing the best robe. He's given the best ring. He has shoes on his feet. He is, there's a party. The fatted calf is being killed. He's, he's advanced to a higher level of celebration and fellowship than he was.
[00:30:24] Tony Arsenal: So this parable has so many different facets to it that tell us about ourselves, tells us about our salvation, tells us about God, tells us about the reprobates, which is. We talked about this in some of the other parables, like there's a judgment element to this. The son who refuses to celebrate the the lost coming home remains in the outer darkness.
He sits outside the party. He doesn't enjoy the fellowship of everyone who's, who's. over the restoration of this one. He is in the outer darkness. He is in where the goats are, where, you know, he's, he's out away from the fellowship of God's people in the parable. So, we'll, we'll unpack all of this in more depth as we work our way through the, you know, we'll work way, our way through the parable itself.
But there is so much here to unpack it just really is such a rich, beautiful tapestry of. Of theological insight and wisdom, and Jesus is just this master storyteller, right? This is
[00:31:27] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.
[00:31:27] Tony Arsenal: that he's, he's come up with that weaves all of these themes in. Of course, I mean, of course he's a master storyteller.
He's God, but as even as a
[00:31:35] Jesse Schwamb: Right,
[00:31:35] Tony Arsenal: he's, he's able to weave all these themes together in a way that is surprising, but also not really surprising. Like this
[00:31:44] Jesse Schwamb: right,
[00:31:45] Tony Arsenal: the way you would want this story to unfold. Like it's a comfortable, um. It's not shocking in the wrong way. Like, you don't look at it, you're not being surprised by, it's not like a, there's no twist to this.
If anything, the twist is that the older brother is kind of a bonehead. Right?
[00:32:05] Tony Arsenal: So, so I'm, I'm just really thankful that this is in the Bible. It's such a beautiful thing and it is so well known, even outside of Christian circles. People understand and know this story. It can be a really good touch point for the gospel.
'cause when you talk about the prodigal son. clicks for people. They may not know
[00:32:21] Jesse Schwamb: Mm-hmm.
[00:32:22] Tony Arsenal: but they're familiar with that language. They know it's something from the Bible and you can use it to really explain the grace of God, the restoration of sinners. So I'm stoked to keep going on this one,
[00:32:32] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, and that's why we need multiple conversations because I think that we're trying to start it in the right spot, which we, we gotta talk about the big things first. Like we, we, we, I know we wanna run and go and talk about all the details and people are probably like. Talk about the, like you said, the covenant between father and son and talk.
We'll get there, I promise. But I think we need to sit for a second and just think about the, just the grand arc. This, this whole, the whole of what's being communicated here is tremendous and it is captivating and you're rights like God has in his per nation made this to be the kind of thing that, uh.
Like, I like what you said, it captivates us in a weird way. It's not like storytelling to which we are drawn because we could conceive of it, but because it's so inconceivable and yet in that ability to like not fully comprehend the depth of this, it's the kind of forgiveness and restoration that we all sense we needed want.
[00:33:24] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.
[00:33:24] Jesse Schwamb: And of course we're still, you and I are still talking at the beginning of the year here, and one of the. Like, I think incredible themes that jumps out to me on this is truly like the possibility of a new start, a real new beginning for all. Even those who are most desperate, there's no case can be worse than this prodigal son.
Yet even he gets to start again. And like you've just said, and I think this is a critical point, he's not starting from a place of. Restored weakness or some kind of subcategory in the hierarchy of the family. He's actually been elevated back up and there's like a true resurrection or restoration here.
One might, one might even say like he's had a glorious fall because it's been restored to such a degree where he knows the father's love in a truly profound, in really intimate kind of way that he would not have experienced if he had stayed in the father's household. And so even I think at the beginning with this, him coming forward and asking for the inheritance.
Maybe we're getting a little bit of that flavor of Romans one that God turning over that he's working and seeking out that which is idolatrous. He thinks that is the kind of thing that will either satisfy or fulfill him. He quickly finds it to be knots, that kind of thing. And then he touches bottom. I mean, he goes all the way down so low that I'm not sure he could possibly descend any further, and we'll get to these details.
Of course, in his culture and his family in this foreign country, he's with husks and pigs. He's Penns friendless. He's hopeless. He's for alone. He's totally desolate and dejected, but even he gets a fresh start even he is called to make a new beginning, and the father, like you said, runs to him in that new beginning.
[00:34:59] Jesse Schwamb: That's the blessed gospel. Loved ones like that's the blessed hope. That's, that's the new thing that we're always longing for, that we find if we could just have that kind of restoration, especially when we fall, which we will continue to fall, we'll continue to sin. What a difference the coming of Jesus makes.
And all of that. It says Jesus saying himself again, like he is the messenger and he's the message. And he's saying, here I am. I, uh, here I am declaring freedom for the captives, like true restoration, true rehabilitation, true regeneration. And all of that's happening in the context of this story. And I'm with you.
Like, I don't wanna move too quickly into the details, which are cool and fun and support all of that without us kind of trying to process what that even means.
[00:35:41] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah, and this is a big one, so buckle up everyone like this is gonna be obviously. We're 30, 30 ish minutes in 30, almost 40 minutes into this episode. Uh, we haven't even, we haven't even started working our way through the text directly.
[00:35:57] Jesse Schwamb: True.
[00:35:58] Tony Arsenal: gonna be here for at least a couple weeks. So make sure you pick up a good commentary, make sure you pick up some good resources, read through this, really, really like, meditate on it and marinate on it.
And I think, you know, this parable has so much to teach us. It really is worth devoting the time to it. 'cause you know, I was thinking about it the other day. It's funny because like the older brother, almost like his annoyance actually makes sense to me. Not, not in the like gospel complainer sense that I think is like the point of the parable, but just on the surface of it, like he's not being unreasonable and,
[00:36:35] Jesse Schwamb: Exactly.
[00:36:36] Tony Arsenal: tell us something.
Not only about our own dispositions, but that is not the, um. not the shocking part of the story, right? The shocking part of the story is that the father is gracious abundantly, above and beyond, not only to the younger son, but also to the older son. Gracious. He's gracious to the servants. I mean, ev, everyone in this parable across the board is benefiting from the beneficence of. father in this parable, the servants, the sons, everyone is benefiting from him. And I, I think that is the part of the parable that we often miss. And this is one of my little bugaboos, like this is, this is my version of broken for you. Um,
[00:37:23] Jesse Schwamb: Hit me
[00:37:24] Tony Arsenal: we, we call this the parable of the prodigal son.
[00:37:28] Jesse Schwamb: right.
[00:37:29] Tony Arsenal: the parable is not about the sons, like they're there.
And of course, as I said, like the parable has something to teach us about the figures that these sons represent. The, the, the, the theological truths that come to bear in the character and the. The story arcs of these sons as part of the parable. But the main focus of this parable, the main point is to teach us about the grace and the goodness and the generosity and the love of the Lord Jesus Christ and his Father and the Holy Spirit. And if we, if we start to shift our gaze in the parable, we, we get too bogged down in trying to parse out every little element of each.
[00:38:15] Tony Arsenal: and the servants and what do the pods represent and who, what are the pigs and who are the foreign, where's the foreign land and what, what historically, what's with the, in like when we get there? All of those things are good and well, and, and we'll talk about most of those things I think over the coming weeks. But if we miss the point of the parable that this is about the gracious. Love and forgiveness that is ours in Christ and the nature of the God who extends that forgiveness to us and the way that that forgiveness is obtained and, and applied to us.
Um, we, we lose a lot. We miss out on a lot. So that, I think that's why we're looping on it so much in this first episode here, is we have to nail what the parable broadly is about before we can invest time in the others, or we're gonna miss the point entirely. Okay.
[00:38:59] Jesse Schwamb: That's right on it. This is like truly scandalous. I mean, again, Jesus is clearly addressing the fact that in some ways, like you're saying, I think you can see how the Pharisees have a right to complain, or at least they think they have a right to complain in the same way the older brother does. Like I've been here all along.
I've done what you've asked for me, and you know, this fool over here again, went and just squandered everything. But now he's come back and he's celebrating him like he's the hero and. It's this idea, idea again that I, I, I guess it goes back to, I'm thinking of like one John, right? Where John says something like, behold, what manner of love the father has lavished on us, like these verbs.
These just almost, it sounds like, I think in a normal conversation, I don't know. I dunno how often we're using the word lavish, but you probably are being hyperbolic, but that John is not there. He's not trying to emphasize like, well, I just can't get to how big God's love. It is big enough. I need you to really understand it.
So I'm gonna go well above and beyond and use some kind of like really grandiose language here. But he says lavish. He's talking about this full magnitude of how God feels in his disposition towards us that is so scandalous and everywhere there's just scandal in the Bible, like at the top. Now I'm thinking this of this connection, just having read from John Calvin about Jacob and he saw and just how scandalous it is that God chooses Jacob, who's the deceiver, who's like just as a duplicitous life, who like for the sake can't get out of his own way actually.
And here is God a blessing and saving and covenanting with him. And so when God looks upon a sinner to save him, he regards him as loss in the need of being found sovereignly and effectually. And he does this out of his. His own goodwill and by his own prerogative. Not of course, because there's anything in that man that warrants or deserves that salvation.
And here you're just seeing that over and over again. It's you. I can understand if you're part of a family and you have siblings as a brother getting upset at that kind of situation, it would be natural, wouldn't it? To be like, are you kidding me right now? And so I think that's why the father of the parable says that my son was.
Dead. I mean, he was gone. He was lost. Completely helpless. And by nature, that's exactly where we are. Of course, we're dead. We're cut off from the source of life, God himself. We're lost with respect to God and we're lost from the perspective of God. And all of that's that's happening here. And I think, I can't imagine.
What it was like to sit in the telling of this and feel the tension of the parties involved in those who are listening, because I think there were a lot of feelings about what was going on and being said here. And mainly that was because I would sum it up as the, with the question, uh. Are you kidding me?
Or how dare you? Like this is crazy what you're talking about, the kind of love you're saying the father has is crazy in the sense that there is no earthly logic where we would be bent towards saying that seems completely undeserved. And I think the point is, you're exactly right. And no matter where you look at it, you might try to point to your own life or someone else's, or look at the little idiosyncrasies.
Idiosyncrasies of how we behave and think, well no, there should be some justice here. And that that's exactly right. Jesus has born on that justice being just and justifier through God himself. And in that way we get to have God's love lavishly spent on us. And when we think about how lavish that is, it should trip our minds.
Like it should kind of short circuit all of our processing because it is not natural. It is truly supernatural. And that's why I'm with you. Like we really have to, I think, take some time to like go over that over and over and over again. It's like singing the chorus of some kind of psalm or piece of worship music where you probably need to sing it 7, 8, 15 times in that repetition before it really starts to sink in.
And I'm not sure it's even sunk it to me.
[00:42:50] Tony Arsenal: Yeah,
[00:42:51] Jesse Schwamb: Half of the way, and that's why I'm, I'm just saying it over and over again. This is the incredible love of God toward us and it is completely scandalous. It should be shocking if we're not finding it shocking. We, we probably need to evaluate more. I know. I need to evaluate more because it should be more shocking to me.
[00:43:09] Tony Arsenal: yeah, yeah. I think, um, I'm not a huge fan of. Theological hypothetical, like counterfactuals. And what I mean by that is we can sometimes, we can sometimes talk about like, well, what God could have done or, or whatever. I don't love
[00:43:27] Jesse Schwamb: Right.
[00:43:28] Tony Arsenal: of doing theology, but sometimes it's useful and I think, um. I think that we often forget that salvation, like theoretically could have been different.
[00:43:50] Tony Arsenal: Um, I could conceive of a situation where God saves his people from destruction, but doesn't, doesn't elevate them to the place of his
[00:43:51] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.
[00:43:51] Tony Arsenal: his sons,
[00:43:52] Jesse Schwamb: Right.
[00:43:52] Tony Arsenal: um. didn't have to do that. So E, even beyond the fact that he didn't have to save anyone, he wasn't obligated to save or redeem or store anyone. He could have saved us.
I mean, we talk about this in like he didn't have to make food taste good, right? He didn't have
[00:44:08] Jesse Schwamb: Right.
[00:44:08] Tony Arsenal: sunsets beautiful. He did that for our benefit. He did that for our joy, and he delights in us taking joy in those things. The same sort of dynamic is true of salvation. He could have. He could have redeemed us from, and, and maybe this isn't the way to think about it, and I, I don't want to be too firm on this, but salvation could have been less amazing than it is, I think. Um, and we, we still would need to be infinitely, eternally grateful for it. But, but it could be less. Enjoyable. Less delightful, less delectable. Right? But it isn't, he's chosen not only to redeem us from, from destruction, to protect us from destruction and to bring us out of that, but he's chosen to make us his children, to adopt us as his, as his heirs, as his, as his inheritors, right?
So. In the same sense that this son comes back and is not just welcomed back as a servant or restored to the position of the second son in some ways, and this is why the anger and sort of the anger might not even be the right word. The annoyed, the annoyedness of the son, the, the older son some ways.
The younger son comes back and is actually elevated to the place of the firstborn son.
[00:45:29] Jesse Schwamb: That's right.
[00:45:29] Tony Arsenal: that is a picture of salvation that is so foreign to other religions, so foreign to any other religious system that has a concept of restoration and reconciliation with the divine. Um, that's not the way it works.
They, you don't become, you don't become, um, the family of. Allah, right? You don't become somehow like united to the ta, like to the Tao. Like that's just not the way any of it works in any other religions, and even in some of the Christian sects, when you talk about Jehovah's Witness and Mormons, and one is Pentecostals, they don't have a fully formed understanding of what it means to come and become God's children. Right? As a Mormon, you don't become God's child, you become God. Right. It's not about being united in faith and love and harmony with, with the father, son, and the spirit. It's about elev being elevated to a place where you're in your own divinity now. So this, this parable really does serve to orient us and reorient us, correct our misunderstandings about what salvation is in a really simple, straightforward fashion that is both expected. I think when I think, and this is, this is maybe the last thing I'll say before we, we wrap it up, is when I think about the really good dads that I know, right? The really, really good dads and moms too, but just, we'll just keep this with dads. When I think about the really good dads, they're the ones that just pick up their kid when they fall or don't, don't, um. Accept the apology. Uh, along with the discipline. They're the ones that actually elevate and restore and they, they bring their children to. A higher level, right? We're talking horizontally, of course, but a higher level through that disobedience that all, all children do, right? They don't just discipline their child, but through the discipline that is required because of the disobedience, they actually advance their child, they advance their child to a new place of fellowship and of wholeness. That that is. Really quite remarkable. And that is what the father in this parable does. He, he, this isn't just like a parable about, I mean, I think, like you said earlier, like in some ways this is actually probably really bad parenting advice, right? If your bonehead kid comes and says, gimme my inheritance, like doing it is probably not the best choice, right?
And, and then when he comes back like, just acting as though nothing happened, like, that's not good discipline, but that's
[00:48:21] Jesse Schwamb: Right,
[00:48:22] Tony Arsenal: the parable. Right. The
[00:48:23] Jesse Schwamb: exactly.
[00:48:24] Tony Arsenal: the character and the love of this father. So I'm excited to, to get into the specifics and the details as we go along. Um, I really think it's gonna be edifying and beneficial and, and I just love that we're in this long series where we're just over the scriptures together.
[00:48:41] Jesse Schwamb: I, I agree. I think that, again, I'm drawn to one John in two ways thinking about what you just said, which was so critical. One is going back to First John three again, I just wanna say, because I'm not sure if I read the full verse now, I think about it, but. It ties in exactly what you're saying. The point being that God's love leads to change of identity.
It leads to relationship and covenant, not just amnesty.
[00:49:03] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.
[00:49:04] Jesse Schwamb: So when John says, see where great love, and I do love that, you know, behold, check this out. See where great love the father has given us. Where. What does it result in that we should be called God's children and we are. I love that he has to add, add that at the end to emphasize like, trust me on this, like because of God's love.
It's this giving of this love that recklessly spend. Thrift love that amazing grace isn't just the kind of warm and fuzzy philosophy. It isn't just hopefulness. Or some kind of ideology that ought to make you feel good as if somebody's thinking of you. But instead, it changes you. It elevates you. It puts you in relationship identity that cannot be compromised because God himself holds it for you.
And so his love leads to being called his child, and you are. And he goes on to say, the reason the world does not know us is that I didn't know him. Dear friends, we are God's children now and what we'll be has not yet been revealed. And I think that's echoed then further on in the book, in that famous verse about what it means when we do come to ourselves by the power of the Holy Spirit for John one, nine, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins.
Except that's more than that, right? To your point, Tony, like the, I think this verse proves your exact point. It could have just ended there, right? Like John could have been like, that would've been enough, wouldn't it? That like we have sinned. We are cosmically treasonous against God. We are owed his wrath.
We cannot stand in his presence. Our molecules themselves will be torn asunder when our sinfulness comes into any contact with his pure majesty and holiness. And so the verse should probably be in that kind of world if we confess our sins. He's faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins. That would be saying you no longer get the punishment, but it's far better than that, isn't it?
If we confess our sins, he's faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That is the righteous and faithful God imparts his own righteousness to us by removing our own unrighteousness, not just in removing the consequences from the punishment explicitly of sin, but to give us the rewards of rightful obedience, which his son undertook in living.
And dying and rising for our benefit because he is for us. That is some amazing news and that is crazy scandalous.
[00:51:25] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.
[00:51:26] Jesse Schwamb: There is a prayer in the valley of vision that begins with no human mind could invent or conceive of the gospel, and I love that. Because it's absolutely true. You could give people all the time in the world to write some kind of amazing, try to come up with some kind of story, some kind of redemption narrative that would be this good, and we wouldn't be able to do it because it is just so far away from how our minds think.
Even when we push our minds to their farthest creative end, we just couldn't come up with this. It's that good. It's that amazing. It's that wild. And we all need that wild because we are wild people that are so far apart from God. So I'm with you how amazing it is that we can only really get to, I think, fully processing that in the course of this story.
I think even direct teaching would be good, but maybe not as good as what we get here. And so it draws us in, it compels us, it hems us into a plot, and then it kind of reads us or spits us back out as we are digested, I suppose, by the truth that's here. So there's so much for us to talk about, and I think there's so many good things to come, but we had to start here.
We had to do it. I'm sure people were just like throwing their phones. Yelling at their earbuds. Like get, get to the details. Talk about, like you said, talk about the country, talk about the, what it meant that he was with the pigs. We'll get there.
[00:52:50] Tony Arsenal: We will, we will.
[00:53:06] Tony Arsenal: Well, Jesse, I think that's a good place for us to push pause for the evening. Uh, if you have been blessed by this episode and you're still listening to us, um, we would love it if you would share this with someone else. We spend $0 on advertising. I doubt we will ever spend more than $0 on advertising. Um, this podcast only grows and only spreads. I suppose like some people stumble on it randomly, but for the most part, people come upon the podcast because somebody recommended it. So if you found this conversation helpful, if you have been blessed by it, pick one or two or three friends that you think could, uh, could be drawn closer to the gospel. 'cause that's really what we're trying to do here, and that's really what this parable does, is to draw us closer to God through the gospel, um, and send them the link. Just you're listening to this on your phone, probably, it's probably an Apple phone, statistically speaking. Just hit that share button and send it to their text message and, uh, ask them to listen and then have a conversation with it.
That is the single best thing you could do besides praying for us, uh, to
[00:54:00] Jesse Schwamb: That's right.
[00:54:01] Tony Arsenal: and to bless us, is to share this content with someone else.
[00:54:04] Jesse Schwamb: That's right. And hopefully you'll, like you said, Tony, I love this idea of sharing it and then talking about it. Debate amongst yourselves, with your friends, with your family. Get into the scripture yourselves and enjoy it. It, this is here for us. It's here to encourage us to strengthen us and to, I think now, I can't remember the word that I used at the top, but I wanted to coin that.
I can't remember what it was. Was it Ella? Evolution? Yeah. And then take evolution into your own sphere of influence. And spread that around a little bit because I think that's like a strange Portman too, that I didn't mean to come up with. That's like doubled. It's got like, I've just, I've combined three words probably in that It's like a Uck in word, do you know what I mean?
Like it's, it's just within, its,
[00:54:44] Tony Arsenal: inside a word.
[00:54:46] Jesse Schwamb: yes. I'd like to think that's because one, it was super brilliant, but I didn't mean for it to happen, but two, because like no single word would do. So I had to like. Bring that. Bring that, bring that together. So listen, make up your own words. Come hang out with us in the telegram chat.
We really mean that. It's a new year and so if you've been listening to us, to us for any length of time, and this is the part of the podcast where you tune out 'cause you get tired of us saying you should join the Telegram chat. Don't tune it out this time. Maybe if you join, I'll stop saying it next time.
So just come hang out.
[00:55:13] Tony Arsenal: Probably
[00:55:15] Jesse Schwamb: It's not gonna happen. We'll talk about it forever.
[00:55:20] Tony Arsenal: We will. Jesse, I have this had this recurring nightmare over this last month. That I've been away from the podcast, that I would forget how to podcast and the, the way that it always manifests, I'm no joke. Like I had nightmares about this.
[00:55:35] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah,
[00:55:36] Tony Arsenal: is that I would forget how to do the closing line.
[00:55:39] Jesse Schwamb: that's fair.
[00:55:40] Tony Arsenal: like super nervous right now. I don't know if you can tell. I feel like super nervous.
[00:55:44] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, we all heard that pause there. That was normally where we're like, there'd be the step in, and I will confess to you in the time that I got to just hang out with everybody and do it solo, when I knew that time was coming, I was always nervous because you always carry at least half of it. And so I honestly struggled sometimes with the how does it start?
So I mean. Do you want to count it down? Like what, what would make you feel comfortable? What what can I do is like your, your emotional support co-host here to help you with a close
[00:56:13] Tony Arsenal: like what you could do is honor everyone.
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What does it mean to be truly free from sin as a Christian? In this compelling New Year's episode, Jesse Schwamb explores John Owen's powerful 17th-century treatise on Romans 6:12, unpacking the crucial distinction between sin's presence and sin's dominion in the believer's life. Drawing from Owen's pastoral wisdom, this episode challenges listeners to examine whether sin merely dwells within them or actively rules over them. Through practical diagnostic questions and theological clarity, Jesse demonstrates how union with Christ breaks sin's reign while acknowledging the ongoing battle believers face. This episode offers both encouragement for the weary and a battle plan for those ready to wage war against remaining corruption through the ordinary means of grace.
One of John Owen's most pastoral insights is his careful distinction between sin dwelling in believers versus sin reigning over believers. This isn't mere semantics—it's the difference between a defeated enemy occupying territory and an enemy holding sovereign control. Owen helps us understand that indwelling sin operates like a guerrilla force: active, disruptive, and often humiliating, but critically, no longer sovereign unless we surrender the throne.
For believers struggling with recurring temptations or habitual sins, this distinction offers both comfort and challenge. The comfort comes in recognizing that the presence of internal conflict with sin is often evidence that grace has moved in and started an eviction process. The challenge lies in honest self-examination: Are there areas of life where we've made a covenant with sin, carved out corners where sin calls the shots? Owen's pastoral wisdom recognizes that you can have religious habits, theological vocabulary, and church involvement while sin remains the practical king in specific domains of life.
The Reformed doctrine of union with Christ provides the theological foundation for understanding how sin's dominion is actually broken. Owen emphasizes that Christianity is not primarily behavioral modification but entrance into a whole new reality. When believers are joined to Christ in His death and resurrection, that union fundamentally changes everything—not just legal status before God, but actual power dynamics in daily life.
This means grace doesn't merely cancel your debt or pardon your rebellion; it changes your master entirely. A new dominion has been installed, a new king now rules, operating by a new principle through the Spirit. This is why Paul's language in Romans 6 isn't just about forgiveness but about transfer of kingdoms. The Christian life isn't a horror movie where sin is the monster and you're unarmed in the basement—it's warfare under a victorious King who has already raised the flag on the battlefield. You're not free because your grip on Christ is perfect; you're free because Christ's grip on you is unbreakable.
Owen is allergic to spiritual shortcuts and secret hacks for holiness. Instead, he consistently points believers to what Reformed theology calls the "ordinary means of grace"—those simple, God-appointed channels through which the Spirit works to apply Christ's victory to our daily lives. These include the Word of God (not merely read but received with faith and applied with honesty), prayer (as dependence rather than performance), the sacraments (as visible grace strengthening faith), and fellowship with accountability (because lone sheep Christianity is essentially wolf delivery).
The hard truth Owen presses into our modern habits is that a neglected Bible and a prayerless life don't create mysterious seasons of spiritual dryness—they create predictable weakness. Grace reigns in lives where Christ is trusted, and Christ is trusted where Christ is attended to through these ordinary means. Owen would say that the Christian who doesn't pray against temptations they know they'll face is not truly repentant when they pray against them after they've occurred. This isn't legalism but recognition that spiritual warfare requires using the weapons Christ has actually provided.
The Christian life is not a horror movie where sin is the monster and you're unarmed in the basement. The Christian life is warfare, yes, but it's warfare under a victorious King.
You're not free because your grip on Christ is perfect. You're free because Christ's grip on you is unbreakable.
When you sin, do you make peace with it or do you make war on it? Do you hide sin to protect it or do you expose sin to kill it?
[00:00:08] Jesse Schwamb: as you fight, here's what we need to remember together. The Christian life is not a horror movie where sin is the monster and you're unarmed in the basement. The Christian life is warfare. Yes, but it's warfare under a victorious. King. I mean, Jesus himself is the one raising the flag on the battlefield, calling us out.
Take heart, Christian, you're not free because your grip on Christ is perfect. You're free because Christ's grip on you is unbreakable. That I think is how John Owen would summarize. Free from Sins Dominion. Sin still dwells, but no longer rules. Grace doesn't just forgive your rebellion.
It overthrows the rebel regime. So I hope that that is in some way a small little treat as advertised for the new year,
[00:01:05] Jesse Schwamb: Welcome to episode 475 of The Reformed Brotherhood. I'm Jesse and this is the podcast with the same old truth for a brand new year.
Hey, brothers and sisters, happy New Year. It's 2026 and it turns out the Band Smash Mouth was correct when they said the years just keep on coming. And on this episode, we've got a little bit of a New Year's treat for you. But before we do that, let me explain a couple things. Let me bring you into the Reform Brotherhood realm.
Give you a little peek behind the curtain because. We've received the questions, we've heard the rumors. What is going on? Where was everybody? And where is Tony?
[00:01:47] Jesse Schwamb: Don't worry, I have answers for you. So first, we took a little bit of a hiatus, just a couple of weeks for the holidays at the turn of the year here.
And during that time I did in fact see Tony with my own eyes. He does exist. Some have asked, has Jesse taken over the Reform Brotherhood podcast? Is there just one host? Now, is Tony in some kind of theological witness protection program because he's debated too many people online? I'm happy to tell you that Tony is alive and well.
He's doing just fine. But as I mentioned previously, his family's been going through all kinds of sickness, particularly his wife, who is my sister. She's had some intractable upper respiratory infection stuff going on, so please pray for her. He's been dutifully taking care of the family and her, and that's just meant that sometimes the podcast has to take a little bit of a backseat, so he is coming back.
He is alive and well. In fact, if you still want to interact with him, the best way to do that, as you've heard me say before, is you can actually, believe it or not, hang out with us. In the interweb sphere, and you can do that by going to T Me, lemme say that again. T Me Reform Brotherhood. It's been a while.
Loved Ones T Me Reform Brotherhood. And there you'll find a little chat group that takes place in the telegram. Chat. So come hang out. There he is. There he is alive and well. And we'll be back before you know it. And that's why this whole episode is not just a castaway, it's a little bit of a New Year's treat.
[00:03:19] Jesse Schwamb: And I say that because I think all of us at this time of year, whether we want to admit it or not, we do think a little bit about the fresh beginning, the new start, and. First, can we just say that what the world looks for in the calendar is what Christ gives to us in the every day? What a blessing that we have a God who gives us mercies, and those mercies are new every day.
That's the best of all things, to have something new. And again, I think of Revelation 21, which by the way, when I was with Tony, I just heard my father, who's an amazing pastor, preached so well on Revelation 21. What he called the other side of Christmas. Speaking of this all how new heaven, new Earth, Christ, making all things new.
And one of those things that hit me again in that sermon was that Christ is making all things new now. All new things, right? Amen. So that means that we get to be beneficiaries. Of the changing power of Christ, what a joy it is to have fresh beginnings, to have a new start without being made all over again.
And so this time of year naturally draws our mind to those things again, some of us make resolutions, some of us don't. Whatever your preference and your priority is, that's fine by me. I think this gives us a chance to be reminded that at the beginning of something new, at the start or turnover of something different, it does orient our minds to thinking.
What can I change? What can I process in a new and maybe more prolific or profound way? And so it just so happens that I want to make this New Year's treat for you, dear listener, brother or sister, because I happen to just come across a book that I've just finished reading in this new year. That I think sets us up perfectly with this in mind.
[00:04:56] Jesse Schwamb: If one of our goals just generally is to be more Christ-like, not for the sake of just emulating Christ per se, but because we see in him all that is elegant and beautiful and righteous and worthy, and so we want to partake in that kind of life and a very, very real way, and it just so happens well.
Nothing, just so happens providentially. What happened is that I came across, as I was looking through the stack of unread books, the things that I wanted to read, one just happened to catch my eye, and it was by John Owen. And it's a book about being free from the dominion of sin, and I picked it up thinking, I don't know, I'd read a lot about this idea of what it means to have sin and grace in your life and that this would be another great treatise on how to explore those concepts.
But what I found was, I think something so much deeper that was a treat already for me in this new year, and I think that's setting me up for how to process and frame and to think going forward in this new year. This is a phenomenal book. It's really not that long, so you can go read it yourselves, but the treat maybe might just be that you don't have to read it.
Let me bring forward some of the themes for us to consider, because I think this is a great way to start the year. In fact, I have read that the 19th century Scottish professor, John Duncan, would assign this book to a student. So as he was training particularly for ministry, and when he would assign this book to them for reading, he would say.
Gentlemen, prepare yourselves for the knife. I mean, what an opening, what an opening gambit for somebody who's recommending a book to you or acquiring that you read a book. And like Owen's stuff, I think that this is true. It's the kind of book that doesn't pull any punches. I mean, this whole book is written on a single verse from Romans 12, uh, Romans chapter six, verse 12, and the verse reads, let not sin, therefore reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions.
And what basically Owen unpacks from that is he draws back to this idea of what it means to be not under the law, but now under grace. Now you guys probably know if you know anything about. John Owen, he was a Puritan hanging out in the 17th century and he wrote like he got paid by the Semicolon and this book called Free From Sins Dominion.
It, you know, it sounds like a victory lap, doesn't it? For the Christian, and this is what I wanna get into, this is where some of the treat lies. It sounds like we're saying, I'm free, I'm done, I'm out. And Owen is there with his knife. He's there lovingly and firmly and repeatedly to say yes. But also, no, not, no in.
There's no freedom, but no, as in you don't understand what kind of freedom this is. That's why it's so critical to think about this. So I thought let's hang out for a couple minutes. Let's walk through some of these ideas. This is all Owen. It's all stuff I've been processing. I'm hoping that it'll be something that sets you up for the new year, helps you think a little bit about what goals you might have.
And by the way, I don't think it's a bad idea to set some goals for yourself as long as you're not legalistic, but you come into this with a renewed passion to serve the Lord Jesus. In 2026 in big and faith reaching ways. I think all of that calls us to kind of communal response in living out the theology that we espouse or the things that we pack into our mind.
We're all gonna track probably this year, or many of us do if we're nerdy like you are Me, the things that we listen to and the things that we read. But what about the end of the year? Like the content and the spiritual depth of our lives. If we could measure that, if we could actually think back on it and meditate on what have we done, what have we tried to process, what have we tried to live out?
I don't think it's a bad idea to say to yourself, if I'm going to think about that this time next year, what will I have to think about, if anything? So I think Owen really sets us up here with this big idea.
[00:08:39] Jesse Schwamb: And the big idea is this, sin still lives in believers, but it no longer rules believers. Sin still lives in believers, but it does not rule there anymore.
It remains a presence, but it's not a king. It still barks but doesn't own the house. And if you're thinking, well, great, so why does it feel like sin has a mortgage on my soul? Owen has answers for us. And those are questions that equally, almost every day I think about. And the beauty is he's not gentle about it, but he's deeply pastoral.
He's like a doctor who tells you the truth while he also hands you the medicine. And that's one of the things I really like about this book. So let's talk about this idea of dominion. Why even throw that in the title Dominion's, kind of an old tiny word of power and control, and I dunno how often you use dominion like in your vocabulary, just casually when you're talking to people.
But he starts off by essentially telling us what he means by this. Actually, more importantly, like what scripture means about sins, dominion, it's rain. It's talking about rule mastery governing power. Dominion means sin, calls the shots, sets the direction, issues the order, and gets obeyed. And so. After all that's set up, the question that we get that's diagnostic is, and I pose this to you, is sin merely present in you or is sin in charge of you because it's not the same thing.
I think believers with various senses of conscience and sensitivity to these, these things will process that differently. And you should try to understand is sin merely present in you or is sin in charge of you? And I might add not just in charge writ large, but are there areas of your life where you've courted off, sectioned off where sin is in charge, where it is calling all the shots?
A believer may feel sin painfully. I mean, I think there are times by God's grace that I do, and I'm sure there are times when you as well feel that way. Sin may harass. Attempt interrupt and disturb, but. The scripture insists that that's different than sin reigning. In other words, the believers fight with sin is now proof of sins dominion, actually, it's often proof sin has lost dominion, and I think this should be great encouragement to us.
Lemme say it like a different way, tyrants. Don't usually get resisted by loyal subjects, and the resistance itself tells you something has changed. If you are rebellious against sin, then this shows something about your power to one, perceive it to be an enemy, even if it's present you're in the war, but also that there is power that you've received.
Externally to recognize and then to fight against that sin, and no one knows that. The tender conscience is going to panic here because that's what tender conscience always do. Tony and I talked about that. If you're tender, you hear sin and your soul immediately opens 12 tabs entitled, what have I Not Saved?
And we've joked about how this is kind of one of those things, especially in reformed circles, where we are so quick and insistent to show the depravity of sin, to emphasize the point, and then to bring the law to exemplify that point that sometimes this, especially among the sheep, those who are saved, those called in Christ, they become discouraged.
And whether it's any of the Puritan writers who emphasize that without coming alongside and presenting the gospel side by side, or even more contemporary examples, you know, you've heard Tony and I joke about, you know, all these preachers who will really come down too hard almost on God's own people.
And this is where it's so important that we understand that yes, the bad news is absolutely necessary. I mean, first of all, the bad news is truth, and that is that we are totally depraved, not as depraved as we can or should be, but depraved in every. Part of our own lives such that sin is prolific and ubiquitous and therefore taints all things That is literally a death sentence.
And this is why the good news is good, because it's good news about bad news and that is that where that bad news is present. Here comes Christ as this second or the last Adam. So as in one. One man's sin all died in one man's sacrifice and righteousness all will live. Those who repent and call upon the Lord Jesus Christ will be saved.
That is the good news. So Owen slows down and he says, look at the category. Dominion is not the same as influence, not the same as temptation, not the same as indwelling corruption. Dominion is a throne, and sin may still throw stones at the palace, but if Christ is king, then sin isn't. I think you heard me say on one of the more recent episodes.
That we all are slave to something or someone. So the question isn't who is your master, but what is your master like? And that's really what Paul is after in Romans. And what Owen kind of picks up here is his question is one of dominion. Woo. Who is set up on that throne? Two kingdoms, two masters. There's just one human heart.
And so the frame is that we are living always under a ruler. Ruler, or I think like some of the more. Literal translation of the scripture will insert the word slave there instead of servant. To really emphasize this point that you're either under sins reign or you're under grace's reign, this is one of those things in life that's truly binary.
You're either under sins reign or under Grace's reign. And here's the major reform note that Tony of I have. Really just some of our conversations have gravitated towards. You don't slowly graduate out of sins dominion by self-improvement. You don't level up into freedom like it's spiritual Mario car, you know.
The whole point of Paul bringing forward this contrast is that freedom comes through a change of lordship. Sin is not just a list of bad actions, it's a power, it's a master, it's a dominion. And grace is also a reign, not mere leniency. It's not like the opposite or it's not like some cosmic boys will be boys, but it's a ruling power through Christ.
And so the heart question becomes who rules you and who rules me? In all areas of our life, I think the Christian will be quick to say, well, Christ does reign. I think what Paul is drilling out here is more specifically, but who reigns in your finances? Who reigns in your sexuality? Who reigns in how you spend your time?
Who reigns in how you serve others? Who reigns in your disposition? Who reigns in how you take care of your family? Owen is totally allergic to superficial religion. It's one of the things I really like about him. You can have religious habits and still live under sins, dominion. You can have theological vocabulary, strong opinions, even church involvement, and still sin is the practical king.
And so we're really after, in this new year, at least, I want to be, what is the practical rule in dominion that supersedes everything in my life? And again, even the areas that I find difficult or that are tough where, who is ruling in those areas? Because the dominion of sin isn't measured by whether you have a conscience, but it's measured by whether you submit to sin as a governing authority.
And I think the challenge here for us isn't, again, just are we submitting everywhere to. As a governing authority, but are there places where we do carve out purposefully running headlong into planning where we allow sin to call the shots, where we, even if after the fact we, we have and expressed some remorse over those things, but in one point in this book, Owen says something so succinctly, it really just hit me upside the head and it was that he said something the extent of.
The Christian that does not pray against the temptation that they know they will face is not truly repentant when they pray against it after it has occurred. That was the knife, brothers and sisters. 'cause I was like, amen. That's right on. And that's I think what Paul is drawing us to here, that the real reign and rule of Christ is one of power.
And if we so desire it, if. Pray and ask or quest, the Holy Spirit move us from glory into glory. Even in these places where we find sin intractable, then we should want to wage war by the power of Christ. And there is real power to do away with sin, not entirely, but to face up against these temptations with strength so that our spiritual character, our spiritual resolve, our spiritual depth, authenticity, and abundant life is not ruined, destroyed, or hampered.
And so sin reigns. Of course for all of us in the old self, the, the old management Owen describes what it looks like when sin rules. He says it does so with the precision of someone who has watched his own heart long enough to be unimpressed. And so see here's, here's what he gives as some practical tips and I give to you.
[00:17:02] Jesse Schwamb: I'm just passing them along for this new year to get a sense for whether sin is raining or not. Here's, here's a couple things. One is that the will is bent towards sin as the preferred path, and that is there. Maybe there are parts in your life where there are mine, where that's where you want to go, and you know you probably shouldn't, but that's where you want to go.
The mind excuses sin, rationalizes sin or defends sin. I think we all have those characteristics in our lives. We say, well, I, I'll get to that eventually, or there'll be a better time for me to really confront that kind of sin. And so we make excuses or we just say, this is how it is, or this is how I was made, or this is my personality.
Another way in which sin reigns, or we can discern that it's raining. Is the affection love sin? Maybe not openly, but functionally. Or that the person yields as a pattern, not merely as a stumble. That is that we've cut ourselves into a groove of doing these things and at some point we just fall on our desire to actually move ourselves or pray that Christ would move us out of those things.
And so in Sin Dominion, a person may feel occasional regret, but the overall direction is sin gets its way. And I think if we're all honest. I think Owen is calling us to again, look at all areas of our life where we know that there are pathways in which we run headlong in that sinful way, and that we allow sin to get hiss own way.
And I think Owen is careful. Sin doesn't need you to enjoy every sin. I think sin, if we're like personifying, it is happy if you just obey. I mean, sin can rule through fear, habit, appetite, reputation, secret, compromise, whatever keeps you under its thumb, but it will attempt to keep you under its thumb.
Thumb. So you can think of it this way. Sin doesn't need you to throw a parade for it. Sin just needs you to keep paying tribute. And I, when I thought about this, I thought that is so correct and this is why it is so dangerous. Why does so compromising, why it costs so much because. Not only is it powerful in its rule and dominion, but that rule and dominion is one of just conscious and ongoing destruction.
It's emptiness in the committing of the sin. Even if you thought it would bring you even some kind of temporary relief, while often knowing in the act or while you're pursuing it, that's gonna leave you empty and destroyed. And that's all it does. So this dangerous loop, I mean, you can imagine this is reading.
This made me just think. How much mercy we ought to have for those who are around us, who are blinded by sin as we once were, who are living in darkness, which of course, why the Bible speaks of these themes of Christ coming in light to bring forward the illuminating presence of God's love and the purifying power of His forgiveness in his mercy, because the opposite of that is stumbling around living in darkness.
And so I love that Owen. Owen and Paul of course, pulls us into this direction of saying, here is how sin loses its dominion. Then if all those things are true and they can be true, and I think even like little corners of our living spaces, then how does SIM sin lose that dominion?
[00:20:17] Jesse Schwamb: And the answer is, union with Christ, this blessed union with Christ that we get, I mean the best of all New Year's treats when we come into the family of Christ, when he saves us, when we reach out to him with repentance and forgiveness, and he restores us into a new and living hope.
And here's the anchor sins, dominion. Is broken through that union. It's broken through that gospel. It's broken through all of the good work of Jesus Christ applied onto your behalf and to mine, not through vibes, of course, not through trying hider not through a streak counter. You know, it's not as if we come forward and somehow elevate ourselves to the place of the deserving poor and bring our empty hands and say, I'm now ready to receive our gift.
I think all of us know better than that. When we recognize how sinful and corrupt even we are in the saved state. That is that we still feel that battle that Paul talks about wanting to do these things and not being able to do the very things that I want to do, but the believer. Is joined to Christ in his death and resurrection, and that union changes everything.
I mean, think about that for a second. Joined in his death and his resurrection, like now, both of those things true. You are so tightly coupled and interwoven to those things that cannot be dissolved or separated. And of course that should change everything. If we recognize the weight of that one, it does change our both status, our identity, and it changes our harmony with Christ.
So Owen, I think wants us to see in his writing here that Christianity is not primarily, of course, behavioral modification. It's a whole new reality. That's why, you know, Paul can write, listen, I'm a new creation in Christ, brand new again. He's making all things new. He's making all things new. He's making you new.
He's making me new. It's like the Oprah style. You get new and you get you, and you are getting new when Christ is doing his work. And when is Christ doing his work? Always in his children. So Christ of course, didn't merely come to forgive sins guilt. He also came to break sins rule, and this is like the joy of living in 2026 when we know we have a victorious savior and that that victory applies to us in the here and now as well as when we'll be glorified.
And that matters because some of us only think of salvation like this. Jesus forgives me. God won't punish me, and that's fantastic. I mean, maybe we might go as far to say Jesus forgives me, and so now I have the God's blessing. But it's even more and bigger than that. It's all true. But what Paul is saying here is that's not the whole story.
Grace doesn't just pirate in rebels. Grace transfers rebels into a new kingdom.
[00:22:51] Jesse Schwamb: Grace doesn't merely cancel your debt, it changes your master. So when the New Testament says you're not under sin, but under grace, here's what Owen hears and he's articulating. A new dominion has been installed. A new king now rules with a new principle by the spirit through faith according to Christ.
[00:23:09] Jesse Schwamb: Now of course, there is a, but I still sin. There's presence versus the power in this, and that's where Owen anticipates the question that every honest, Christian, Christian asks, and I'm sure you have to, and that is okay. Level with me though, practically speaking. If I'm free from Sins Dominion, why do I still sin?
And I love that. One of the great things about puritanical writing is that they love to set this up where they actually create their own objections and put them into the book. So you're, you're reading something, a treatise from some Puritan, and all of a sudden you'll find in the main argument, here's an opposition.
And you might think, I, I wasn't even thinking about that yet, but now I am. And so I think if you didn't think about it yet, you should be asking yourself, well, if I'm really free. From Sin Dominion as you're promulgating, as you're saying in this little treat of the new year, then why in this new year in 2020 6:00 AM I gonna sin?
And I guarantee you, you will sin. And so why? I mean, it's already been. Four days. So for me, there's been a lot of since happened and a lot of grace and forgiveness. So Owen's answer is, uh, comforting and bracing. So, strap in. Here's what he says. He says, you sin because sin remains in you, but it no longer reigns over you.
It's there, but it does not reign over you. You'll may be thinking like this, that's just semantics. Uh, why that doesn't help me at all. Hang in there. I think this is like the meat of what Owen gives us in this new year now, even though he wrote in the 17th century to really give us, to hold onto by the power of the spirit to make changes that are spirit empowered and to move forward with victory and grace.
Understanding that all of that victory, all of that battle belongs to the Lord. So indwelling sin is like a gorilla force. It's active, it's disruptive, and it's often humiliating, but it's not sovereign unless you surrender the throne. I wanna say that again. It is this gorilla force. It is this thing that's trying to act and disrupt and to humiliate you and to bring destruction, but it is not sovereign unless you surrender.
[00:25:11] Jesse Schwamb: And here's a practical test that Owen actually gives us in the book. It's not to torment us, I think, but it's a test to help clarify. And I've been thinking about this and I think you should too. Here's a couple questions. When you sin, do you make peace with it or do you make war on it? Do you hide sin to protect it or do you expose sin to kill it?
Do you justify or do you confess it? And do you plan it, cherish it, defend it, or do you grieve it and fight it? Aren't those good? I mean, stop now and go back like 15 seconds and listen to those again if you need to, and you might, or write those down. Put those in like a little journal as I have and put those before you this year as you evaluate.
Are you surrendering the throne, so to speak on these things? Do you cherish sin? Do you make peace with it? Do you justify it or do you make war on it? Do you expose it and bring it into the light? Do you confess it and do you fight against it? You know, Owen's Pastoral brilliance is that he doesn't say believers never fall.
He says, believers don't settle. And since Dominion is less about some kind of single act and more about a settled arrangement, a covenant with sin and of course with a covenant in Christ is that bigger, better, glorious covenant, the one that restores us, give us abundant life and fulfills us. And if we replace it within any place, a covenant of sin, what we get is not just the, the opposite of that.
But we get sheer destruction. We get darkness, we get blackness. If you're constantly negotiating terms with sin, okay, sin, you can have this corner of my life and I'll keep the rest. Then I think what Paul and Owen would, Owen would say to us here is you're playing with chains. You're literally, we are allowing ourselves to be bound, even if it's in some small way, and to be bound in any ways to be bound overall if you're fighting, even if it's often clumsy like me, often tired, sometimes failing your warfare is probably evidence of grace's reign.
That power of God in your life to bring forward real change for the battle. And this is what we've, Tony and I talk about all the time.
[00:27:23] Jesse Schwamb: It's this very ordinary means of grace. In other words, like God delights to provide this kind of supply and resource to you, and it's his best way. He doesn't point you to some secret hacks.
There's no, you know, like list of like 20 things you can do in 2026 or probably should have said 26 things you can do in 2026, um, to be. A better follower of Jesus Christ. Instead, he points you to the Spirit working through God's appointed channels, these ordinary means of grace. What are those things again?
This is old truth. For a new year, we know that grace reigns through the word of God. Not merely read, but received, heard with faith, applied with honesty, especially on the Lord's day. Prayer, not as performance, but as dependence, both public and private. The sacraments, the ordinances as God's visible grace to strengthen faith, and then fellowship and accountability because lone sheep Christianity is basically wolf delivery, right?
These things. I think we sometimes set aside in the search for the hacks, the things on YouTube that catch our eye, that say, wouldn't it be an easy way to get outsized and leveraged improvement in my life if I could just do these things? And God says, no, no, no. What I've given to you is these means of grace.
And guess what? They're simple but profound. They're ordinary, but extraordinary in their effect. And they're the word prayer, sacrament, sacraments, and fellowship and accountability. So. Loved ones. We cannot get lost in the sauce on this. These are the things that God gives us. We ought to lean into those things, trust them.
And entrust ourselves to them because Paul is not saying that those things are gonna save you, nor are Owen. He's saying this is how the king's power is experienced in the life of the citizen. And these two mark, the fact that grace reigns and has dominion over our life rather than sin. If you want freedom from sins, daily tyranny, don't just glare at your sin and make speeches.
You know, use the weapons Christ gives because of the hard truth. Owen would gladly press, I think, into our modern habits, and it's this, a neglected bible and a prayerless life do not create, quote unquote, mysterious seasons of spiritual dryness. They create predictable weakness, and that's a really hard truth because I know that we're all busy.
But this idea of spending time, meditating, praying. Crying out to God that these things prevent. In some ways this predictable weakness and the grace reigns in the life where Christ is trusted, and we need these ordinary means to trust ourselves more to Christ, and Christ is trusted. Where Christ is attended to.
And so our attending to Christ happens in these ordinary means. Aren't you glad they're ordinary means? Because if they're, if we had to attend to Christ in extraordinary means, we couldn't even accomplish that. And so the aim then is not gonna be some kinda sinless perfection, but real liberation. I mean, here's the good stuff.
Owen's aim in this treatise is not to make you pretend that you're fine. And I love that because we, we shouldn't, my wife likes to say, I'm fine. It's all fine, everything's fine. And I, I sometimes challenge her and I say, you know, it's okay. That's not fine because there are many things that are just not fine.
We do not have to try to manufacture and sing songs of joy at the grave of Lazarus. You know, Christ's aim in this is to open our eyes to our own depravity, our own contingency, and then to rely on him completely and fully as the savior that he is. The savior that he was when he lived in perfect past of obedience and also died.
And so what we have from him is this promise that he will take care of us in the current state, and that current state draws us closer and closer to him if we recognize it by the power of the Holy Spirit.
[00:31:21] Jesse Schwamb: And so Paul's aim is to help you and me live like someone who has been actually set free. And I think here's what freedom from sins domain means.
It means things like we can say no from the heart, not merely from embarrassment. That as we look at sin and we can look on our savior who is crucified and we can say from the heart, I refuse to participate in that. I know it grieves the Holy Spirit. It grieves God the Father. It grieves God the son. It means that we can confess sin without collapsing in despair.
It means that we can hold these two tensions in reality that we are simultaneously sinner and saint. It can't be 2026 without a little bit of Luther. It means that we can recognize that we are in a great amount of. Full depravity under sins weight without falling in, collapsing into ourselves into complete de depression and despair.
It means that we can fight sin without trying to earn God's love. That God's love itself solidifying us. And identity as his children means that he does give us every supply in dire time of need to fight sin without fearing that we are somehow losing his love in the fight. But that because he loves us, he's with the fight.
In fact, he's the one that underwrites our battle, that equips us with the armor that sends us out with the weapons, knowing that we are in a state of depravity, and that yet he has changed our identity and reset our course, and now equipped us to fight the battle which we find ourselves in as he's with us.
It means that we can pursue holiness. Because we've been adopted and not just because we're trying to audition for God or that we're trying again to earn his favor by merit, it means that the holiness that we seek after now we don't have to worry about some part of our mind is, am I doing this? Because it'll somehow ingratiate God towards me a little bit more, or maybe today if I'm really good, or if I spend 45 minutes in prayer or two minutes in prayer or 10 minutes in the Bible, that I'll have a better day or God will appreciate me more.
He will draw closer to me. Now Owen says, listen, you can pursue holiness when you're under the reign of grace because you've already been adopted and so therefore there's no more performance necessary. There's no more worrying about, there's more guilt about why you do it. There's no more thinking about it in any kinda legalistic terms.
Throw all of that out because you're not auditioning anymore. You're already in the family. I think Owen would absolutely say, if you belong to Christ, your life cannot be a comfortable home for sin. And if you feel in some ways as I do that there are parts of your life where sin is very comfortable, and maybe even before it gets to the door and rings the bell that you're already opening and welcoming it in, then we ought to just pray.
Pray desperately to God that he would make our lives such that they would not be a comfortable home for sin. If he has to break us, if he has to crush us, if he has to cut us, if he has to take us over the anvil as it were of his grace, and strike us with the hammer of the law so that he could mold us in the gospel into some kind of beautiful and useful instrument for his glory, that in 2026 loved ones, we ought to pray that way.
And I know that's. Not an easy way to pray. It is a way though that promises that grace will reign and have dominion over our lives. It's not because God is petty, it's not because grace is fragile, but because a new reign has begun.
[00:35:02] Jesse Schwamb: So here's some final encouragement I think that. Owen gives us in this writing on this, what does it mean to be free from sins Dominion?
Here's what I think he would say is we can't deny the battle. Paul doesn't, and Owen doesn't. He dignifies it. Both of those men do. They tell you that the struggle is real. But they refuse to let you call defeat normal Christianity. Uh, maybe there's no such thing as normal Christianity. 'cause Christianity by itself is something so otherworldly, something so inconceivable.
We at once recognize that the bad news, that sin is prolific, it's destructive. Is hurtful, is so unkind is everywhere, and it hurts us. It hurts the believer and the unbeliever alike. And then this idea, this almost breathtaking, inconceivable idea that God himself loved his creation so much that he would send his own son to come and to bring restoration.
That Revelation 21 style, all things new is. Wild. Of course it's otherworldly because it doesn't make any sense if you're in Christ. The good news is for this year and all others, sin is not your king. Uh, maybe some people like need to hear that again, or maybe there's somebody in the back, you didn't hear it the first time.
If you're in Christ, sin is not your king. That doesn't mean that you'll never feel temptation. It doesn't mean that you'll never have ugly moments. You wish you could erase. It doesn't even mean sanctification is quick, neat, or Instagramable, but it does mean this since Dominion has been broken. Grace now reigns.
Christ is a ruler and the spirit is at work in you and me. So we don't wanna interpret the presence of conflict as the absence of grace. Now sometimes conflict is the very evidence that Grace has moved in and started an eviction. That if you are a rebel against sin, then Grace is ruling and has dominion in your life.
And as you fight, as I fight, here's what we need to remember together. The Christian life is not a horror movie where sin is the monster and you're unarmed in the basement. The Christian life is warfare. Yes, but it's warfare under a victorious. King. I mean, Jesus himself is the one raising the flag on the battlefield, calling us out.
So take heart, Christian, take heart. Dear ones, take heart, loved ones. You're not free because your grip on Christ is perfect. You're free because Christ's grip on you is unbreakable. That I think is how John Owen would summarize. Free from Sins Dominion. Sin still dwells, but no longer rules. Grace doesn't just forgive your rebellion.
It overthrows the rebel regime. So I hope that that is in some way a small little treat as advertised for the new year, at least. Something for you and me to think about as we go into 2026. There's so much more. That we could say there is so much that we could talk about in terms of law and gospel and grace and antinomianism.
But I think the most important thing for us to remember is that Christ's grip on us is unbreakable, and that grip ushers us into and sustains us in this dominion of grace. And at the same time when I think Paul and Owen would challenge us with. Is that we need to remember that while Christ rules overall, we ought to examine ourselves and find those places where we do not allow him, or we restrict his rule in movement or we fight against him instead of fighting against the sin.
Which he's empowered us to tackle. Again, this doesn't mean that we'll be perfect, it means that we will continue on sinning, but I hope what you've gotten from Owen and what you've read here from Paul is this idea of the tender-hearted Christian that is. Resilient because of Christ that even in every fall there is a lot of resurrection, and that when we do stumble, that we get back up.
We seek repentance quickly. We keep short accounts with God. We move forward by his love and his power so that there is increasing levels of defeat, of sin, of mortification, of sin according to another work by John Owens in all of those things. I hope that we'll be reminded that in this year ahead there is victory for you and there is victory for me.
So that's the treat loved ones. We'll be back with your regularly scheduled, dual hosted programming very, very, very, very soon. Again, the rumors of Tony's demise have been greatly exaggerated and he will be back to join us. But before we get to the very, very close, there's a couple of things I wanna put before you as the new year begins.
First, I just wanna say thank you. Thank you to everybody. Thank you to people who listen. Thank you, people who will come and hang out in the telegram chat, which by the way, you can get to by going to t Me Back slash Reform Brotherhood. Thank you for those. Who pray for us. Thank you for those who send notes of encouragement.
Thank you for the feedback and thank you for your participation because this was really meant to be a conversation that Tony and I started 10 years ago that really we thought we'd love to have other people join in on. And by God's grace and his design and great providence, they have in a ways that have been like totally unexpected.
The Telegram Chat, for instance, is a way where brothers and sisters from all over the world are hanging out and just loving. Talking about processing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And man, is that a super delight. So do hope maybe in 2026 you'll make it your own resolution to just come poke around in there and coming out with us.
I would love to meet you. So come say hello. The last thing I wanna say thank you for is all of those who give financially to make sure the podcast. Still happens, to be honest with you. It's surprisingly expensive to do the podcast. And so whether it's like the hosting fees or the processing stuff, or just publishing the episodes, making them arrive wherever they arrive so that you can have them in the moment that you expect them to show up is costly.
And so at some point people started to ask, lovely Brothers, sisters said, you know what? I can't give a lot, but could I give a little something to make sure that it just keeps happening so that it moves forward? And so if you're in that place this year and you've thought, you know what? I would love to just give one unit of whatever currency it is and where you live in the world, we would be so happy and humbled for you to do that because that's what so many have done.
And all those little things add up. So if you are thinking, you know what, God has blessed in this podcast, and if he has, we certainly know it's not because of me, and it's not because of Tony. It's because God is good and His word does what His word does. It goes out and never returns void. And we hope that we're just constantly speaking and processing, metabolizing, chewing on that word.
And just bring it before you in conversation, because I know I can speak for Tony. We just love to talk about Jesus. We love God because he first loved us. I'm still constantly, every day amazed, even in this fourth day of the new year that God loves me and that he's for me, that he's with me in this year.
It's an incredible thing, and so if you feel that way too and are wanting to connect or give to something toward that end, we love for you to do that. Uh, here's the logistics. If you wanna do that, just go to patreon.com/reform brotherhood patreon.com/reform brotherhood, and you could give a one time or reoccurring gift.
You could do that in 2026 and a. I wanna say for all those who do that, and by the way, there have been brothers and sisters that have given to this podcast. So you can hear it every week, every time it shows up that have given four years to make that happen. And man, does that undo me because that is such a gift to God's people just allowing us to continue to speak his name and to put it out into the interwebs unapologetically.
And so that there are no Jericho paywalls that need to be torn down. There's no weird ads in the middle of this. There's no annoying bumpers at the beginning of the end. It's just us being able to talk about Jesus, and I love that. Lastly, I say to you, brothers and sisters come along with me and Tony this year.
We've got so many things we want to talk about. The list of parables that we're gonna continue to process together and go through is so big. I just never really have gotten a full appreciation. For all these amazing things that Jesus is teaching in the parables and how many of them there are, and even the ones that are like on the margin, where people are like, well, it could be a parable, it could not.
And we're just like, we're doing 'em all. We're doing 'em all. So I think that's gonna be most of our 2026, but I think we're going to really, really enjoy it together. So we'll be back at that very, very soon. I wish you the best, most profitable, productive, and spiritually filled, abundant year ahead of you. I pray for all of you that I'll be the best one yet, and it will be the best one because you will take seriously.
What Owen and what Paul has challenged us with here, and that is that we ought to ensure that grace has dominion over our lives. So get in there. Get in the battle. Get in the struggle. Embrace those ordinary means. Know that God is for you, and that he's freed you from sins dominion. And until we talk about something else next time, honor everyone.
Love the brotherhood.