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What does it mean to worship a God who is both one and three? In this foundational systematic theology episode, Tony Arsenal and Jesse Schwamb tackle one of Christianity's most essential yet mysterious doctrines: the Trinity. Moving beyond vague notions of "threeness" and "oneness," they explore the technical language of the early church—ousia, hypostasis, and perichoresis—and explain why these terms matter for everyday faith. From practical prayer patterns to avoiding common heresies like modalism and tritheism, this episode equips believers to think clearly about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Whether you're teaching children, leading prayer, or simply seeking to love God more faithfully, understanding the Trinity transforms how we relate to the persons we worship.
The doctrine of the Trinity begins with two fundamental truths held in tension: God is one, and God is three. The technical term ousia (essence or substance) describes the fundamental divine nature that makes God who He is. This single, indivisible essence is not divided among the Father, Son, and Spirit like a pie cut into three pieces. Rather, each person is the full divine essence. The Father doesn't possess one-third of deity; He is fully God. The same is true of the Son and the Spirit.
The term hypostasis (person or subsistence) describes the three distinct "instances" of the divine nature. These are not merely roles or modes that God adopts at different times, but eternally existing persons who relate to one another. The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, and the Spirit is not the Father—yet all three share the same divine nature perfectly and completely. This mystery cannot be reduced to human categories or illustrated by created things, but it is the clear teaching of Scripture and has been affirmed by the universal church for nearly two millennia through creeds like the Nicene Creed.
The concept of perichoresis (from Greek, meaning "to dance around" or "mutual indwelling") captures the profound interpenetration of the three persons of the Trinity. This is not merely that they cooperate closely or share attributes—it's that each person fully indwells the others in a way that transcends any created analogy. Jesus Himself taught this reality when He said, "I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me" (John 14:10).
This mutual indwelling means there is no "overlap" in a Venn diagram sense, where three circles intersect in the middle and the common area represents "God." Rather, if we were to use a visual representation, the three circles would need to be perfectly superimposed, occupying the exact same space. The Father is not "part" of the Godhead—He is the Godhead, and so is the Son, and so is the Spirit. This preserves both the full deity of each person and the absolute unity of the divine essence. Understanding perichoresis protects us from thinking of the Trinity as a committee of three separate beings or as a single actor wearing three different masks.
While Scripture permits addressing prayers to any person of the Trinity (we see Stephen praying to Jesus in Acts 7:59), the dominant New Testament pattern is clear: believers pray to the Father, through the mediation of the Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit. This structure is not arbitrary legalism but reflects the economy of redemption and helps maintain theological clarity.
Praying this way guards against accidentally conflating the persons—thanking the Father for dying on the cross, or thanking Jesus for dwelling in our hearts (which is the Spirit's particular work). It also shapes our understanding of how the Trinity functions in salvation: the Father initiates and decrees, the Son accomplishes and mediates, and the Spirit applies and empowers. Adopting this pattern in both public and private prayer doesn't restrict the Spirit but rather honors the distinct roles each person plays while celebrating their perfect unity. It's a practical discipline that reinforces sound doctrine and protects us from unintentional heresy.
No sooner do I think about the one than my mind goes to the three. And no sooner do I go to the three than my mind returns to the one. - Gregory of Nyssa (quoted by Tony)
The Father doesn't just have the divine nature. The Father is the divine nature. And the son doesn't just have the divine nature. The son is the divine nature and likewise the spirit. - Tony
You can't be a heretic on accident... A heretic is somebody who knows what the church teaches and knows what the historical understanding of the Bible is and willfully rejects that. - Tony
[00:00:00] Tony Arsenal: Welcome to the Reformed Brotherhood. I'm Tony.
[00:00:03] Jesse Schwamb: And I'm Jesse hey brother.
[00:00:05] Tony Arsenal: Hey brother.
[00:00:07] Jesse Schwamb: What's going on, Tony?
[00:00:08] Tony Arsenal: Not much.
Not much. Just enjoying a nice, relaxed Sunday evening. How about yourself?
[00:00:14] Jesse Schwamb: So I have a confession.
[00:00:15] Tony Arsenal: You have a confession? Okay.
[00:00:17] Jesse Schwamb: This is an important confession. It's weighing heavy on my heart. So my wife and I last evening had this great opportunity to get together with some friends, some wonderful Reformed people, and we played a game,
[00:00:31] Tony Arsenal: all right?
[00:00:32] Jesse Schwamb: And it was a board game.
[00:00:34] Tony Arsenal: Oh no.
[00:00:35] Jesse Schwamb: And I have to confess to you, it was the Joel Olsteen, your Best Life Now board game.
[00:00:41] Tony Arsenal: Oh my goodness. Please tell me you're bringing that up here when you come for Christmas
[00:00:45] Jesse Schwamb: and. Uh, it was horrible. Like aside from the really poor theology, of course, I don't even know if you can call it theology, because it was just so downright awful.
[00:00:54] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.
[00:00:55] Jesse Schwamb: Not only that, but the gameplay, like, aside from the fact that it's straight up like idolatrous prosperity gospel, like it's incredible how thorough that is throughout the game. Not only that, but if you set that aside, which is a lot, I, granted the gameplay itself was horrid. Like, it, it, most of the game didn't make sense that it even comes with like a little tiny mirror so that you can look at yourself and at one point in the game say promising and affirming things to yourself about yourself.
[00:01:26] Stinger: Wow.
[00:01:27] Jesse Schwamb: It, it's incredible. So we had a really fun time because we definitely had a great opportunity to redeem it in some ways by speaking the truth to each other. But it is a horrid game, like in every conceivable sense. It's ironic, I guess, that. This game that's all about prosperity Gospel, uh, was really, really awful to play in its own right.
And disappointingly, I didn't win any treasure. I just checked. And my cars that are sitting in the driveway are still like the old, like, no BMWs, nothing like that. My teeth aren't any wider and I don't have any more money, so whatever.
[00:02:03] Tony Arsenal: Wow. So I have two thoughts. First of all, I think it's absolutely perfect that a Joel Olsteen game one doesn't make any sense and two isn't any fun.
That seems like it fits perfect with Joel Olsteen. And secondly, I feel like the, the rule should be the first person to claim that they've won actually wins the game.
[00:02:22] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, that actually would make more sense. Yeah. Like there was a, there was a winner. But it was even confusing at the end, what you win.
'cause you actually write down like, uh, like an immediate goal, which we just like made like super idolatrous things. So we definitely didn't like play this game for real. But, um, I was curious. Like, I wanted to give it, I wanted to put myself into it, like as much weight as I could. I mean, really we're, we're here to help everybody, so I figured I'll, I'll take one for the team.
Wow. I haven't read that book Your Best Life now, but I've got a pretty decent idea of how like, just downright confusing and awful. The whole thing is. So they're even like, there's even, you get a certain number of like, I think it's like two, like faith cards and these cards are to play if for some reason you do not want to, or you can't complete a challenge in the game.
And like even the faith cards, like these half faith cards are just Joel Olstein quotes.
[00:03:14] Tony Arsenal: Wow.
[00:03:15] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. There, there's no scripture in this bad way whatsoever. But it was absolutely hilarious 'cause the company was fantastic in which, which we played it with. And so we had a really good time. But there's nothing like sitting in a group of people holding up a tiny mirror and the car challenging you to say like affirmative things about what you like on your face.
[00:03:33] Tony Arsenal: So, so did you purchase this game or did these, these friends of yours?
[00:03:36] Jesse Schwamb: No, uh, these friends of ours purchased it, but it was because we had talked about it and um, that's hilarious. I was actually really tempted to myself just to see what this thing was like because it was only $10. So I feel like this was like a decent investment and one taking that off the market from somebody else who might actually try to play that seriously.
[00:03:55] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.
[00:03:56] Jesse Schwamb: Uh, and also because it was just a good time.
[00:03:59] Tony Arsenal: So I used to have a Joel Olsen game that I would play. Um, I would, I used to like get my oil changed and my tires changed and stuff. At the local Walmart. We had a Walmart that had like a auto center in it. And so when I was waiting for my car, uh, I would walk over to like the book section and the game I would play is I would pick up a Joel Olsteen book and I would randomly flip to a page, uh, and I would randomly flip to pages until I found something heretical.
And I think like the record of how many flips that I got to before I found something heretical was like four or five. So it was a pretty, pretty quick bounce to heresy.
[00:04:39] Jesse Schwamb: That's outstanding. The, you would love this game then, because it's just straight up, like out of the gate, straight idolatry. Like it is, like name it and claim it.
So you're right, it is totally ironic that you actually have to win this game by achieving something when really you shouldn't have to achieve anything. You just right. Name it and it's yours.
[00:04:59] Tony Arsenal: So speaking of heresy, we are, uh, talking about the Trinity tonight, right?
[00:05:05] Jesse Schwamb: Yes. We are heresy abounds. So,
[00:05:07] Tony Arsenal: uh, this is your spoiler alert.
Jesse and I are probably going to say something on accident tonight that is heresy, because that's what's happens when you talk about the Trinity.
[00:05:16] Jesse Schwamb: That's very true.
[00:05:17] Tony Arsenal: So, spoiler alert, so the, the doctrine of the Trinity, this is, uh, this is entry two of our systematic theology episodes. Uh, we're doing systematic theology at the first, uh, recording of the month, which may or may not be the first, uh, Wednesday of the month when it releases with the first recording.
So, um, the Trinity is, is a doctrine that is absolutely at the center of Christian faith, right? But it's also a doctrine that like 95% of Christians have no real comprehension of. Would you, you think that's a fair, fairly accurate number?
[00:05:54] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, absolutely. Because I think a lot of times we get bogged down in the sense that it's mysterious, so therefore we don't spend a whole lot of time really involving ourselves in trying to understand what we can or, or making clarification about things.
[00:06:08] Tony Arsenal: Right. So the, the, the general kind of perspective that Christians that I run into at least have is there's some sort of vague awareness of threeness and there's some sort of vague awareness of oneness and exactly how that threeness and oneness works, uh, and interplays with each other. That's where people kind of get confused.
So, um, we're gonna try to talk, um, you know, this is a huge topic and we are not a super long shown. We don't want this to be a super long show. So we're gonna do kind of the big picture flyover of the doctrine of the Trinity, and then we're gonna try to come in for a, uh, landing on some real practical kinds of things that you can take away after listening to this.
And we'll really help with your devotions to the, the persons of the Trinity that we serve and love and worship.
[00:06:54] Jesse Schwamb: Right on. I'm stoked. Let's do it.
[00:06:55] Tony Arsenal: So let's, let's put you on the hot, hot seat and we didn't plan this. Jesse doesn't know I'm gonna do this. Why don't you give me a definition of the Trinity.
[00:07:04] Jesse Schwamb: This is already way better than the Joel Osteen game.
[00:07:07] Tony Arsenal: This should be another, this should be another game that we play is, is, um, orthodoxy or heresy. And we'll have like the Trinitarian analogy of edition,
[00:07:17] Jesse Schwamb: uh, so many games that you and I need to create.
[00:07:20] Tony Arsenal: Yes. So hit me with the definition.
[00:07:22] Jesse Schwamb: So when I think of, uh, the Trinity, of course the first thing that comes to my mind is like the Portman two, if you will, of those two words, try unity.
So we are in some respects, speaking of three in oneness. And for me it's always been honestly simplest definition. God is one essence in three persons.
[00:07:42] Tony Arsenal: Sure. So that is the best short definition that we can give. Now, even that, and you'll see when you study the Trinity, is no matter what you say, and no matter how you phrase it, you're going to be sliding off of the rails one direction or another.
Exactly. So talking about the Trinity is this constant, um, tightrope walk of trying to talk about the threeness of God and trying to talk about the oneness of God and to hold those two realities, intention. And Calvin, uh, in institutes, I don't have the exact quote in front of me, but he says that he was reading a passage in Gregory of NSIs, who was one of the, the Cappadocian fathers we're not gonna get into the history, but, um, the Ca Ocean Fathers were, um, were bishops in what's now modern day Turkey.
What's called Cappadocia. Um, and they did a lot of work in the, uh, fourth century, uh, on the Trinity. And he has this passage where he says, no sooner do I think about the one than my mind goes to the three. And no sooner do I go to the three than my mind returns to the one. And that's really the balance that we need to strike as we talk about the Trinity, is we need to always be, um, we're never going to be able to land in sort of the sweet spot.
And that's not because the sweet spot doesn't exist, but it's because we are limited creatures with no experience, no direct experience with, um, an a three person sharing a single nature or a single nature that is, um. Is, is personalized in three persons. Um, everything that we see, and we'll get into what these terms mean, but everything that we see and everything we experience is one nature, one person.
Um, and that, that correlation is absolute in creation. Um, but now we look at God and God is radically different, which we shouldn't be surprised, right? That God is radically different than creation.
[00:09:32] Tony Arsenal: So, um, the, the discussion of the Trinity gets really technical, so I'm gonna try to stay sort of on the edges of that technical field, but we have to understand some technical terms first, and this, if we can stick with these terms.
Um, and know what these terms mean. Use them in their proper way and understand how they relate to each other. It goes a tremendous different, uh, tremendous distance towards keeping us kind of on that middle path of, of, of orthodoxy. So the, the first term that we have to understand is the Greek word usia.
Now, the Greek word I, I'm gonna try to stick with the Greek terms because when we translate into English, we get all sorts of weird stuff going on. So the Greek word usia kind of refers to that fundamental underlying substance or underlying thing, or underlying, um, sort of the metaphysical reality that makes a thing what it is.
So I have a human nature and that human nature makes me human. And Jesse has the same kind of nature. It's a different, it's a separate nature, but it's the same kind of nature, and that also makes him human. And so the things that we share in common, um, we share in common because of our human nature. And that's what the Greek word usia means.
Um, um, sorry, I have a cold. So we're gonna be lots of sniffling tonight. We can't avoid it. Um, the, the Greek word that now represents kind of the threeness of God is the Greek word esis. And that word, um, refers to kind of individual instances of a given nature. So I'm an, I'm a hypothesis. Jesse's a hypothesis.
Um, my wife in the other room is a hypothesis. And we have to be careful because this gets translated and understood as person in kind of modern terminology. And when we think of a person, we are thinking of something that's rational. We're thinking of a human person that has intellect and will and emotions and those kinds of things.
But in the original kind of philosophical use of these terms, a, a hypostasis is not necessarily rational. So I have a lamp on a desk next to me, and there's a certain kind of nature to a lamp, right? There's certain attributes that a lamp has in order to be a lamp. Now this lamp is a hypothesis of the lamp usia.
Now I know that that's a weird thing to think about, but in the way that these terms are used, in the original, um, the original philosophy and theology of, of the trinity is a rock, a horse, a lamp. All these things are hypothesis. The sort of, um, the, the mental features, the rational features, those are important in discussing the Trinity, but they're not, um, they're not unique to a person.
Um, they're, they come from the nature. And so we'll see that that interplays in a sort of a, an interesting way later. Does that make sense so far? Are you tracking with me?
[00:12:22] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, I'm with you. That makes sense. I mean, in some ways we're just making sure it's helpful to throw these terms out there because, uh, one you may come across them and two, all we're trying to do is essentially catalog, create some type of hierarchy, almost like genus species in a really rough way, trying to understand and break down chronologically, uh, how all these.
[00:12:40] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, absolutely. And so those, those two terms, um, roughly speaking, the usia is the way that God is one. The way that the divine nature is unified is called an usia. The way that the persons are united to each other, the way that they are not representing three gods, but are still one God. That's the usia.
That's how we're still monotheists instead of trius, is that the father, son in spirit share a single simple usia. And we talked about simplicity in our last podcast, but basically an indivisible usia, um. Now the way that we talk about God and we talk about the threeness of God. That's what we mean when we say hypothesis.
So the way that the persons are distinguished from each other, the way that we talk about the diversity that exists within God. Now we're talking about diversity, not division, not dis, um, distinction, not separation. Those things are really important. Um, and then there's a final term that, that we have to remember, and it's called Persis.
And what Persis essentially is, is Persis, is how we understand and maintain that the, the single divine nature is not divided amongst the persons. Um, that, that, that single indivisible nature remains a single nature instead of being sort of subdivided into three natures. And Calvin, um, actually puts it really kind of beautifully when he explains this.
Um, he's, it's in, uh, institutes, um, book One is that. Chapter 13, um, section 19, and it says in each hypothesis the whole nature is understood. The only difference being that each has his own peculiar, subsistence, the whole father is in the son, and the whole son is in the father as the son himself also declares.
I am in the father, and the father is in me. So what, what Calvin is getting at, and this is sort of previewing some of the questions that came up when we, when we kind of sneak peek to this episode in different Facebook groups is a lot of people will look at the Trinity and they'll sort of think, uh, they'll think in terms of like a Venn diagram, right?
You've got three circles and you know, one's labeled father, one's labeled son, and one's labeled spirit. And where they overlap in the middle, that's kind of where people envision the divine nature is where the person's overlap. And that is fundamentally the wrong way to think about it. So, um, when we talk about the whole father being in the son and the whole son in the father, basically what that's saying is that the overlap.
Is the whole divine nature. So, uh, the father doesn't just have the divine nature. The father is the divine nature. And the son doesn't just have the divine nature. The son is the divine nature and likewise the spirit. And so when we talk about the father being the divine nature, the son is also divine nature.
And so there's no, there's nothing outside of, um, the father that the son possesses, right? It's not like there's some attribute or some feature that the son has, that the father is not, there's not some, um, property that the son or the spirit has that the father and son aren't. Um, and when we have that Venn diagram, it leads us in the wrong direction.
So this perichoresis, um, the word, if you break the word down into component parts, it's kind of this dancing around each other, but technical from a technical language perspective, it's more the inner penetration of the person's, the person's kind of, um. They interpenetrate each other, they're in each other.
They're, they're not separable. You can't see a distinction. Um, and that's really important for us to maintain too.
[00:16:16] Jesse Schwamb: We need a sound effect for like, when Heresy's mentioned, like some, some guy just yelling heresy.
[00:16:21] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, there we go. Like a buzz. I get like a taboo buzzer from, from that game.
[00:16:25] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, exactly. I, yeah, I totally agree.
So if I were like to try to summarize it without the technical language, we're essentially trying to communicate that, once again there's that, which is a fun word to say honestly. And you should use. As often as you can, but there's one, and it's almost better to use the Greek word than essence because it's more comprehensive, right?
It has a really stronger, more full meaning, but one essence. But these three subsistence essentially, so the Venn diagram, if you take that, you'd have to collapse it on itself so that all three circles were on top of each other essentially.
[00:16:57] Tony Arsenal: Right. And if we're talking about the divine nature in each, each circle represents a, a person and their nature, then it actually can't even be three circles, even if they're on top of each other.
[00:17:07] Jesse Schwamb: Exactly.
[00:17:07] Tony Arsenal: Um, and that's, that's where we get with, you know, this mystery of the Trinity is, you know, I am an, I'm an usia and, and since I'm a concrete usia that actually exists, I'm a hypothesis. Um, you are an usia. That is a hypothesis. Um, now you and I don't share a single nature. We have, we have natures that are of the same species or the same genus.
Right? Right. We're in the same category. When we're talking about the Trinity, that's not what we're saying. We're not saying that the father, the son, and the spirit are just, um, beings of the same category. We're actually saying something that there's a much more fundamental unity in their persons than that.
Um, and that's important because if we start to say, um, you know, there are some analogies that we use in the early church where it's like Peter, James and John. That's an analogy for the Trinity. They all share a common humanity, but they're three distinct persons. The problem with that is that they don't actually share a common humanity.
They, they all, yeah. That's, that's tri theism, right? That's three gods. It's not, it's not Trinity. Um, the other side of the, the equation is in the West particularly, they tended to use, um, examples that lean towards too much unity. Right. So they talked about, um, the psychological model of the trinity, where it's like, well, God is like one mind, and you know, your mind has will intellect and um, and emotion or, or you know, whatever the different, the different components of your mind are, yet it's still one mind.
Well, the problem with that is that, um, now we're collapsing the persons in on themselves. So they're just sort of features or aspects of a single reality that's modalism or humanitarianism. Right? More heresy. So, um, before we, before we go forward too much further.
[00:18:48] Tony Arsenal: Um, I wanna just read the Nicene Creed.
So without getting into too much history, um, the, the Nicene and Creed was formulated, um, first in 325, and then it was amended and updated, um, at, in 381 at the Council of Constantinople. So when we talk about the nice and creed, we're actually talking about the creed that was kind of signed off on at, at the, uh, first Council of Continental Noble.
And the reason this creed is so important is because it represents the, um, kind of the earliest complete ecumenical creed that was signed off on and endorsed and used by the entire church. And it's been used by the entire church for 1700 years with basically, uh, basically no modification. Now that's a really big deal that, that there hasn't been changes, there hasn't been too much controversy once things settled in.
That we've been able to confess this creed together, um, is, is really significant. So I just wanna read it and we're not gonna spend a lot of time diving into the specifics of each, um, each clause or anything like that. But, um, this, I'm getting this off Wikipedia. It looks like it was a, a translation from, uh, Philip Shaft's work.
Um, and it says, we believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten son of God, begotten of the Father, before all worlds light of light, very God of very God, begotten, not made being of one substance with the Father by whom all things were made.
Who for us and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man, he was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate and suffered and was buried. And the third day, he rose again according to the scriptures and ascendant into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father.
From then he shall come again with glory to judge the quick and the dead. His kingdom shall have no end. And in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and son together is worshiped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets in one holy, Catholic and apostolic church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins. We look for the resurrection of the dad and in the life of the world to come. Amen. Now, you'll also just note in the section on the Holy Spirit, um, I'm reading what was the original creed in the West? Um, in probably the seven or eight hundreds, they added the, what's called the Philly Oaky clause so that we affirm in the West generally that, um, the, the spirit proceeds from both the father and the son.
And that brings us, um, I think to kind of our next, uh, our next thing that we have to talk about is now that we've sort of identified how the persons are unified and how, how they're identical in terms of their essential nature. Every attribute that we talked about with, uh, with the father when we talked about theology proper, every attribute that the father is, the son is also, and the spirit is also.
And it's not just that they have the same attributes. Um, the Athe Nation Creed says it really beautifully where it has this sequence in the middle where it says not, it says the father is, uh, omnipotent. The spirit is son is omnipotent. The spirit is omnipotent, yet there's only one omnipotence. Um, and what it's saying is that the, the father's omnipotence is the same power that the son possesses.
It's not that the father and the son just both have the same level of power. It's that the power of the father is the power of the spirit and the power of the son. And so we, we've kind of established this unity. And this, um, the oneness. But now people will often look at that and say, well, so how do we know that the sun is the sun?
Could the, could the sun, could the spirit have been incarnate and been the sun instead? You know, are the persons interchangeable? And the answer is no. Um, and the reason for that is this section here where we get in the creed, where it talks about the son being the only begotten, and then the spirit proceeding from the Father.
And I'm just gonna read, um, uh, just, uh, one article outta the Westminster Confession chapter two, article three in the unity of the Godhead. And they use the word Godhead, um, kind of synonymous with divine nature. So in the unity of the divine nature, there's three persons of one substance, power, and eternity.
So there's that unity again, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, the Father is of none, neither begotten nor proceeding. The son is eternally begotten of the Father and the Holy Ghost is proceeding from the Father and the Son. And so what we're talking about here is, um. The way that we distinguish and can tell the, the persons apart.
And the way that they are distinguished and different from each other is in how they relate to each other. So there's nothing different about their essential nature. They are a single nature. They share that single nature. They're ex absolutely identical in every way in terms of what they are. The way that they distinguish themselves from each other is how they relate to each other.
So the, the second person of the trinity relates to the first person of the Trinity as a son. Um, and now we have to be careful because when we think about that in, um, our context, we look at our, what it means to be a son in our context. That implies a beginning. It implies a dependence. It implies, um, you know, that one person is of a greater rank or a greater authority than the other.
And none of those things are true in, um, in the top. When we're talking about the father, the father. You know, we, we recognize a certain order of persons in the Trinity, but we don't recognize, uh, a level of authority within the trinity in, in eternity past. So the, the son and the father and the spirit don't outrank each other.
It's not like the father is really in charge and the son submits to him eternally, and the spirit submits to both of them eternally. Um, there's an ordering of persons but not a submission. And there's a whole controversy brewing right now about whether or not that's the case. And, um, there's lots of stuff that's been written, but the simple answer is that, um, the idea that the father is sort of like the head of the Trinity in terms of like authority and that the son and the spirit are submissive or subordinate to, um, the father.
That is a, pretty much a brand new theology that was never really even conceived of in the church. And when it was, it was dismissed as heresy, right? It was called Subordinationism, or Arianism or Origin. There are all these different names for it. But people like Wayne Gruden and Bruce Ware, Owen Straton, um, and a whole host of reformed evangelical guys, um, have postulated this primarily to support their views on gender roles in the church.
Um, and just hands down, they are not reflecting the historic Christian tradition. So we will probably do an episode in the future, um, about complementarianism and egalitarianism, and we'll talk about the EFS controversy a little bit at that point. We might even do a whole episode just on the EFS controversy, but, um, historic, nice seen Orthodox Christianity does not affirm a hierarchy of rank or of authority in the Trinity.
Um, what's called add intra or, um, in eternity past or in the essence of what God is, there's no ranking. There is an ordering, like we said, but not a ranking.
[00:25:59] Jesse Schwamb: And we go back to the Westminster and the Nice and Creed primarily because this is a complicated subject and the language matters and it does have actual implications.
I think some people have this tendency to think, well, it's, it's just words and we're doing our best to describe it. But the bottom line is it's so prone to error because it's both at the same time. It can be straightforward in just saying that there's one essence and three subs, but then there's this problem where we get into this tension between distinguishing and separating.
We wanna distinguish the roles, but we'd be careful not to separate them. Or we go the other route and we just collapse everything into one.
[00:26:36] Tony Arsenal: Right?
[00:26:36] Jesse Schwamb: So the language is important and those two documents in particular are really good at helping to shape, provide like a construct where you know you're gonna have like a nice little boundary in which to play and kind of if you want deeper investigation, those are good resources.
Um, to start. So let me ask this, Tony, in terms of what we've been talking about and what you presented, um, where does the rubber start to meet the road for us?
[00:26:59] Jesse Schwamb: I mean, where does this start to impact how we actually obey and worship God?
[00:27:05] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, and that's, that's a great question. And we talked about, um, you know, last week we, or last time we did a systematic, uh, episode, we talked about how we were talking about the father.
You know, we didn't start off with discussing sort of this abstract nature, and the reason for that is that we don't worship. An abstract unpersonal or, or, uh, impersonal nature, right? We worship the father through his son, through the mediation of his son and by the power of his Holy Spirit. And so the first thing that we, when we really grasp the Trinity, as much as our finite, limited minds can, is it drives us to relationships with persons rather than sort of this abstract kind of out there impersonal floating up above us.
God. Um, which is, I know for, for myself, speaking for myself, that was kind of the way I understood God. Um, you know, when I was a baby Christian, there was the Father and I knew like there's the father, the Son, and the spirit. And I knew that like the father was up there somewhere, but I didn't really feel like I related to the father.
But Jesus, Jesus was my homeboy, right? Um, Jesus was the one I prayed to. Jesus was the one that I asked into my heart, and then there was like this Holy Spirit thing. And I didn't really understand, like, well, I don't really get, if, if Jesus lives in my heart, then what's, what's this Holy Spirit? I don't really understand that.
Um, and so the, the father ends up being this kind of distant, um, maybe personal but distant kind of deistic thought. And when we really grasp the Trinity, what we recognize is that the father loved the world so much that he gave his only son. Right? That's John three 16. We wanna put some scripture or verses to this, is that when we look at that passage in context, it's not, um, God in abstract.
It's not some impersonal divine thing out there. It's the father loved the world. That so much that he gave his only begotten son so that no one would perish, but would have eternal life. Um, and then when we, you know, when we get progress further in, in the New Testament, um, you know, with the gospels, we kind of, the, the spotlight zooms in on the Father and then how the father is working in, in the world through the agency of his son.
And then when Christ returns and he sends the Holy Spirit at Pentecost in Acts, we start to see how the Holy Spirit moves. And the Holy Spirit is the personal presence of the Lord in our lives. Now, that's not to say that the Holy Spirit isn't a person in and of himself, but the presence of the Holy Spirit is the way that Christ, um, at least for now, uh, fulfills his promise that he would be with us till the end of the earth because Jesus is not sitting in the room with me according to his humanity.
Right. Exactly. He has chosen to, um, chosen to be personally present primarily as a localized human person. Uh, that's his, his personal presence with us is the same way that he was personally present with his apostles, or in a similar way, I should say. And his presence was the presence of the Father the same way or a similar way.
The spirit's presence in our life is the presence of both the father and the son in our lives now. So the Trinity is really how we relate to, um, to God, how we relate to the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. We can only ever be Trinitarian, right? We only ever relate to God because of the Holy Spirit, and we can only ever have the spirit in our life because Christ purchased our righteousness in order to make us a, a viable place for the Holy Spirit to dwell.
Does that kind of get out what you're looking for there?
[00:30:35] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, I think that's right on. And it's a wonderful reality that. We have truth represented in a person and not just an idea, right? Not just like some kind of concept to which you can grant intellectual ascent, but this idea that, because there's a lot of confusion on this.
Even when I speak to people sometimes, or we're just having casual conversations about the trinity, or to whom do we pray or where is Jesus, you know, we have a lot of like, just colloquial, kind of common, not always thoughtful language in how we describe Jesus being present with us. And, and he's not, and we actually much prefer it that way because he's forever gonna be identified with humanity, which means that he like eyeballs, blood vessels, hands, feet, like he's in a physical place, right?
In a space and in some kind of real reality based, uh, place. And that means then that he's given us this, the spirit, like you said, essentially to indwell us with his presence. But he's not like here with us. Like he's not in the room.
[00:31:32] Tony Arsenal: Right.
[00:31:33] Jesse Schwamb: And, and we should love that because he's forever chosen to identify himself with humanity.
Yeah.
[00:31:39] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Go ahead. Go ahead.
[00:31:41] Tony Arsenal: Um, we'll, we'll talk about it a little bit more when we get to Christology in a couple weeks. Um, what we're not saying is that the sun is no longer omnipresent or that the sun Right. You know, we're not saying that. Um, there's a doctrine in Reformed theology called the Extra Calvinistic Come.
And what that is roughly speaking is that the son is personally present in two ways. He's personally present in all times, all places, um, omni, presently, whatever that means. Um, he's personally present that way, but so is the father and we don't directly exactly experience or, um, perceive that, um, ever. I mean, I've never in any time that I've ever thought been able to personally perceive the presence of the father.
Um, that's largely because the father is in corporeal. We can't sense him. None of our faculties are equipped to do that, and Christ is present in this room with me in that way, in a way that my faculties are not equipped to perceive. He's also personally present in a local way, in, uh, in body, in, in heaven.
Um, so he's not present with us in a way that we can perceive. Now, we'll talk about how those things matter when we get to next week.
[00:32:53] Tony Arsenal: The Holy Spirit, however, in dwells us in a way that our faculty still can't perceive, but in a way that changes us. So we may not feel it or sense it or know it. Um, you know, we don't, we might get the Holy Spirit goosebumps once in a while, but that's probably more a matter of adrenaline and emotion than it is, um, any sort of real sense of the divine.
But the Holy Spirit is present in a way that changes us, that we understand and know. Um, the, the father and the Son is not present in the same way. They're present in the, in the Holy Spirit, but not in that same personal way. And, and we're getting into all sorts of mystery here.
[00:33:28] Jesse Schwamb: Right. And that, that's what's tough is, is trying to make sure that we can distinguish but not separate and then again, not co-mingle too much.
So it's that we're not appreciating like the economy of the Trinity, the different roles, uh, that they have in terms of the plan of salvation, the working outta salvation. That's, that's a whole nother conversation.
[00:33:45] Jesse Schwamb: But one of the things that, uh, often comes up, and I think you and I have talked about this before, but so how does that impact, like to whom do we pray?
Sure. Because that's like a, a big question. A lot of times we have the Trinity and sometimes we just start praying and we're well intentioned and we're going all over the place and you know, we find that we either we're addressing the different persons or we're not. Sometimes, you know, people are just not sure who should I address my prayers to.
[00:34:09] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. And so I think, um. We'll, we'll do this kind of in backwards order. So I think that as Christians, and some people will disagree with that, and this is fine. As Christians, we are permitted to address our prayers to any one person of the Trinity. Um, we can pray to the Holy Spirit, we can pray to Jesus, we can pray to the Father.
We can also pray, I think, to kind of collectively to the three persons. And we may, we may address God. And what we're doing when we address God kind of in air quotes, is we're addressing the three persons collectively. So just like I might stand in front of, um, I might stand in front of a group of people and I might address them as a single.
I might use singular language when addressing a group of people. Um, we also can address God and be addressing the Father, son, and Holy Spirit as persons. Um.
[00:34:58] Tony Arsenal: In that way, I think that the biblical pattern that we see in the New Testament, and I would actually argue probably in in the Old Testament, and especially in the Psalms, is to pray to the Father by the mediation of the Son, which is why we talk about praying in Jesus' name is because he's our mediator and we do so by the power of the Holy Spirit.
And I use that, that sort of pattern, um, religiously, and I don't mean that in like a pejorative sense, but I use that pattern every single time I pray. And here's why is I'm sure that we've all been in a circumstance where somebody is praying and they start out praying to the father, and then they sort of subtly and unknowingly shift to praying, uh, to thanking the father for coming and dying on the cross and for, for living in our heart.
And then they get to the end of the prayer and they say in your name. Amen. Right? And so what we've done is we've confused and conflated the, the roles that each person plays in the economy of salvation. Um, at best we just confuse the rules. Un unwittingly, at worst, we're actually kind of picturing a single God or a single person who's doing different things at different times.
And that's modalism. So there's our heresy alert again. Um, so for my own prayer life, um, and like when I pray publicly, I'm very intentional to be addressing my prayers to the father. To be closing my prayers saying in the name of Jesus Christ. And I also say, and in the power of your Holy Spirit. And the reason I do that is because it helps me from getting confused, right?
Um, and I pray, I pray publicly in church almost every week. And, um, I don't wanna be a subject of confusion for other people. Right. So I'm praying that way and I'm, I'm, I'm not, I'm not a teacher, um, in the church when I'm praying, but I'm praying that way in order to, you know, kind of have it be caught by the other people that are there.
And, you know, my last church there was actually a, a guy who, um, I noticed. You know, after being with him in Bible study for like six months, he started praying the same way. And it was just really, kind of, kind of heartwarming to see like this person's prayers are clearer and less likely to be confusing because he's picked up on this pattern that the, the Bible itself gives us, right?
The New Testament. Paul closes a lot of his letters in these Trinitarian prayers. Um, so I think that's the pattern in the New Testament. But we do have examples of, I think Steven in Acts when he's, you know, he looks up into heaven and he, he prays to Jesus. So I think that's permissible, right? Um, I can't think of any explicit instances in, in the Bible where someone prays to the Holy Spirit, but I can't imagine that if it's appropriate to pray to the Father and the Son, that it somehow would be inappropriate to pray to the Spirit.
But from a pragmatic standpoint, I just think it makes sense for us to be intentional, um, to pattern our prayers after the dominant, you know, the dominant pattern in the Bible, and then also in a way that that shapes our Trinitarian theology as we pray as well.
[00:37:52] Jesse Schwamb: Absolutely. It's just a really great habit to get into because it keeps us mindful and cognizant of those things.
Mm-hmm. And like I said, so I don't think it's, we, it's wrong to, to pray to Jesus, but to do so with like a very focused mind. Right. When you're doing that, so that again, you're appreciating the distinction of the persons and again, their role at various in affecting salvation and in understanding to whom you're bringing the request before.
So I'm with you. That's a really good habit, I think, just to practice, even if it's just in your personal prayer life. Because I found, as I've done that it also gives you a greater appreciation for each of the three and what you're doing and how you're relating in different ways. Yeah. And that's just good practical theology.
I think it's, it's teaching and it's transformative. And, uh, it's beautiful appreciation of the persons.
[00:38:42] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.
[00:38:43] Tony Arsenal: And one, one other thought about that before we move on to a slightly different part of this is if you, when you're reading theology, whether it's um, John Calvin or a modern theologian, um, especially in the Reformed traditions where I've experienced this, if you look carefully, you'll see that most of the time when a person uses the word God, they're talking about the father.
Right? And the way that you usually. See this is with the pronouns that are associated in other places. So I don't remember, I was reading Calvin and I don't remember exactly where it was somewhere in book four and it was talking, you know, he was talking about God does this, God does that, God does this.
And then you, you'll see, he says, and he sent his son or he ministers to us by His spirit. So when you look at that, you can backtrack that, and you have to be careful because people don't always use language consistently. So we have to be careful of trying to like trace these thoughts too far. 'cause sometimes they just, you're gonna read it wrong because they're just not being consistent.
But when you look at it, that means we're talking about the father. And that plays out in the New Testament too. If you do a survey of the word Theos in Greek, which is the word for God, and you do a survey in the New Testament almost universally, when the word is not clearly modified by something else, um, you will see God being used as the father.
Yeah, almost universally. And so for me too, I just think, um, you know, creeds are great. I love creeds. I love confessions. They serve a vital, important role, um, in the life of the church and in, in protecting us from ourselves. But our language should reflect as close as possible, the language of the New Testament and the way that the New Testament talks.
Um, and I say the New Testament because the New Testament is the fullest, um, fullest revelation that we have. That's not to say that the Old Testament is somehow faulty, but it's a, the Old Testament is a book of shadows and types. It's not a partial revelation, but it's an, in some ways it's an obscured revelation.
Now, when we look at the New Testament, that cast some light back on. So, um, you know, I mentioned the prayers in the Psalms. Um, it's not a hundred percent of the time, but Jesus prayed those psalms. So if Jesus is praying those psalms, then we have to have a theology of what those psalms mean that allows Jesus to pray them without, in most cases, praying to himself.
Right. So there's some instances where the Bible explicitly tells us that the a given psalm is about the Son, right? Psalm one 10, I think is the most quoted Psalm in the New Testament, and it clearly tells us that, um, that there's the Lord capital LORD, Yahweh, and the Lord says to my Lord, so Jesus could pray that Psalm, but we clearly have the Lord capital LORD.
Is the father, right? Because the father says to the son, I will make you a pre, you know, today I have begotten you. I'll make you a priest in the order melnick. So we have to, when we look at the Psalms, we have to be really intentional to try to spot that. And generally, my, my practice is to assume, unless I have a reason otherwise, that the word God or the word Yahweh or the word Lord, um, to assume that that word refers to the Father.
Unless I have a reason to think otherwise. There are people that would disagree and say, that's a faulty hermeneutic, but in my experience, that's yielded really productive, fruitful interpretations that play out. So Genesis one, for example, in the beginning, God, right? Is that the trinity? Is that some, one of the specific persons?
Well, what does God do? He speaks well, we go to John one. In the beginning was the word. The spoken word. The word was, uh, the word was with God. The Word was God. All things were created through him. So we've now got God creating by means of his spoken word. And then what happens next? The spirit hovers over the water.
[00:42:24] Tony Arsenal: So if we understand God in Genesis one, the word God, Elohim to be the Father, we have a really clear, you know, um, a really clear parallel to John one, one. And then we get to, uh, Genesis 1 26 and God says, let us make man in our own image. Well, this is a passage that has confused people to no end. Who is God talking to?
Well, God is the father here. He's speaking to the son of the Spirit. We don't have to think about some weird court, you know, some weird counsel of angels or a royal we, or any of the ways that people try to explain that. It's right on the surface of the text. The father says to the Son of the Spirit, let us make man in our image.
Um, the same thing happens, I think in Genesis three. And he says, you know, the, the, the man has become like one of us. Well, who is, who is he talking to? He's become like one of us, like the other persons of the Trinity. So I think that's a good general practice when we're reading scripture is, is to follow the pattern of the New Testament and apply that to the Old Testament.
The pattern of the New Testament is the word God. The word Lord generally refers to the Father, although sometimes it refers to the Son and the spirit too. Um, and then we look back and see that and apply that to the Old Testament.
[00:43:34] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, I think that part of the, the trouble we all find ourselves in is that we first wanna so badly understand more about God, more about his person.
We desire to know him and to love him better. And then we desire to communicate that knowledge as best that we can. So even the words, all the words we've been using are in a sense, metaphors in of themselves, right? So there's no really great comparison, there's no really great metaphor, and yet we're still stuck with using language that is all based on like a single essence, single substance, uh, subsistence like person, right?
Which means that we totally lack any kind of faculties or available tools to really provide a really good explanation. So it is really helpful to kind of process this and think through this. It's also really devotional, I think, in terms of kind of wrapping up how we understand this with how that impacts a lot of the world in which we live and how we understand the world.
So for instance, the fact that, as you said, with God's essentially speaking to himself or speaking to the, to Jesus and the spirit of the son. Uh, from Genesis one, this idea that how completely coherent and cogent the entire scriptures are because of the trinity. So we have love preexisting because there is the trinity unity and diversity and community all in the trinity,
[00:44:51] Tony Arsenal: right?
[00:44:51] Jesse Schwamb: Or the fact that for most of mankind's history, there's always been this longing to find the unity in the diversity, which is, you know, what Univers and university essentially were mean in their essence. So it's wonderful that when we start to look at this, though, it might seem like unnecessary comp, unnecessarily complicated.
What we really find is the mystery propels us forward to appreciate more how God in his very being and the ways that we can at least understand it in a small way, uh, is so consistent with the world in which we live, that we would expect God to be like this because we see that in the world that he has created, right, and we find him to be.
Wholly consistent, even if we can't understand the wonderful nuances of what it means to have that kind of, to be that kind of being. Does that make sense?
[00:45:39] Tony Arsenal: It does. And I I just wanna touch on one more kind of technical aspect before we move on to some questions and stuff that we had in a couple different groups is there's also, um, you know, there's two ways that we think about the Trinity, right?
[00:45:51] Tony Arsenal: We think about the Trinity add extra, um, or sorry, add intra or kind of to the inside, and that is God, um, the, the persons of the Trinity and the, the, the divine nature as they are in themselves in eternity past oriented towards each other or internally. Um, we don't know much about that, right? We don't know a lot because we can't peer into the Trinity.
Um, then we talk about the Trinity ad extra or kind of oriented outward and, and everything that the Trinity does. In the act of creating and everything towards creation is AD extra. Now there's a debate that's raged through the church throughout history of how much does the AD Extra Trinity really tell us about the ADRA trinity.
And that's not to say they're different trinity, but how do the ad extra activities of the the Trinity. How did that, what does that tell us about the ad intro and, um, we won't get into it, but, um, the, the basic answer that I would give is a little bit, it tells us something because God, God is not gonna act in ways that are inconsistent with his nature.
So the father, son, and spirit, as they act toward creation, act consistently with who and what they are. But that being said, um, there are things that the father, son, and spirit have to do in creation that do not reflect realities in themselves. So the, the relationships of authority and submission that we talked about earlier, that's one of those things is that as they act toward creation, there's a clear order of submission, right?
The father, um, commissions the son to do a particular task. The son obeys the father and submits himself to that command. And the spirit, in many ways, submits himself to both the father and the son's command. That's clear from scripture that that's what happens in external acts. That doesn't mean that that exists in the internal, uh, the internal nature of the Trinity.
And as we're talking about the external acts, it's important for us to remember. There's a Latin phrase, I'm not gonna try it, but, um, 'cause I'll butcher it. I don't remember it off the top of my head, but it's basically the external operations of the Trinity cannot be divided. And what that means is that everything that God does towards, um, towards creation or externally, he does in perfect unity with his son and with his spirit.
And it's always the same pattern, is the Father acts. The son, um, accomplishes what the father desires and the spirit brings that effect into, um, application. So the father decrees who the son will come to save the son comes and obtains their redemption, and the spirit then applies that obtained redemption to his people, right?
The father desires to create and determines what will be created the son brings about that creation. We see that in the, the analogy of speech and genesis. Um, and then we see the spirit hovering over the water and kind of bringing that effect into to being. So it's really important that we don't make one person of the Trinity kind of a rogue actor, right?
The son doesn't act on his own accord, right? He says it all over the gospel of John. He doesn't come to do his own will, but comes to do the will of the father. He doesn't act on his own, but he only does what the father tells him to do. Um, that's important because if we, if we separate those acts of the Trinity, too much.
If we, we'd see them as separable acts, then we end up with three completely separate actors, and that's the road to tri theism heresy sound effect.
[00:49:18] Jesse Schwamb: Heresy alert. Right. That's why for me it's, I've always learned that it's, you're a much stronger in firmer ground if you focus on distinguishing rather than separating.
Right. As soon as you start to make draw lines of demarcation that are separate, then you're liable to run right into all kinds of trouble.
[00:49:35] Tony Arsenal: Right, and that's what we mean when we say God does this, God does whatever it is, whatever verb it is. When we say God does this, we don't mean there's some sort of fourth actor in the Trinity.
There's not some sort of fourth agency or some unified agency. What we have is three agents, three agencies. That are acting in a radically unified way that's more unified than anything we can ever imagine. And uh, Mike Horton, I think, puts it really well. I don't have the page number in front of me, but he says they don't do the same thing, but they don't act separately.
They act together, but differently. So the father does something and the son does something, and the spirit does something, and it's not the same thing, but they're acting in a way that is radically unified towards creation. Now, when we talk about the add inter activities, we don't know a lot about it, but obviously the father loves the son.
Well, the son, the son, I guess we could say the son loves the son, but it's not the same activity, right? It's not the exact same thing. So the persons act upon each other or towards each other in a way, uh, in a sense. You know, add intra, and we don't need to get into that too much. Um, but it's really the external acts.
We have to remember that the father, son, and spirit always act in a united way. And that, again, is really important when we're talking about the, the eternal functional submission of the son. Um, that EFS controversy, it, it really destroys this inseparable operations, um, in a way that just really just collapses into tri theism.
And then they throw a little bit of Arianism in there and the sons doesn't, isn't as worthy of glory as the the father is, and it's a big mess. Um, but if we can keep our head around that, um, that the father, son and Spirit act in a radically unified way towards creation, such that they are acting as persons, but as persons who are radically unified, then we go a long way into not sort of stumbling into some of those heretical ways of thinking.
[00:51:31] Jesse Schwamb: Right. That's well said.
[00:51:33] Tony Arsenal: So let's, let's um, do a couple questions. So before we do the questions, if I don't get to your question, um, you're probably in the majority 'cause there was like a thousand questions and, um, we have about 10 minutes left before we have to wrap. So, um, we will try in the future to co you know, compilate compilate to correlate all of these questions and try to do like a question and answer session.
Um, but I wanted to try to hit a couple of these. So, um, we had, um, Chuck wanted to know about the invisible, invisible operations, which we just talked about. Uh, let's see, you got a good question in there that you think would be good to talk about.
[00:52:15] Jesse Schwamb: Uh, your wife asked what Christmas candy is most like the trinity.
[00:52:19] Tony Arsenal: Uh, there is no analogy that I'm comfortable using. All analogies lead you. You passed the
[00:52:25] Jesse Schwamb: test.
[00:52:25] Tony Arsenal: Yes. All analogies lead to heresy, uh, in one form of another. So that doesn't mean we can't, we can't rightfully use analogies in helping us understand the trinity, but we need to understand that what we're doing is telling us what the trinity is not like.
Exactly. So we can talk about the egg tri, the egg analogy, or St. Patrick's clover or the water steam vapor, whatever it is. But what we need to do is use those to set up boundaries to, to give us some buffers. Um, but don't use analogies. Don't try to, don't try to explain to kids, um, with some of these analogies what, um, what the trinity is like.
'cause you're just gonna teach 'em to be heretics.
[00:53:05] Jesse Schwamb: Is the candy cane like one of those analogies? Because I feel like that's coming up and I, I'm not familiar with that.
[00:53:11] Tony Arsenal: Um, I feel like I've heard that before. Let's see what Google
[00:53:15] Jesse Schwamb: says. Like the what, the two different, the mint and peppermint or, I don't know, like the two types of candy intertwined.
What's the third component? The cane.
[00:53:21] Tony Arsenal: I don't know, but when I looked up Candy Cane Trinity, I got a lot of stuff about, I think some sort of school, the Holy Trinity Candy Cane Classic basketball tournament. So there must be a school that did a basketball fundraiser that was like a Christmas basketball tournament.
[00:53:38] Jesse Schwamb: I, I'd like to think it's just some elaborate analogy using basketball
[00:53:43] Tony Arsenal: and candy canes. Basketball and candy canes. Yeah. Um, so I did have one person who asked me, um, there's sort of an analogy that I've used in the past, um, to try to help explain this to kids. And, um, I, I'm. I'm hesitant, but kids are, are sort of a situation where you have to kind of give them partial information about complicated subjects depending on their age.
And so the easiest way that I've, I've come across to explain to kids is you start by explaining, you know, mommy and daddy are, we're both humans, right? So you can look at mommy and know she's a human, and you can look at me and know that I'm a human because there's some things about us that all people share, right?
So you use that, that commonality between persons to explain what a nature is. And then you explain how, um, you know, mommy can go in the other room and she's separate from me, or someone can take mommy away and, and keep her away from me. We can be separated and that's not good. But the persons of the Trinity are not like that.
They, they are connected in a way that you can never separate them. You can never think about the father without thinking about the son or without thinking about the spirit. And right there, um, you have the fundamental. Elements of the trinity in place. You have the unity of nature and the inseparability of nature, and you also have the diversity of persons.
And you know, with kids, you shouldn't feel like you have to have them quoting the Westminster Confession of Faith, you know, at like four years old. It's okay for them not to really understand the Trinity. Um, and you know what, to be frank, like a 25-year-old or a 45-year-old, it's okay for them. You know, we talked about how people have this vague sense of oneness and threeness.
And to be honest, for most people, that is just fine. Um, you know, it's, it's important to set up boundaries and to be clear about what the Trinity's not, but within those boundaries there's a lot of flexibility and a lot of ways that we can articulate the Trinity, right. Um, that aren't all right. Um, but they're not all heresy either.
And in something that is an infinite mystery where God is so radically different from what we are, I think it's okay to sort of rest in some of that mystery.
[00:55:54] Jesse Schwamb: I agree. That's well said. It's great for us to have, we should always be reforming in such a way that we have a healthy knowledge and understanding of the trinity.
[00:56:03] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.
[00:56:03] Jesse Schwamb: But it's also comforting though, that God has given us enough in his word to, uh, learn studying and for what is the most important, making the plain things the main things right. And that we can rest in that.
[00:56:15] Tony Arsenal: Right. So, um, one last question. Um, well two last questions. One person in a Facebook group I'm in, uh, asked is your podcast on iTunes?
Uh, the answer is yes. Our podcast is on iTunes and you should rate and review us, uh, and share us with friends. Um, you can just search the Reformed Brotherhood, uh, on the iTunes search box, and, uh, if you find it rate and review us, that'd be great. But a question about the Trinity, um, was, is a believing, understanding the doctrine of the Trinity essential to being a believer?
Can't I just believe in God and his love for me? And, um, the answer is yes and no. So, um, you have to believe that God is a trinity. And there's two reasons for that. The first is that that's what the Bible tells us, right? The Bible reveals, um, you can't consistently interpret the Bible without something like the doctrine of the Trinity.
Um, you know, you have, you have God is one in the Shema, and then you have, um, the word is God and the word was with God right there. You have to have something like the doctrine of the Trinity in order to understand that. So that's the first reason why it's, it's vital for a believer is if you want to take the Bible seriously and, and believe that it doesn't contain contradictions, you have to have something like the doctor with the truth.
Me. Um, and then the second part of it is, can't I just believe in God and his love for me? Um, the answer in a sense is, sure, but what is that love? What does that love do? What does that love look like? Right. Well, that love is that God and his eternal son and his eternal spirit loved, loved sinners so much that his son became one of us and that his son died and then sent his spirit.
So you can just believe in God's love for us. But again, if you're taking the Bible seriously, that that love acts in a specific way and you have to have the doctrine of the Trinity in order to understand and really embrace how that love operates.
[00:58:08] Jesse Schwamb: Exactly. 'cause as you said earlier, love always leads to giving.
[00:58:12] Tony Arsenal: Right.
[00:58:12] Jesse Schwamb: So we understand in John 16 that God so loved the world that he gave. That is kind of the. The manifest demonstration of love. And if you're saying God is love and just you're making it refer in the sense that, God, I know God is love because he loves me. Well, right then we're saying that that love does not predate you or humanity for that matter.
Right? So we've confused things already. So this is why it is really important. You're right to get some particulars down so that we have a better appreciation for the, the Godhead in its person.
[00:58:42] Tony Arsenal: Right. And I think it's really important too, is if you're listening to this and you're a person who's sitting here going, I don't understand the Trinity at all.
Um, you are like the vast majority of people in the church. And um, there's a big difference between someone who sits back and recognizes God is really hard to understand. And I'm gonna get things wrong, but I, I wanna be faithful to the Bible. Right? And I, I trust that the church has faithfully interpreted the Bible and I understand that, um, God somehow is one and somehow is three, and that there's three persons that's.
That's very different from somebody who is willfully rejecting those facts. So I, I like to say that you can't be a heretic on accident. And what I mean by that is not that you can't hold heretical views unwittingly, but the, the word heretic or heresy in the scriptures, actually the root word is choice.
And a heretic is somebody who knows what the church teaches and knows what the historical understanding of the Bible is and willfully rejects that. And you can't do that on accident. So if you are kind of a person that thinks like, oh man, I don't know if I understand the Trinity well enough to be saved.
Um, that's, that's not how it works. Right, exactly. If you're willing to say that, um, you know, I don't understand how it works, but I trust what scripture says, and I believe that the church has, has a faithful teaching, you know, represented in the nice creed and other kind of ecclesiastical documents. Um, because that's what the Bible teaches, then you don't have to worry if you, if you get elements wrong here and there, you, you're not.
You know, be condemned because you, you put an eye in the wrong spot in some sort of, um, ecumenical creed or something like that.
[01:00:20] Jesse Schwamb: Sometimes we use heresy, obviously, tongue in cheek, and that's not to be an excuse for good accountability for good theology, but you're exactly right. Like, I want anybody to feel, including myself, like this sense that though I'm well intentioned and I'm trying as best I can to understand and express that knowledge and to be encouraged by it and to let it be saturated with scripture, that for some reason, because I've, I've used the wrong analogy at some point, uh, in some conversation that I've somehow crossed like this line of heresy, of which there's, from which there's no return, right.
[01:00:55] Tony Arsenal: Right. Absolutely.
[01:00:56] Tony Arsenal: So I think that probably just about does it again, we, you know, we could have gone for another hour easy. We could have, we could have spent a whole, you know,
[01:01:03] Jesse Schwamb: for sure
[01:01:04] Tony Arsenal: we could have done a thousand episodes on the Trinity and just been barely scratching the surface. So, Jesse, do you have any, uh, kind of closing thoughts or, or maybe something practical that we can, can take out, uh, as we go back to our lives to, to really put some rubber on this?
[01:01:18] Jesse Schwamb: So I thought that this podcast might need like a heresy horn that we could just sound, you know, when, when heresy occurs. So of course, I went to the only place I thought I could buy one, which was Amazon and I was really underwhelmed. Oh, with the search results, just for the record,
[01:01:31] Tony Arsenal: they don't make a heresy horn.
[01:01:33] Jesse Schwamb: No, apparently not. It's some, um, interesting French horns did come up. Um, I don't know if those have traditionally been used to call it heresy, but you know, I'm down with that.
[01:01:43] Tony Arsenal: Interesting. You know what we could do? We should make a game that's like that taboo game, but it's like heresy. We could call it like heresy.
And basically like you get a doctrine on a card and you have to explain the doctrine, and then someone listens and buzzes you when you say something heretical.
[01:02:01] Jesse Schwamb: That's fantastic that that's a party game, right?
[01:02:03] Tony Arsenal: I feel like that would be more fun than the Joel Olsteen game.
[01:02:07] Jesse Schwamb: That it, it would have better gameplay already.
The rules make more sense,
[01:02:11] Tony Arsenal: right?
[01:02:11] Jesse Schwamb: Like I would say if you're looking for an interesting time, and particularly maybe in reforming some of your theology and having excuse to have some really interesting conversations, you should definitely go to Amazon. Look up the, uh, Joel Olsteen your Best Life Now game.
Just the reviews by themselves are entertaining. They're worth it.
[01:02:31] Tony Arsenal: Yes. All right. Well, I think that probably does it. So as you go out this week, um, just remember that we serve a great God and that the Father demonstrated his love for us by giving his son and his son died for us and he sent his spirit for us.
And there's really nothing better that we can think of than that. So just rest in that truth and, uh, we'll see you next week.
[01:02:53] Jesse Schwamb: Amen.
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Can Reformed Christians celebrate Christmas and Advent without compromising their theological convictions? In this foundational episode, Tony Arsenal and Jesse Schwamb tackle one of the most divisive seasonal debates in Reformed circles. Drawing from the Westminster Confession of Faith, historical Presbyterian practice, and biblical principles, they demonstrate that celebrating Christ's birth is neither mandatory nor forbidden—it's a matter of Christian liberty. The hosts explore the purpose and structure of Advent, defend the use of liturgical calendars as spiritual tools, and address common objections to Christmas observance. Whether you're skeptical of "holy days" or looking to deepen your seasonal devotion, this episode offers a balanced, historically grounded perspective on how to honor Christ during the Christmas season without falling into either legalism or license.
The Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 21, section 5, provides the theological foundation for Reformed Christians to celebrate special days like Christmas without violating the regulative principle of worship. The Confession states that "beside religious oaths, vows, solemn fasting and thanksgiving upon special occasions, which are in their several times and seasons to be used in a holy and religious manner," believers may set apart specific times for worship. The divines cite Esther 9:20-22 as a biblical precedent, where Mordecai established the feast of Purim to commemorate God's deliverance of the Jews—a recurring celebration not commanded in Mosaic law but instituted by God's people under providential guidance. This establishes that the church has authority to designate days of thanksgiving and worship beyond the weekly Lord's Day, provided these observances remain voluntary rather than binding on the conscience. The crucial distinction lies between days of "discretionary" observance (which are permissible) and "obligatory" holy days (which would violate sola scriptura by adding to God's requirements).
The church calendar functions as a pedagogical and devotional framework that guides believers through the entire narrative of redemption each year. Beginning with Advent's anticipation, moving through the incarnation at Christmas, progressing to Lent's focus on Christ's suffering, culminating in Easter's resurrection triumph, and advancing through Pentecost's empowerment by the Spirit, the liturgical year creates a rhythm that prevents the gospel from becoming abstract theology. This cyclical pattern mirrors the weekly Sabbath principle—God has designed His people for rhythms of work and worship, anticipation and fulfillment. The Advent season specifically addresses a pastoral need in contemporary Christianity: believers often rush immediately to celebrate Christ's birth without adequately reflecting on the world's brokenness that necessitated His coming. By creating space for "penitence and joy" together, Advent trains Christians to taste suffering before sweetness, to acknowledge their desperate need before celebrating the provision, and to long for Christ's return while commemorating His arrival.
Reformed theology distinguishes between Christ's "passive obedience" (His suffering and death) and His "active obedience" (His perfect life of righteousness). While evangelicals frequently focus on Good Friday and the cross, they often neglect to celebrate the thirty-three years of flawless obedience that Christ rendered to the Father under the law. This active obedience is essential to our salvation—Christ didn't merely die in our place; He lived the righteous life we could not live, earning the positive merit that is imputed to believers. Advent provides a unique opportunity to focus specifically on the incarnation and the beginning of Christ's human life of obedience. By reflecting on Christ's birth, His submission to the law through circumcision, His childhood obedience to His parents, and His perfect fulfillment of all righteousness, believers gain a fuller appreciation for the complete work of Christ. This emphasis prevents an imbalanced soteriology that reduces salvation to forgiveness alone, neglecting the positive righteousness that qualifies us for eternal life.
"Jesus doesn't want to fix your heart. He wants to give you a new one."
"Christ didn't come into a bright, cheery place. He came into a very spiritually dark and socially dark and dangerous world, under a bloodthirsty ruler who would murder a bunch of babies just to stay in power."
"The people who want to look at the Westminster Confession and want to say that we can't ever celebrate even in a religious manner anything besides the Lord's Day—I don't think they're reading this clearly."
[00:00:00] Tony Arsenal: Hey brother.
[00:00:00] Jesse Schwamb: Hey brother. What's going on, Tony?
[00:00:03] Tony Arsenal: Not much. Not much. How about you?
[00:00:06] Jesse Schwamb: Not much. Just soaking in the new Christmas season, it seems like. Yes.
Everything changes so fast and now there's Christmas music everywhere.
[00:00:15] Tony Arsenal: Well, we've been listening to Christmas music since like April. Your sister is a fiend with the stuff like we started watching Christmas movies, or she started watching Christmas movies and I started reading books while she watched Christmas movies about a month and a half ago, and I'm not even exaggerating.
[00:00:32] Jesse Schwamb: I totally believe that. Because, yeah, the, so the Christmas music thing is like, and we'll talk about this later, but this is like a, such a strange thing because it comes and goes like so quickly, you know, like after Thanksgiving it's just the radio start to play it. And then on like the 26th it's like gone.
Like it never even happened.
[00:00:48] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. I, I remember when I was a kid, like listening to Christmas music on the radio and I really felt like it actually persisted a lot longer after Christmas. And I don't know if it actually did or if it was just like. By the time I got to Christmas, I was so sick of the Christmas music that I was ready for it to be done.
[00:01:05] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. I have no idea. It, it's just the strangest thing. I think about that every year. It's like the strangest thing. It's like it's been disavowed on the 26th and we just go on with our lives, which maybe is a commentary on our culture, but either way.
[00:01:16] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, maybe.
[00:01:17] Tony Arsenal: I actually have a theory and I, I read something online that kind of sparked this.
I have a theory about why Christmas decorations and stuff have been going up earlier and earlier every year it seems like. It seems like, I don't remember them going up as early as they do now, but I think the rise of artificial Christmas trees actually brought this about, right? So like before you had natural Christmas trees and artificial ones didn't exist.
So even like places that sold decorations, they couldn't really bring 'em out 'cause nobody would buy them until they got their tree up. But like now that you can buy a Christmas tree and you can put it up whenever you want, they can start putting out decorations in like October and people are like, oh yeah, I need to get started on my decorating.
[00:01:54] Jesse Schwamb: So you're basically saying it's like a conspiracy of fake furs?
[00:02:00] Tony Arsenal: Um, I don't think it was like a conspiracy. I just think like they can do it now. Like people can decorate with their, like they can make their house look like Christmas, legitimately look like Christmas in July if they want. We just couldn't do that.
I mean, I guess you could, but you wouldn't have a tree at Christmas time 'cause it'd be all dead and rotten,
[00:02:15] Jesse Schwamb: which is like the central focal piece of most Christmas holiday decorating is the tree. So
[00:02:20] Tony Arsenal: yeah, the evergreen stuff,
[00:02:21] Jesse Schwamb: I'm done with that. That's like a unique theory.
[00:02:24] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, I think there's probably something to it.
So if I, if I cared more, I could probably do a PhD at some school on like the history of Christmas trees and the transition of holiday decoration to earlier in the season.
[00:02:36] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, that sounds like some serious like sociological jam right there. Like somebody could really get after that hard. So if somebody's out there listen and wants to write a paper on that, I would really be interested to read it.
[00:02:45] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah, that would be pretty sweet.
[00:02:47] Jesse Schwamb: Footnote us.
[00:02:49] Tony Arsenal: Yes. So what are we talking about tonight, Jesse?
[00:02:50] Jesse Schwamb: So, because we're entering this wonderful season of anticipating the birth of Christ, I thought it would be be great to talk a little bit about Advent, what it is and why certain people celebrate it, what it encapsulates.
And you know, there's a lot of people, a lot of different churches have different traditions and advent, even like the word advent calendar, like for instance, my. Wife and I were having a conversation recently, and for her, like the word advent meant tiny pieces of chocolate embedded in a calendar. So even like the word is familiar, but trying to understand and discern what it actually means and why it's important, I just thought that'd be an interesting conversation.
[00:03:30] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, I don't even remember. I don't think I even had heard of Advent until well after I became a Christian. Um, which is weird because I became a Christian in a Lutheran church and we never did Advent. It was just really strange. It just never was a thing that we really did.
[00:03:47] Jesse Schwamb: That's interesting. Shout out to Lutherans.
[00:03:49] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Well, and the Lutherans definitely celebrate Advent. Yeah, for sure. So what, what is Advent for our listeners that maybe don't know.
[00:03:56] Jesse Schwamb: So traditionally in the church calendar, advent was set aside as the four weeks prior to Christmas itself. And advent literally means, you know, a coming or anticipation or longing.
So it was this time that the church set aside to purposely be in thought and a meditation about the longing for the savior. And then in the same way, basically the 12 days after Christmas, which is often called Christmas tide. Is the real celebration of the actual coming of the savior. So there's lots of implications.
And there's four separate weeks. And oftentimes it, the central piece of its representation, at least of Advent, is that there'll be this advent wreath with four different candles. And the colors are sometimes different, but usually they're. Three purple candles and one pink candle, and they all represent something of significance that is really to focus your mind for that particular week on meditating in preparation for advent.
So that's kind of the, I don't know, the thumb thumbnail sketch. Is that fair?
[00:04:55] Tony Arsenal: That is fair.
[00:04:56] Tony Arsenal: So before we jump into the topic, I do wanna acknowledge, um, especially since this is a self-consciously reformed podcast, um, there are a large portion of the reformed, uh, community that. That would say we shouldn't do any sort of Christmas or Advent celebration.
Um, I don't know that I would say it's a huge population, but historically speaking, the Reformed have rejected, um, things like Christmas and celebrating Advent. Um, not entirely, but um, especially sort of in the Scottish, uh, lines of thinking. And um, I wanna acknowledge that. So there are gonna be people who disagree with the fact that we're even talking about this
[00:05:34] Jesse Schwamb: for sure.
[00:05:35] Tony Arsenal: But. Before we get in, I do want to just kind of give a little bit of a disclaimer and maybe a little bit of an apologetic from a reform perspective. 'cause I think one thing that happens this time of year, and I know I see it happening online all the time, is there's kind of like the pro Christmas camp and there's the anti Christmas camp and they go at each other, like they're Trump supporters and Hillary supporters and they just beat on each other online.
Um, and the anti Christmas camp kind of wants to say like, well, if you're really reformed then you won't celebrate Christmas. Um, and that just isn't. It just isn't the case. So, um, just taking a quick look. Um, you know, the, the reform tend to look at these confessional documents that were written in the, um, 16th and 17th century and kind of the, the culmination of reform theology in confessional form as the Westminster Confession of Faith.
And we've talked about that before. And, uh, in chapter 21. Uh, item five. Uh, it talks about the different ways that people, um, that, that God's people worship him. And it's a little bit weird to pick one article out of the middle and even then just part of that article, but I want to do that for a second. Um, so it talks about the different ways that people ordinarily, uh, worship God through prayer preaching, um, the administration of the sacraments.
Et cetera. And then it says, beside religious oaths, vows, solemn fasting and thanksgiving upon special occasions, which are in there several times in seasons to be used in a holy and religious manner. So it's saying that beside the ordinary worship of God, the, the regular weekend and week out lord's day celebration, um, and then the, the daily rhythm of prayer and, um, worship that all Christians should participate in.
There's also these special times that the church can declare. Um, and they, they, you know, the Westminster Confession has these footnotes, um, where they, they cite scripture and it's not necessarily a direct proof text, but it's more like, if you're wanting to know where we got this idea, this is where you start exegetically.
And one of the texts that they cite here is, uh, outta Esther. Um, chapter nine, starting in verse 20. It says, Mordecai recorded these things. Sent a letter to all the Jews who were in all the provinces of King Aha, both near and far. Obliging them to keep the 14th day of the month aar, and also the 15th day of the same year by year as the days on which the Jews got relief from their enemies.
And as the month. That had been turned for them from sorrow into gladness and from mourning into a holiday that they should make them days of feasting and gladness days for sending gifts of food to one another and gifts to the poor. So what the, the passage here is saying is that the, you know, the Jews were saved from this plot, um, by the, you know, the bravery of Esther and by sort of the, um, strategic mind of Mordecai.
Obviously God's providence is working in that. And Mordecai sends out this letter and he obligates all of the Jews to celebrate this feast, um, which is for Thanksgiving. It's made the ESV translates as a holiday. I don't know if that's a great translation. Literally it's just like a good day. So they celebrate it, but they celebrate it year after year on the same day.
Um, and the point of this, and the reason that the Westminster Divines, um, cite this passage is they're saying that God's people have the authority. Particularly the people in leadership in God's church have the authority to set aside days of Thanksgiving to celebrate things that happen in, um, in God's redemptive plan, but also just in history.
So last week we talked about Thanksgiving and we had, we actually had this exact same discussion, but the recording issue, um, deleted it. Um, but Thanksgiving was one of those examples. It was set aside by God's people in order to celebrate that. And then later when George Washington made it an official.
Uh, national Holiday. He actually cited the same passage in some of his letters to point out that God's people have been doing this throughout history. So, um, I think the people who wanna look at the Westminster Confession and want to say that we can't ever celebrate even in a religious manner. Um. We can't ever celebrate anything besides the Lord's Day.
I don't think they're reading this clearly. And, um, just to kind of put some, some more teeth to that and then we can move on is, um, I want to just read a quote here. It's from the Common Book of Prayer, which was amended by Presbyterian ministers in 1661, and it says, the devout recognition with appropriate services on the weekdays, commonly called Christmas Day.
Good Friday. An Ascension day is in accordance with Presbyterian and Catholic usage, lowercase C Catholic. Their addition to the ordinary service is left wholly discretionary. And um, it was signed by several men. Um, and many of those went on to be members of the Westminster Assembly 15 years later. So we have people who were on the Westminster Assembly.
Who put their name down saying we could celebrate Christmas Day, we could celebrate Good Friday, and we could celebrate Ascension Day. So, um, I really think just historically speaking, we don't, you don't have a foot to stand on to say that the entire Westminster assembly was opposed to celebrating Christmas.
It just doesn't work. We have. Record of them saying it's wholly discretionary. Now where it becomes a problem, and I think, um, we would agree with this, is when it becomes obligatory,
[00:10:47] Jesse Schwamb: right?
[00:10:47] Tony Arsenal: When the church says you have to celebrate this specific thing that's not instituted in scripture and you have to do it on a certain day and you have to do certain things, um, or you're somehow.
Not keeping God's law, that's when it becomes a problem when you set it aside as a holy day that's especially holy, apart from the Lord's day. Um, that, that I think does become a problem. Now, there's an argument to make that can you really worship God, um, in a way on a particular day and not be setting it aside as a holy day.
I, I guess that's an argument that might come up. Um, but we can kind of talk about that a different week if we, you know, if we get some feedback that that's something people want to explore a little bit more in the Facebook group.
[00:11:27] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, there's definitely strong opinions on either side. There's all, there's good historical ground to stand on and I, I think you're probably like me in this that I do respect and like to hear.
The conviction that people have for both sides of whether or not to, it's basically the keep Christ out of Christmas or keep Christ in Christmas. And it's interesting that there are strong, and I think very cogent, wonderful pastoral reasons for both those. But it really flows from both groups have hearts that are really concerned with loving Jesus and honoring him appropriately.
So I think at the end of the day, that's the most important thing.
[00:12:03] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, absolutely. And this year I think too, um, the tensions are running even a little bit higher. Yes. Because Christmas falls on the Lord's Day. On the Lord's Day. Mm-hmm. So, um, you know, people, every church, um, handles Christmas and what to do on a, you know, on a year where Christmas falls on the Lord's Day a little bit differently.
Um, you know, different congregations make different decisions and sometimes they make good decisions. Sometimes they make bad decisions. Um, and it's not, it's not really my place to comment on an individual church's decision as to whether that was a good thing to do or not to do. Um, you know, obviously there are some things that are just completely out of bounds.
Um, you know, if you turn your Christmas service into just a chance to give out candy canes and Santas preaching from the pulpit, I don't think that's a great idea. Um, but you know, if your church has made a decision that maybe, um, it's just not, uh, not reasonable to meet, um, because there's not gonna be a congregation to meet on the Lord's Day 'cause everyone's traveling.
Um, you know, and saying, well, the pastor doesn't need to preach to an empty room. Um, that, that's okay. I think, um, I think every church has to make the decision that they're gonna make. And, um, I really think that. People who wanna sort of stand back and make judgements on other congregations for those decisions need to kind of reevaluate whether that's, you know, really the best use of their time.
[00:13:20] Jesse Schwamb: Sure. We definitely need a lot more charity there with each other.
[00:13:23] Tony Arsenal: Right.
[00:13:24] Jesse Schwamb: And I, my question would be, what kind of events would have to take place such that Santa would be preaching from the pulpit?
[00:13:33] Tony Arsenal: I don't know. Well, I mean, Santa probably did preach from the pulpit in real life. Um,
[00:13:37] Jesse Schwamb: true.
[00:13:38] Tony Arsenal: You know, he was a bishop.
So
[00:13:40] Jesse Schwamb: true.
[00:13:40] Tony Arsenal: He probably did a little bit of preaching here and there between punching heretics and giving out candy and toys. But, um, we'll, we can talk about St. Nicholas maybe next week. We'll, we'll, oh, we
[00:13:49] Jesse Schwamb: def we definitely should snip Saint Nicholas. Yeah, we could run a train on that right now. I've got all kinds of things to say about that, but
[00:13:55] Tony Arsenal: I like, I like to say that St.
Nicholas is the patron saint of discernment bloggers.
[00:14:00] Jesse Schwamb: I like that.
[00:14:01] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, there. So we'll, uh, we'll see how that goes.
[00:14:04] Jesse Schwamb: There should be, oh, this is gonna be controversial. There should be medals that just depict him punching people in the face.
[00:14:11] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Well, spoiler alert, that probably didn't actually happen.
[00:14:14] Jesse Schwamb: I know.
Which is
[00:14:15] Tony Arsenal: sad.
[00:14:16] Jesse Schwamb: Then nonetheless, it would still be great.
[00:14:18] Tony Arsenal: It would be good. Let's, let's get on that for next year. We can make millions.
[00:14:21] Jesse Schwamb: I love that. Also, I love that we're spoiler alerting history.
[00:14:25] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, that's true. We are spoiler alerting history. It's all good.
[00:14:30] Jesse Schwamb: We are the most UpToDate podcast you will ever listen to.
[00:14:33] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Just in case, like somehow there's like a time traveler listening to this and they haven't experienced that yet. You know, like, yeah, whatever.
[00:14:42] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. Like podcast and stuff. I just
[00:14:43] Tony Arsenal: jump to super nerd level ultra.
[00:14:46] Jesse Schwamb: That's okay. That's a, that's our style.
[00:14:48] Jesse Schwamb: So the, one of the reasons why I like Advent is it does bring about like a nice, it draws your mind into a nice, wonderful rhythm.
That stands on history, and at least in my opinion, it to me seems like an extension of some of that wonderful cadence that God gives us, where we're going out and working and on the Lord's day, we're coming in and we're worshiping, and we're fellowshipping and we're resting, and then we're going back out.
So I love that the calendar is there, really, as you said, as a tool to help renew our minds. Give us a little bit of focus because things will just pass, at least for me. Things will just pass by. And to get too sucked into unwittingly just all the sentimentality of the season. So I do love that this is a call to slow down, uh, to stop, to meditate and metabolize in preparation for Christmas, which is something that I think we all can just be honest, like at least may struggle to do, no matter whatever responsibilities or obligations we have of the season.
[00:15:45] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, absolutely. And I think, um, you know, just sort of thinking about the way a liturgical calendar functions, um, you know, I listened to a podcast with, um, Peter Lightheart and James Jordan, not because I think that they have. Um, a lot of great things to say and some of their theology is really terrible, so we'll just get that outta the way.
But one of the things that I heard them say that I thought really was insightful is that the, the church calendar with its lectionary, which lectionary is just a sort of a list of readings and the church, um, churches that use lectionary read. Those readings out loud throughout the year, and so you're exposed to the whole scriptures over the course of a year or a three year cycle.
And they pointed out that like the lectionary is set up to coincide with the church calendar in such a way where you're kind of progressing through the year and you get to sort of that midpoint or that early part of the year and you hit Lent and you hit Easter and you kind of, you come down. The same way that the Old Testament does, you kind of come down into judgment and then you come up into the resurrection.
And then as you progress from there through Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit, you kind of come into this waiting period before Christmas, which is historically supposed to be not just waiting for the birth of Christ and reflecting on that, but waiting for Christ's second coming. So the whole church calendar, um, the liturgical calendar is designed to sort of move you through.
Redemptive history each year, which I think is something that's really valuable because a lot of Christians don't really think through that cycle. They don't live in a cycle of understanding the scriptural, um, the scriptural kind of, uh, cadence of. Reflecting on the death and resurrection of Christ and sort of being brought down and then brought back up by the gospel and then progressing towards our ultimate goal.
And I just think that that's a really helpful, um, structure for Christians to have. And this season of Advent is so great for that because you really are, I don't know about you, I get, I don't think I like have. Formally have that seasonal affective disorder thing. But I work in a hospital and I work in the basement, so it's dark when I get to work, and then I go down in the basement and then it's dark when I get outta work and I drive home in the dark and I go to sleep in the dark and I wake up in the dark and I'm downstairs in the basement for most of the day when it's sunny.
And so in the middle of the winter here, we're heading towards the darkest time of the year. But we're starting to celebrate what will be the most glorious light that there is. And I think for me that's just really an encouraging kind of a thing to, to remember during this part of the year.
[00:18:12] Jesse Schwamb: It is so good to have something like the liturgical calendar, which is a tool for us to rehearse that big picture of the gospel.
I love the way that you said that, that that's impactful for me because you know, like Advent is essentially like the beginning of the liturgical calendar and it's a wonderful time and space. To be a little bit more austere than we normally would be during like the cultural Christmas season. So what I mean by that is like generally it was, or at least historically, it was kind of focused on as a time of co-mingling, penit and joy.
So this idea that we should lean into suffering a little bit more, that we should recognize that things aren't just tolerable in our world and that there's a tremendous amount of injustice. And sin and selfishness, and we are at the top of that pile and that we are groaning, godly. For a Messiah and a redeemer.
So, and it, like you said, it's both this wonderful combination of looking back. So just as it's echoing the Israelites, looking back to their time of being in bondage and being released and they were looking for the Messiah, we are looking at the first coming with a great amount of joy, understanding that the promise is secure because of that, but then also turning our eyes to the future and saying, you know, come Lord Jesus, like we recognize that people are suffering and there's.
Disease and we are, you know, so much destruction and what we desperately want is to celebrate your arrival. So what advent, at least like the, these weeks have meant for me is that I think actually when we lean into that way more than we normally do, because there's a sentimentality and emotionalism about Christmas that, you know, good cheer toward men and peace on earth and, and all of that is fine, except that if we just go past.
The longing, like the season of really aching and pining for savior because things are wrong and we are wrongheaded. It makes tasting the joy of Christ's birth and knowing that the second coming is just around the corner. So much sweeter because we've tasted the bitterness of suffering, which still exists in our world.
So I, I think if we just pass it by too quickly, it really makes the joy of Christmas a little bit more meager than it should be.
[00:20:29] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. And, um, just real quick, I had a thought and I want to get it out there before I forget about it. Totally unrelated. If you're a parent and you're listening to this podcast and you have your kids around, it's possible that Jesse and I may spoil some Christmas surprises for you.
So you may wanna turn the podcast off. Uh, when your kids are around and if you're a parent, you know exactly what I mean. So, um, but yeah, I think everything that you just said about, um, the way that Advent should impact us, um, I think it's just really, you know, I, I kind of re, I don't wanna say resent, but I kind of like lament.
Lament is a better term. I lament that I didn't have this cycle in my, my Christian life before. Um, you know, and, and I think. Humans are built. Um, you know, when you think about the Sabbath and you think about that cyclical nature to the way that God has built us and has, um, defined how we relate to him, we are built for cycles.
We're built for this kind of repetitive, um, existence, and we will continue to have this repetitive existence in eternity. It's not like this, um, this seven day cycle is gonna end, right? The Sabbath is built into the fabric of creation and the new creation. Um, presumably will have the same kind of cycle.
And I think for me, like having this time during the, the lead into Christmas to really just, um, lock into, um, the idea that Christ came to live for me, um, to come and to live the righteous life that I could not, um. Without necessarily spending as much time focusing on the death of Christ to come. Um, I think sometimes, um, sometimes evangelicals and especially reformed Christians, um, even though I think reformed Christians should be the last people to do it.
We forget to celebrate that Christ had an active obedience. Um, and we get so caught up celebrating that Christ had a passive obedience. And what I mean by that, um, have we talked about active imp passive obedience yet? No, not yet. I'm sure that, I think we might have, but, um, the, the act of obedience of Christ is Christ positive righteousness.
It's him obeying and fulfilling the law. It's him coming and being obedient to the father's will and doing things that causes the father's delight. Um, and then that delight is then granted to us an imputation. Um, the, the passive obedience is the things that Christ suffers, um, passive as in like suffering, not passive as in like doesn't act and things happen to him.
Um, passive related to the word passion, um, or pathos is. Those, that's the passive aspect and that's what we talk about and what we look at when we think about Lent and, um, good Friday, but to take time to reflect on the life of Christ, which started with his birth, the human life of Christ, which started with his, um, conception and birth and everything that we talk about and celebrate during Advent and going to Christmas.
Um, it's a really helpful time of year for me to not rush to the cross. To be able to sort of, um, rest in the active obedience of Christ as well as, um, you know, looking forward to the passive obedience of Christ.
[00:23:35] Jesse Schwamb: That's well said, that that's what makes this season so beautiful, and just the fact that we can continue all our lifelong.
To learn into, to look into that, to learn a little bit more about it. And it's just like so deeply and beautifully layered. I mean, you just peel back a layer and you can appreciate more and more as, as God gives us, uh, measured and discernment and understanding and see that. I mean, you're right. A lot of times we go straight to the death of Christ, which is no doubt important.
But unless that righteous life was lived under the law and in perfect obedience in such a way that it's not Jesus, like relying on his godly attributes to get him through right, but he's relying on the spirit the same Holy Spirit that's given to us to move forward through temptation. And to perform perfect obedience that makes that sacrifice so precious.
But it's a, it is a life lived in perfect devotion to God. You know, the second Adam, obviously what, what it was always meant to be. Here we have Jesus doing that perfectly.
[00:24:36] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, absolutely. So, um, I think, uh, you know, we can kind of move on to some of those questions we had in the Facebook group. Um, 'cause you know, we got, we got a good, uh, three more weeks of advent here and we're gonna have lots of discussion about it.
So I don't wanna exhaust all of it tonight. Um, but yeah, I just, I love this time of year, um, even though like. The days are getting shorter and it's getting colder, and I'm, you know, I'm looking forward and seeing negative temperatures and things on the horizon. And, um, to just think about what Christ did in coming to earth, to, to enter into humiliation, um, and then live under the law and to be exalted on our behalf is just, you know, I, I don't know.
I don't know what more beautiful theology there could be.
[00:25:24] Jesse Schwamb: The, it's glorious. And I was just reading some John Owen recently and he brought to my mind something that I hadn't really considered in the way he articulated it. And that was he was saying, you've gotta imagine as best you can, that God is not only infinitely greater, but infinitely separate from us.
Yeah, and he of course is a being that is not contingent. You know, we are created, he's more real than even we are because he is the one that is self existent and we have been created by him. And so he was making this argument that if you think about this infinite space and whatever way you can conceptualize in your mind, it is beyond the belief that an infinite being would take any interest in something finite just by way of the separation of these two things in every conceivable way.
So I was just really kind of. I just got up from that and, and wanted to like, run around the neighborhood because I, I just didn't even know what to do with How amazing just that thought is that infiniteness not just contained in a finite being, but the sheer interest of God, the continued interest of God through Jesus Christ is just phenomenal.
[00:26:26] Jesse Schwamb: So we should probably say that briefly, that this first week of advent is generally dedicated to her focusing on the prophecy of Christ. Just the, yeah. The promises contained in the scripture. And, uh, what I love about that is that starts like, so here's what I love about this. So God and his infinite wisdom and his working out his mighty plan of salvation by his outstretched arm.
I love that the solution happens right after the problem, which is right in Genesis three, which I love. Yeah, so that first, that first promise. The first promise of. That things will be made right, which is three 15. I'll put enmity between you and the woman. In between your offspring and her offspring, he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.
I love that On the very day that everything falls apart, so to speak, there is God providing the plan. And it's that kind of looking back and mourning the fact that we have disobeyed God and that we have, um. Been his enemies, that we are rebellious, that God did not forget us or even leave us for a second from the very beginning, uh, but was always working out his plan.
I just love that.
[00:27:35] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, and, and you know, the prophecies of Christ, they continue through the whole Bible. So, um, you know, at our church through Advent we're doing, um, kind of portraits of, of advents. We're looking at different people who were important kind of in the time leading up to Christ. Um, and we looked at John the Baptist today, and, um, one of the things we looked at was.
Um, the, the song or the, the prophecy that Zacharia speaks, um, when his tongue is loose, when he, you know, when John is born and, um. Uh, the, the angel actually, when he comes to talk to him, is what we were looking at too, and he, he says that John will turn the hearts of Israel back to God. And that's a prophecy in, uh, Deuteronomy 30, I think.
Where, you know, it says that once, once you've sinned and you've been cast out of God's presence, that when you, uh, when he turns his heart back or when he turns your heart back to him, um. That, that that will be kind of the beginning of the restoration of all things. And so even to think that like people apart from.
You know, Christ himself were included in this prophecy. Um, John the Baptist is included in this prophecy. Um, you know, Mary is included in this prophecy. Um, the wise men are included in this prophecy. There's all of these different themes, prophetic themes, that are weaving their way through the Old Testament, and they come to this culmination.
You know, in a sleepy town in Bethlehem, in a busy season during a census, um, when there's, you know, we can, we can talk about like no room at the end and all that stuff, and that'll be an interesting conversation, but when you boil it all down, there was no space for Mary and Joseph where there should have been space for them.
Just like in most cases, there's no space for Jesus in our lives when there should be space. So I think, you know, just to, not to get too preachy here, but I think one of the things we, we all really need to focus on during Christmas is not letting the chaos that sort of attends this season. Um, you know, I used to work retail and so it was like nonstop after Black Friday until like a week and a half after Christmas, and then again for like a week after, um, after Christmas because of return season.
And it was like nothing happened except. Being all consumed with work. Um, but it seems like even in other, other industries and other sectors, it seems like this part of the year is just inherently busier. So, you know, Christ can get very crowded out of our lives when we add all this busyness and this chaos.
So taking time to recognize, um, not to get like allegorical, I don't wanna do that, but to recognize that like part of the Christmas story in the, in the gospels is that there isn't room for Jesus where there should be room. Um, you know, when you actually look at the language, the, the upper or the, the, um, no room in the inn really probably means like no room in the guest room.
There was no guest room for Mary and Joseph. They were probably going to Joseph's family because other family was coming into town. There was no space for them in the guest room that should have been set aside for them. And the person who should have gotten that should have been the pregnant woman, but there was no space by the time they got there.
And so, you know, when we, you know, we talk about like Christmas hymns that say like, prepare him room. Um, prepare room in your hearts for Christ. Um, you know, this season is about anticipating Christ, coming and making space in your life where there should be space and not, not crowding Jesus out. If you wanna talk about putting the Christ back into Christmas, that's what we need to do, right?
It's not about like making sure there's little crosses on Starbucks cups or whatever kind of stupid controversy there is this year about the Starbucks Cup. Um, it's about. Preparing our hearts, preparing our lives, and really focusing in on the fact that Christ became incarnate for our sake, for us and our salvation.
He became man, you know, as the nice creed says,
[00:31:21] Jesse Schwamb: and that's why I love Advent so much because it does help us to make that space. And I think whether or not you do that corporately in your church or if you want to do that in your own home, I highly encourage you. You can just Google it. There's tons of wonderful resources, lots of people, uh, trustworthy people are writing, you know, devotionals for this period.
But I would just, uh, yeah, encourage you to make this a time of really leaning in, in a kind of austere way and considering the suffering of the world and what it means to long for a savior not to just think things are tolerable. And even though we've had the birth of Christ, that that provides us with an immense blessing.
But more than that, we are still longing as before for the Lord to come. So look ahead, look behind. Yeah. And then rejoice. So yeah. It's gonna be a great season.
[00:32:07] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. And that, I mean, that reminds me too, and then we can, we can talk about some more song lyrics here is, um, Christ came into the world in probably one of the darkest points.
In Israel's history, right? We've got Israel abandoning in many ways due to the effects of hellenization. We have Israel abandoning the things that make her unique. Um, you know, not to get crass, but we have accounts in the first century of, of procedures to undo your circums. So you could look more Greek.
Um, you know, that's crazy. We joke about like, well, why were there pigs in Israel with the, the account of the, um, the swine rushing into the river? Well, there were pigs in Israel because people weren't keeping kosher. And there was a market for it. Um, so Christ didn't come into, um, a bright, cheery place. He came into a very spiritually dark and socially dark and dangerous world, um, under, you know, a blood thirsty ruler who would murder a bunch of babies just to stay in power.
[00:33:07] Jesse Schwamb: Right.
[00:33:07] Tony Arsenal: Um, you know, I guess we could go off into a whole different kind of political commentary about Planned Parenthood at that point, wouldn't we?
[00:33:13] Jesse Schwamb: For sure. But you're right. The bottom line is when Christ comes in the world, he brings disruption.
[00:33:17] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.
[00:33:18] Jesse Schwamb: And everywhere he goes, you see that disruption. This is what is so beautiful among many things about the gospel to me and about pondering it this season is our world primarily is con concerned with rehabilitation.
Like everywhere you look. There's somebody trying to market something to you to rehabilitate or improve some part of your life. And especially like this whole, the whole self-help genre. And I've often thought like, what if myself is awful? Yeah. Like I don't want my self trying to help myself.
[00:33:46] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.
[00:33:46] Jesse Schwamb: So I love that rather than rehabilitation, Jesus is concerned with regeneration.
Right. And that is perhaps the most life-changing thing. Of course. Uh, that can come out of him being obedient and dying on the cross. Yeah. And being risen again.
[00:34:02] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Jesus doesn't want to fix your heart. He wants to give you a new one.
[00:34:05] Jesse Schwamb: Exactly. And that's like, man, this is getting really cheesy now, but that's like the best Christmas gift ever.
Sorry. It it just came out. It, it had, it's
[00:34:14] Tony Arsenal: all good.
[00:34:15] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah.
[00:34:15] Tony Arsenal: It's all good. God bless us everyone.
[00:34:18] Jesse Schwamb: I know. We need like a, a tiny Tim, uh, like quote in there somewhere.
[00:34:22] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, how about this? That's my tiny Tim quote is just the coughing.
[00:34:27] Jesse Schwamb: So good. That's tiny. Tim with the black lung.
[00:34:30] Jesse Schwamb: What did tiny Tim even have?
[00:34:31] Tony Arsenal: I don't know.
He had a short leg. Maybe. Maybe. I don't, you know. Well it was London, right? Right. They were in London, so maybe he was a chimney sweep. They used to send little kids. The little kids would go up the chimney, but that doesn't really work if he was like also crippled.
[00:34:45] Jesse Schwamb: Right. That's
it.
[00:34:46] Tony Arsenal: Probably wasn't running up the chimneys.
Yeah.
[00:34:47] Jesse Schwamb: It's kind of interesting, but there always is the cough, so you're right on about that. That was, yeah,
[00:34:51] Tony Arsenal: whatever it was. Stellar money could fix it though.
[00:34:53] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, for sure.
[00:34:54] Tony Arsenal: Yeah,
[00:34:55] Jesse Schwamb: for sure. So for the
[00:34:56] Tony Arsenal: go ahead,
[00:34:57] Jesse Schwamb: for this particular podcast, we asked the question. What is the strangest lyric in a Christmas song?
Or Carol, do you have one in particular that comes to mind?
[00:35:08] Tony Arsenal: Well, mine, mine was taken in the, the, uh, thread, so I'll save it for later. What about you?
[00:35:14] Jesse Schwamb: I, so here's the thing. So many good responses to this question, which makes you understand or at least appreciate a little bit more how weird a lot of Christmas songs are.
Yes. Like not Christmas hymns, and even some carols are totally on point, but there's some weird stuff that we sing at this time of year. That have just become like straight, traditional or nostalgic.
[00:35:34] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.
[00:35:34] Tony Arsenal: So I have this taxonomy of Christmas songs and it used to just be two categories, but I've added a third this year.
So there's like Christmas hymns or like, I guess we could say like, like. Uh, Christmas worship songs. So like, you might get something that's not a hymn technically, but a, a worship song that has to do with Christmas somehow. And then there's kind of like the happy sappy spirit of the season, family celebration kinds of songs.
And then there's just the really stupid, weird songs that just don't, they're just don't, they don't make any sense and don't play them. So that's like my three tier taxonomy of Christmas songs.
[00:36:10] Jesse Schwamb: So I think we're gonna need an example from each of those bad boys.
[00:36:13] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, so like a Christmas hymn would be like, oh, holy Night, right?
Like, good theology, joy to the world. Good solid theology, good lyrics makes you reflect on Christmas and then like, um, jingle bells or, um, I'll be home for Christmas. Those are kinds of like the happy, sappy family, you know, spirit of the season things, which are fine. Like those are good things and they're okay to celebrate at this time of year.
Um, especially like in a culture where people don't celebrate those things any other time of year. Um. You know, it, it warms my heart to hear people talking about how excited they are to see their family, um, when other times a year they don't seem to care about their family.
[00:36:50] Tony Arsenal: And then like the third one would be, and I think a lot of the ones in this, uh, thread fall into the third category, but like, Dominic the Donkey, or I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas.
Those are the kinds of songs that I'm like, just don't, just don't bother.
[00:37:06] Jesse Schwamb: Grandma got Run Over by a reindeer.
[00:37:08] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, yeah. Like anti-family songs.
[00:37:11] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, I didn't even think about the societal implications of that, but you're right.
[00:37:15] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. So why don't we run through some of these? What, what have we got in the group here?
[00:37:19] Jesse Schwamb: So, there were several people, so I'd say some among the most popular, um, Jen Schwa and who else? My wife and
[00:37:29] Tony Arsenal: Jen Schwam is your wife. For those
[00:37:30] Jesse Schwamb: who are listening, she is my wife That is factually correct. Uh, Josh Summer. Many people quoted, he sees you when you're sleeping. He knows when you're awake.
[00:37:38] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.
That.
[00:37:39] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah,
[00:37:40] Tony Arsenal: that's a little weird.
[00:37:41] Jesse Schwamb: Is weird. Here's the thing about that. You put that in any other context, like any other old dude watching kids sleep and knowing when they're awake, and that is like straight up like SVU episode or something like that, you know?
[00:37:54] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, yeah. And just anybody watching you sleep and knowing when you're awake and then rewarding you based on your good behavior and punishing you based on your bad behavior.
Like that's some creepy stuff right
[00:38:06] Jesse Schwamb: there. That is some Santa Legalism straight up.
[00:38:08] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. Um, my lovely wife who is, uh, Ashley Arsenal said on the ninth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me nine ladies dancing. Um, I, I think a lot of stuff in that is really weird. Yeah. Um, how do you give someone 10 piper's piping?
How do you give them lords a leaping? Um, a lot of this stuff in there is really weird, but Chuck, I actually Chuck Murphy. I'm gonna give you a homework assignment. Um, he noted that he's heard it as an analogy for the different parts of the Christian faith, which I feel like maybe I heard that somewhere, but, um, you have to research that now, Chuck, and tell me what you like.
[00:38:43] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, that'd be great.
[00:38:44] Tony Arsenal: Yes.
[00:38:45] Jesse Schwamb: Here's what I do love about that song is because I work in finance, I should, there should be like a, a game where you take a drink every time I say that. But um, there, drink of
[00:38:53] Tony Arsenal: water, right? Or
[00:38:54] Jesse Schwamb: grape juice. Yeah. Drink. Drink of water or juice. Yes. Yes. Let's be clear about that. Or eggnog.
So here is the thing about this. What I love about that song is. Uh, this, uh, investment bank, Solomon Smith, Barney, they took that concept and have you heard of this? What they did, like, I wanna say 20, 25 years ago, is they made an index out of it. So like this index is a basket of goods and services that people buy and they track the price of those goods and services over time to see how things get more expensive, how it changes your purchasing power.
So they have a 12 days of Christmas index, and then every year, about this time of year, they report on it and they tell you which things in the 12 days have like. Increased in price substantially and like they go all out. So like they look at, in this case for number nine, like the labor cost of the nine ladies dancing and healthcare and benefits and all that kinda good stuff.
[00:39:43] Tony Arsenal: I would think that the, the going price of lords of leaping has probably increased dramatically
[00:39:47] Jesse Schwamb: in the last couple years. Are not cheap. If you want to get them to leap, you gotta pay off for that.
[00:39:51] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. If you're gonna get them to do anything, but especially leaping, I think they're gonna, they're gonna charge you a pretty penny.
[00:39:57] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. That's not cheap. So Robin Camp said, and I agree with this too, she's talking about jingle bells and the dashing through the snow, laughing all the way. Now you and I have actually been together, not just alone with each other. I was just gonna talk
[00:40:08] Tony Arsenal: about that.
[00:40:10] Jesse Schwamb: But we have been together. On a sleigh.
I've been in a sleigh, like an open, open sleigh, horse-drawn sleigh.
[00:40:15] Tony Arsenal: Yes.
[00:40:15] Jesse Schwamb: A couple of times. And I will say she's right. 'cause all I was thinking about is that my ears are about to fall off. It was so cold.
[00:40:22] Tony Arsenal: Yes. Yeah, it was cold that year.
[00:40:25] Jesse Schwamb: Crazy cold.
[00:40:26] Tony Arsenal: It was. And I forgot a hat. I had to borrow one from like the horse lady.
It was weird, but I, I didn't care at that point. I was like, gimme that hat.
[00:40:36] Jesse Schwamb: We do have a profound respect for people in all professions. So the horse lady is a term of endearment.
[00:40:42] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. I don't mean the lady was a horse. She was the lady who like, like managed the horse. Maybe like the the horse woman or like the horse manager would be more appropriate.
[00:40:50] Jesse Schwamb: Oh, this is great. So some people reference songs that I'm not familiar with. So Benjamin Phillips quoted Tiny Fingers Reaching In the Night are the Same Hands That Measured the Sky. Are you familiar with that song?
[00:41:02] Tony Arsenal: It. I Is that, I think that's a verse from that. Mary, did you know song? Isn't it?
[00:41:06] Jesse Schwamb: Is it, I Maybe it is.
[00:41:09] Tony Arsenal: I think it is.
[00:41:10] Jesse Schwamb: My, so my favorite tweet so far, this holiday season came from Mark Jones. Mark Jones call us. Um, where he said, you just tweeted married, did you know? And then dot, dot do, um, yeah. Angels talk to me.
[00:41:25] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. I think it's a, it looks like it's a lyric from a Joy Williams song called Here With Us.
[00:41:30] Jesse Schwamb: Oh, okay.
[00:41:31] Tony Arsenal: So it's one of those, uh, one of those instances where someone is saying something that at first blush looks really, really like profound Yes. And christological, but it actually doesn't work all that well.
[00:41:42] Jesse Schwamb: It's weird. It was a good call right there.
[00:41:44] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. But I mean, we could, we could, we could probably force that into some good christology if we needed to.
So we'll, we'll put that in our back pocket for a different episode.
[00:41:53] Jesse Schwamb: Absolutely.
[00:41:55] Tony Arsenal: Chuck Murphy, um, calls out probably one of my all time, uh. You can never unhear it. Moments in a song from baby, it's cold outside when she says, say what's in this drink? And the whole song, um, it literally sounds like a recipe for date rape really.
And I'm not trying to like minimize
[00:42:15] Chris Farley: no
[00:42:15] Tony Arsenal: that, and maybe there should be like a trigger warning on this. 'cause like I know people who have had that happen, but like, that song is terrible. It's awful. I can't awful understand how anybody doesn't see it. And the first time it was pointed out to me, I was like, oh.
Oh no. Oh, no, no, no. This is really bad. Yeah, it's awful.
[00:42:33] Jesse Schwamb: Make
[00:42:33] Tony Arsenal: it
[00:42:33] Jesse Schwamb: stop. Yeah, we gotta talk about this 'cause So here's my beef with this song as well. Why is this a Christmas song? Like it's just a song about it being cold. Like it could be a February song too. It's just weird. The whole thing is so strange, but there are people that love that tune.
[00:42:49] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, I, I mean, it's a catchy tune and like the back and forth kind of the inal thing is, I guess is, is appealing. But yeah, the lyrics are just. It's like a's like a different age, like back in, I dunno when it was written, but it seems like when that was written, that was like a totally okay. Acceptable thing.
But like in our context, no, just don't. If you have like a Christmas playlist at your church, just go through and scrub that right out of there.
[00:43:13] Jesse Schwamb: Like if that's playing in your prelude. You should tell somebody.
[00:43:17] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. You should, you should replace that with something else immediately.
[00:43:22] Jesse Schwamb: Absolutely. So, uh, Jeff La wrote, he's quoting from Wayne of manger, the little Lord Jesus, no crying.
He makes, and he's references that in contradiction to John 1135, which I believe is, and Jesus wept.
[00:43:36] Tony Arsenal: Jesus wept.
[00:43:36] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. So I believe that's like a, a doism reference right there.
[00:43:40] Tony Arsenal: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And Mark Jones I think, commented on that too. So, um, Mark Jones called Jesus obviously cried when he was a baby, so we don't have a record of him doing it.
But he was a normal baby, just like any other baby. And I see no reason to think he didn't cry. So like Silent Night kind of falls under that, like the whole song of Silent Night falls under that same kind of criticism.
[00:44:00] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, I've, I've heard a lot of people bring that up. Just, it's interesting that we, we make such a big deal of that, the, the silence in particular.
[00:44:08] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So let, let's talk about this Hippo thing.
[00:44:12] Jesse Schwamb: Sure. Let's do it.
[00:44:13] Tony Arsenal: So there's a song called I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas, which after hearing the story about how this song came to be, it's actually quite adorable. But that sounds like the most terrifying Christmas present that I can actually think of is a hippopotamus.
[00:44:27] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. Like you see. Hippopotamuses in stores like little stuffed ones and I suppose they seem adorable, but
[00:44:35] Tony Arsenal: yeah,
[00:44:35] Jesse Schwamb: in my house, as you know, the hippo is not a very revered animal, right? For from through personal experience. So this is just, this strikes all kind of terror in my wife. Like she, she does not understand, nor appreciate, nor want to have anything to do with this piece of music.
[00:44:52] Tony Arsenal: Um, I just had a terrifying Google is listening moment. So I am trying to look up etymology of hippopotamus and I typed etymology and it auto finished of hippopotamus with me. So I think it's been listening to me. Um, so the, uh, the word hippopotamus means river horse. So I just wanted to point out that the correct, uh, pluralization of hippopotamus would be hipot moist, not hip.
Really? Yes, because it comes from Greek, not from Latin.
[00:45:21] Jesse Schwamb: So I was tempted to go with the hippopotamus, and then I just made it. Like, I just butchered it and went straight to plural. But I like moist, although that makes me feel more uncomfortable with the whole thing.
[00:45:30] Tony Arsenal: It should. That's good though. Good. You shouldn't be comfortable with Hipot, Moy or Moist.
[00:45:35] Jesse Schwamb: I, I also like, what did you call 'em? Like river horse.
[00:45:38] Tony Arsenal: River Horse. Yeah. Hippo is is river. Like we get the word Hippodrome, like where the horses ran a race. And then, uh, uh, uh, Patmos is river. So like the Potomac River in Washington is literally like the river. River,
[00:45:51] Jesse Schwamb: man. This is educational all around. Yes.
Should I
[00:45:54] Tony Arsenal: drop reform? Brotherhoodhood your Linguistic Six podcast.
[00:45:57] Jesse Schwamb: Love it.
[00:45:58] Jesse Schwamb: Should I drop the Hippo story real quick?
[00:46:00] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead and drop the Hippel
[00:46:02] Jesse Schwamb: story. Okay. So I have permission to say this story is my wife's, so my wife was in Africa, in Zimbabwe, on a missions trip with a large group of people.
And they decided what something that would be really good as an experience would be to take a little canoe cruise down the Zambezi River. So it's a guided to cruise. There's two or three to a canoe, and they have this long caravan of canoes and they're just cruising. They're just chilling, enjoying Africa.
And of course the guides give them all like the normal disclosures, like there's obviously wild animals. Uh, they're trying to alert them to the fact that everything in Africa is dangerous. A lot of things want to eat or kill you. Uh, but there's nothing in particular to be fearful about. And I think somebody had asked about, uh, hippopotamus because hippopotamus, because they are present and they kinda made a big deal about, it's very rare for them to.
Um, attack people, which I'm not entirely sure if that's true now, but all that to say, they're cruising down the Zambezi River, this long caravan, and my wife sees, uh, as well as some of the guides that the, these large hippopotamus is approaching their caravan and. They're saying not to worry. They're speaking them in English.
They're, you know, they're having a good time. They're talking back and forth, and it continues to get closer, and then all of a sudden it disappears under the water. And she was just thinking is perhaps just curious about what's going on. So she said she gets worried when all of the guides begin to speak, like in rushed hushed tones and not in English anymore.
And then all of a sudden, basically this giant hippopotamus comes up in the water in the canoe ahead of my wife, where actually the pastor of the church we were attending, he and his wife were in and just straight up flips the canoe, like throws it into the air and spills everybody out into the water and then just pandemonium breaks loose.
So the guides in my wife's canoe and the other ones start slapping the water and my wife interprets it as if like they are beating back. The hippopotamus because it is trying to like eat them all up like a twine. Uh, what they're actually doing is just trying to scare, just trying to move everybody away.
So she literally thought people were just getting eaten alive, that the pastor had just like gone to glory because Hippopotamus had had literally like, it literally dented this giant metal canoe, like just, just bent it in half almost. So they all got over. Luckily everybody was okay. Fortunately, I guess that was enough for the hippo.
It was like I had my fun and I'm piecing out.
[00:48:33] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.
[00:48:33] Jesse Schwamb: Um. But they all
[00:48:34] Tony Arsenal: the hippo really, the hippo really was like on the shore and it leaned over to its hippo frontals, like, Hey, watch this.
[00:48:41] Jesse Schwamb: It, it did seem like that because it came outta nowhere and I guess the guides were like, nobody's been attacked by hippo in such like a, at least in that particular area, in such a long period of time, that it was really kind of like a, a freak thing.
But so the best part is like, you know, the pastor and his wife and their guy, they're like, they're all soaked. Everybody's shaken up. 'cause this happened quick. It was allowed, it was terrifying. I mean, it was an animal attack. And hippos are huge animals. Yeah. Um, so they all get over to the side. They're on the embankment now.
Like, people are like crying. I mean, it's really traumatizing. It's not that funny, but it is funny in hindsight to me. So they're, they're crying. And then my favorite part of this story is. They're all like sitting on this bank. People are weeping, they're hugging each other, like they're just praising Jesus for his protection.
And like floating by in like this slow pontoon is just like a large group of Korean tourists who are just taking tons of pictures just cruising by.
[00:49:34] Tony Arsenal: Now I've, I've, your wife has told me this story in person and she gets this sort of like, like, uh, like flashback look on her face. Oh, yeah. Like I would imagine like somebody telling a story from a war they've been in.
[00:49:49] Jesse Schwamb: Oh yeah, this
[00:49:49] Tony Arsenal: is, she gets like nervous when she's telling the story.
[00:49:52] Jesse Schwamb: This is no joke. Like if I think to myself, can I make a hippo joke today? The answer is always too soon. No, too soon. And this happened like five or six years ago, or longer than that, like,
[00:50:01] Tony Arsenal: yeah,
[00:50:01] Jesse Schwamb: almost 10 years ago.
[00:50:03] Tony Arsenal: So Will, I'll, uh, post a link, uh, in the show notes if you go to the website, reform brotherhood.wordpress.com, um, and you'll see a video.
Of a hippo chasing a boat like a motorboat. It's crazy. And it's, it's insane. And you will never, ever ask for a hippopotamus for Christmas again. I promise you.
[00:50:24] Jesse Schwamb: It's crazy. Yeah. It'll totally change your, change your life. So definitely. That for me is a, a super strange song and one that just strikes terror in my heart after hearing that story.
[00:50:35] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.
[00:50:36] Tony Arsenal: So I, I think that probably wraps us up. Before we go though, um, do you have any recommendations.
[00:50:41] Jesse Schwamb: I don't in particular accept that. Again, I would just encourage everybody to embrace the season in a new way. Like, like spend some time meditating even before the Lord. How he might consider for you to prepare your heart, prepare your family, and try to push out on that a little bit and do something different this year than last year that you think would be really helpful.
To your spiritual condition and I, I hope that maybe considering something like Advent, especially if it's that tradition, you're very familiar with, that that might be the kind of thing that would help prepare us all a little bit better. To really just be able to like marinate in the joy of Christmas beyond just the good times and the nice songs and everybody having a much more pleasant demeanor and a better attitude that we would really root that in the hope and love of our savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:51:28] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, so I have two recommendations. Um, I, one of the things I do with the church calendar is, um, during the season of Lent, which is 40 plus a few odd days, and the season of Advent, which is about 28 ish days, depending on when Christmas falls. I take a smaller, shorter book on a particular theme and I read through it.
So like right now I'm reading through on the Incarnation by Athanasius to kind of prepare for Christmas. Um, the book I would recommend for our readers, um, which I know you're, I don't know if you finish it yet, but I know you're reading is Knowing Christ by Mark Jones.
[00:52:03] Jesse Schwamb: So
[00:52:03] Tony Arsenal: good. Um, there's so many amazing things in the book, but it's really devotional.
Um, the, the chapters are short, so you can read through a chapter kind of in one sitting. Um, there's like a thousand chapters, but they're all pretty short. Um, and I have a personal recommendation for Mark Jones. Uh, get an audio book out because I would love to recommend your book in this next. Totally prepared, uh, advertisement that we're gonna do.
But, um, it's, it's a great book. Um, I can't recommend it enough. I'm probably gonna try to read through it again here a second time in a, uh, a month or so here. Uh, but it really, I mean, it really will change your devotion and your, your love for Christ, which is, um, what he said kind of the goal of the book is, is to arouse your affections for Christ, which I know for me it really did that
[00:52:47] Jesse Schwamb: me
[00:52:47] Tony Arsenal: too.
So Mark, I need you to, to make an audio book of that so I can listen to it on the way
[00:52:53] Chris Farley: Where you at Mark Jones.
[00:52:54] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, so get on that, um, in between all of the other thousand books you're writing and all sorts of stuff. Um, but, uh, I do have a recommendation for Audible. So we have a free trial of, uh, of Audible available for you if you go to, uh, audible trial.com/brotherhood.
Yep. I think that's it. Hold on. That's it. Auto trial.com/brotherhood. And, um, there's a couple different Christmas books. There's a lot of Christmas books on there. Most of them look like they're probably pretty terrible. But, um, there's a book called The Donning of Indestructible Joy Daily Readings for Advent, which was originally written by, uh, John Piper.
So, um, you can go to that audible trial.com/brotherhood and you get a one month trial, which comes with a free book. Um, and you could download this and listen to it on your way to work for admins. And I've listened to a, uh, I listened to the sample online. Um, and it's just really a good solid, um, way to have some devotions in your ear while you're driving to kind of redeem that time that you otherwise might be, you know, sitting in the car listening to stupid songs like Dominic the Donkey, um, or that weird song about the people that run into each other in the grocery store and drink beer in the car.
Um, all these weird Christmas songs that come out this time of year. Oh,
[00:54:08] Jesse Schwamb: Christmas shoes. I just thought about Christmas shoes,
[00:54:10] Tony Arsenal: Christmas shoes. The, the Christmas shoes song, there's all sorts of terrible stuff. But instead of listening to those terrible songs, you could be listening to devotions written by John Piper.
So, um, again, audible trial.com/brotherhood. And if you sign up for a free trial, uh, Jesse and I get some funds to, um, help forward the podcast a little bit.
[00:54:28] Jesse Schwamb: Thank you all. This has clearly become the, the Mark Jones version of this podcast. Yes. We should probably say that he's a pastor with a PCA at Faith Vancouver.
Yes. And um, he is probably my favorite. Canadian,
[00:54:42] Tony Arsenal: yes, I love that. He's in the Presbyterian Church America in Canada.
[00:54:46] Jesse Schwamb: I love that. Are
[00:54:46] Tony Arsenal: you sure it's PCA?
[00:54:47] Jesse Schwamb: I think so. I pretty sure it's think the church is Faith Vancouver PCA a.
[00:54:51] Tony Arsenal: Maybe it's like Presbyterian Canada Association,
[00:54:54] Jesse Schwamb: Mark Jones. You can't have our denominations.
Make your own PCC. Yes,
[00:54:58] Tony Arsenal: a
[00:55:00] Jesse Schwamb: wow.
[00:55:01] Tony Arsenal: All right. That should probably just about do it before we offend any more, uh, kind, generous, gentle Canadians. Uh, although I will say, uh, I saw a picture on Mark Jones Facebook, uh, I guess he was at the banner of truth conference, which happens very near you, so you should go.
Um, and they did a Presbyterian versus Baptist soccer game, and I guess he scored like 15 goals, which if you follow soccer as a ridiculous amount of goals
[00:55:26] Jesse Schwamb: that
[00:55:26] Tony Arsenal: so.
[00:55:27] Jesse Schwamb: Is awesome. We clearly just sound like Mark Jones fan boys at this point.
[00:55:31] Tony Arsenal: Well, that's because we are Mark Jones fan boys. So
[00:55:34] Jesse Schwamb: Mark Jones call us.
[00:55:35] Tony Arsenal: Yes. All right. Well that should just about do it. Do you have any final thoughts, Jesse?
[00:55:39] Jesse Schwamb: No, that's it for me.
[00:55:40] Tony Arsenal: All right. Well if we don't, uh, if we don't see you again, what was I gonna say? We don't see anybody again. Alright, well, I guess that's the note we're gonna end on. All right. Have a good week and, uh, get out there and think about the coming of Christ and preparing our hearts.
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