Podcast: Play in new window | Download
In this illuminating episode of The Reformed Brotherhood, Tony and Jesse dive deeply into the petition "Lead us not into temptation" from the Lord's Prayer. They explore the nuances of this request, examining its implications for our understanding of God's sovereignty and our own vulnerability to sin. The hosts carefully unpack the original Greek text to reveal that we are asking God not to lead us into temptation—acknowledging both His ability to protect us from evil and our complete dependence on His restraining grace. This episode reminds us that prayer is fundamentally an act of faith, where we trust God to continue His good work of protecting us from the depths of our own wickedness while transforming our hearts to desire only what is pure.
When we pray "Lead us not into temptation," we're acknowledging a profound theological truth about both God's sovereignty and our vulnerability. The hosts clarify that the Greek text literally says "do not lead us into temptation" or even more emphatically "never lead us into temptation." This is a negative request—asking God not to do something—which implies that God could potentially lead us into temptation, as He did with Jesus in the wilderness. Yet this doesn't contradict James 1, which states that God tempts no one with evil.
The resolution lies in recognizing that God's normal work is to protect and restrain us from our own sinful desires. When we pray this petition, we're asking Him to continue that protective work. We acknowledge that God, in His wisdom, sometimes allows believers to fall into serious sin for purposes of chastisement and growth, but we're asking Him to shield us from such painful lessons if possible. This is not a prayer that reveals a capricious God who must be persuaded not to harm us, but rather a prayer that acknowledges our complete dependence on His sustaining grace.
This petition reveals the heart of God as our loving Father. As Tony explains, "God doesn't need to be provoked to love. He needs to be provoked to anger. His disposition is love towards us because He's kind and gracious." When we pray "Lead us not into temptation," we're essentially asking our Father to honor His great love toward His children by continuing to fulfill His promises of protection.
The hosts emphasize that God's default is to protect His people and even unbelievers from the depths of their sin through common grace, conscience, and the restraining influence of the law. This petition isn't about changing God's mind but about aligning our hearts with His work of protection while acknowledging our complete dependence on Him. It's a humble recognition that without His restraint, we would pursue our own destruction. In this way, the prayer moves us beyond merely asking for physical protection to desiring heart transformation—that we would grow to desire only what is good and pure, seeking Christ alone rather than the fleeting pleasures of sin.
"What we're asking for here is that God, in his graciousness, would prevent me from having to experience temptation because Jesus has done it on my behalf. We're asking that you would not allow me to be near the allure of sin, do not bring me near to the devil, do not permit me to be in a situation where the enticement of sin will be greater than I can bear." - Jesse Schwamb
"We are not asking God to stop doing something He regularly does. We're asking Him to continue His good work of preserving us. Even when we acknowledge He may at times have a good work involved in not preserving us, we are asking Him to continue that good work that He's already doing." - Tony Arsenal
"Better than being spared from a temptation is to have a heart that doesn't want to even seek the temptation to begin with. What we're asking for is that God would continually transform us in such a way that our sanctification by His power in the Holy Spirit would move us in such a direction that we wouldn't get into the crisis moment, but that we would seek only what is good." - Jesse Schwamb
[00:00:00] Introduction and Greetings
[00:00:00] Jesse Schwamb: Welcome to episode 355 of the Reformed
[00:00:04] Tony Arsenal: Brotherhood. I'm Jesse. And I'm Tony. And we are proud members of the Society of Reformed podcasters.
Hey brother. Oh man. You're gonna throw me all off. Hey brother. I got already, I was even taking like a breath to say that and you jumped right in on me.
[00:00:20] Jesse Schwamb: I know I saw that you were taking that deep breath in as I think all the listeners were waiting to hear your voice first, and I said, listen, mean to myself.
I was like, let's just switch this up. Let's turn it on its head. Let's start in a totally different way. So, Hey brother. Hey brother.
[00:00:36] Tony Arsenal: I don't even know where to go. I don't even know how to go from here.
[00:00:39] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, I know. Actually my grand plan of just making this more interesting for the listeners, bringing some variety, which is the spice of.
Obviously not obviously. I guess if you, if for some reason episode 3 55 is like the first time people are joining us, I wanted to say welcome. I'm so glad you're hanging out with us. Maybe you found us on the interwebs or you went to Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. You typed in something like formed or super handsome or really cool podcast and you found your way to us, and, uh.
[00:01:13] Jesse Schwamb: I'm so glad that you did that, but you might then not know that we're spending the summer in the Lord's Prayer or the prayer more aptly that he gives his disciples to pray as a model, but also something that they ought to recite and request before the Father. That's where we've been hanging out and we've kind of been unashamed at.
We're just gonna take our sweet time because the best thing about summer is having a delicious beverage on your porch. You're out with friends and really hanging out and sitting in a conversation, really unpacking something or just resting and enjoying the time that you have together. And we've been enjoying that time with God and with each other.
So we're into the Lord's Prayer. In a way that we're gonna say, listen, we're gonna do this because it's the way that God has commanded us to pray. And we wanna understand more about it so that we can apply it, that we can use it, that we have greater and more effective and more deeper communion with God.
And in this prayer, we're finding ourselves, we tick through the various petitions. We're getting into this idea of what it means that we'd ask God not to lead us into temptation. And I don't know exactly where we're gonna on this episode. We never really talk about ahead of time. Everybody gets to hear us in real time, unpack and have an actual conversation.
It's totally authentic and genuine, and I think probably we're just gonna end up, at least for me, in the temptation prior to this and maybe delivers from evil is a whole thing that we'll talk about next time. But this is like a massively. Packed phrase. But before we get into like taking out this luggage and unpacking our stuff and really seeing what God has for us in his text, let's affirm and deny some things, which is also a tradition on our podcast.
What are you affirming with on this
[00:02:48] Tony Arsenal: episode?
[00:02:48] Tony Arsenal: So this is not gonna be a surprise, uh, to Jesse 'cause he's heard me talk about these before. And also I think it might have been Jesse's wife that. Me into these, I'm affirming gooder glasses normally. This is the point in the show where I ask Jesse if you've heard of this thing, but obviously he has.
So for the, the Discerning Listener gooder is G-O-O-D-R, and you can go to gooder.com, uh, GOOD r.com and Gooder makes a series of really, really simple, straightforward sunglasses. Um, that are primarily, it seems like they're primarily geared towards runners. They have sort of like a, a specific kind of texture and manufacturing material that prevents them from slipping and sliding, and they're super lightweight.
Um, I, I wasn't a runner when I started wearing these. Um, and now that I am a runner, I appreciate them even more. Um, but they're. Relatively inexpensive. They're like, I think usually they're like 25 to $35. So if you, if you lose a pair or if they break or whatever, or if you just want a couple different pairs, 'cause you like different styles, it's not gonna break your bank.
Um, but they're light, they're stylish. There's a couple different, um, styles available and a couple different sizes and they come in like fun colors. Like the ones I have now are orange, like bright orange frames and kind of blue lenses. Uh, but you can get kind of like the traditional just black, like dark gray frames with.
Like black sunglasses, lenses, um, I don't know. There's much more to say about them. They're just really nice. They're super comfortable. They're very light. They don't, I, they don't slip off your head. Even when you're running, even when you get sweaty on a run, they stick to your face pretty good and they don't bounce around.
So it's not like bouncing all over your face as you run. So, yeah, I, I love these glasses. It's, it's kind of like I used to buy cheap, cheap, like, uh, gas station sunglasses and I would always be like, why do they break so fast? Or why are they so uncomfortable? It's 'cause you bought cheap. Gas station glasses.
And here's the kicker. These aren't that much more expensive than cheap gas station glasses, right? You just go to gooder.com and order a pair and they ship 'em to you. So check it out. I don't have anything more to add. There's no deep theological truth to this. But, uh, gooder, GOOD r.com. You can also buy 'em on Amazon if, like, you want Amazon Prime or whatever you want to go through, like smile amazon.com and donate to your favorite charity or whatever.
But yeah, I love these glasses. They're super, super comfortable.
[00:05:06] Jesse Schwamb: They're just super fun too. Right? Like I, I think this sounds like kind of just a cliche recommendation. It's not exactly because these guys also like take a beating. Yeah. So like you can just feel good no matter what you're doing with them.
I have a confession to make and I can say this because my wife doesn't often listen to us talk on the podcast 'cause she listens to me talk enough in our home one time recently. She had a set of these gooder glasses, they were on the stairs, which it, I wanna say with great deference to myself, glasses should not be stowed on a stairs.
That seems like the, to put them for reasons that are about to become very plain if they're not already. And she actually, so the fun thing about these glasses too, is like, they come into all kinds of amazing names. Yeah. I, I don't know if you've seen that. And, uh, she has these Captain America style.
Sunglasses from good. She really, really loves. I came down the stairs one morning, they were sitting on the stairs. Who knows why they were there. I didn't put them there. So everybody else can do the math. And I stepped like full weight on these glasses and I thought my word. We're about to have a conversation, it was gonna be ugly.
And of course I immediately released my feel from the frames and they were totally, yeah, like unchanged. Yeah. So like they just did a beating. They look sharp. And the only wanna say is like you might, when you hear something say like they were for runners, you might think like they got like some like weird aerodynamic shape, which makes it seem like you're in a sci-fi movie.
No, they got the traditional classic kind of like, they've got aviators that kinda like just the classic SGAs. Shape, uh, like Jackie O Style, like sunglasses. They're just super fun. So I'm with you. I have several pairs because they're affordable and I definitely beat these bad boys up. I sweat in them, I wash them, I beat them around.
I've stepped on some, unbeknownst to my wife and they were totally fine. Nobody noticed. It was all great. But I think like even to your point, like your classic kind of like 12, $15, like gas station glasses, I'm pretty sure I would've just broke straight up and then, oh yeah.
[00:07:05] Tony Arsenal: They would've been like embedded in the, like the bottom of your foot.
You would've had to get stitches.
[00:07:09] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, something like that. So I am totally with you. It's the simple pleasures in life that remind us that common grace is a legit thing.
[00:07:17] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, yeah. Like, um, the ones that I just got are, uh, they're called donkey goggles, but they're just like bright orange and blue lenses and they just look really, really sleek and they are kind of like.
They're not rubber, but they're kind of like rubberized materials. Yeah. So they like, if you bend 'em or you step on 'em, or you sit on 'em, it's not like they're indestructible, they're not like made of atium, but they'll, they'll like flex a bit. So, and, and if they do break 'em, then you just get a new pair and you don't have to worry too much about it.
'cause they're not like, they're not like a hundred dollars Oakley that you are so afraid to wear that they sit on your shelf. Yeah. Or like they have, um, gator chomp goggles, which are also a version of orange and blue. So yeah, just, just check it out. gooder.com. Even just going to look at the website is pretty fun because there's a lot of different cool colors and they like from a person who someday wants to be in like a position to be manufacturing like.
Swag and gear and like marketing, I have an eye for like a really well marketed product. And what's fun about these, like these are really simple, straightforward sunglasses. There's nothing fancy about them, but they take the time to write like a fun little story that ties into the, to the, um, the name of the color.
So this one, this one I'm looking at is called Falco's Fever Dream. And it's kind of like a purple-ish. Purple-ish, uh, frame with like a blue lens and it says What even is a luck dragon ultimate fever. Dream of a luck dragon is to fly after us slamming a bottle of blue cargo. That's why we made, made the blue on blue suns to shield faulker, bloodshot eyes from that little crybaby bastion.
Like they just come up with a fun, and then they have a, that's like just a blurb. They have like a full on story about. Each sunglass, that's like a fun origin story. So it's just a really well marketed, really well put together product. It's simple, it's not overly complicated. It's not overly expensive, and they won't, they don't fall apart.
Like they don't really break. You're more likely to lose them than you are to break them, I think. Yes.
[00:09:16] Jesse Schwamb: For sure. This is one of those things where I know we talk about how much in so many ways. We love the listeners, the brothers sisters, who come alongside support the podcast with their time and their attention.
They're listening and often their resources. And we've talked about how they go Jericho style with us and pull down all the paywalls for us that we don't have to have advertisements. Yeah. And yet this as well as companies I would be happy to receive sponsorship for because yeah. It's like a simple pleasure.
They've just done it right. They make it fun and interesting and it's kind of like, yeah, glasses are that weird market where to my mind, they're mostly overpriced and you're kind of like, what do you get for like these common materials that have just been more or less put together in a very common way, like.
Talk about ordinary means, like these are just, this is the ordinary means of glasses. So do yourself a favor and check out why Tony and I are spending all this time talking about sunglasses.
[00:10:11] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. If anyone out there works for, uh. Works for gooder and wants to hook us up with a sponsorship. We might actually, yeah, for sure.
We might actually talk about that somehow. I doubt that's the case, but it's always worth throwing out the call to action there.
[00:10:24] Jesse Schwamb: Yes. This, so here's the why I say this is at the, the risk of like extending this far beyond which is appropriate, which you've already done, I think at this point. But this is the kind of company that could be like, we need like a whole like reformed variety of sunglasses.
Yeah. Which is like fun descriptions, right? Like it suits their personality as a company. And that's why I think maybe I'm, I'm so inclined toward them, besides, they're just being a great product. It's like they have fun, it's a little bit self-deprecating. It's a little bit like understanding, like. You're only here for sunglasses, but we're gonna make this as fun, as interesting as possible.
And I feel like, like what the, this wingy player of sunglasses looks like or the John Knox set is like exceptional. You know what I'm talking about? So much latent potential here.
[00:11:03] Tony Arsenal: Oh yeah. Yeah. Just to get another idea of the sort of goofiness of this, they have a Marvel comic series, which Jesse alluded to.
They have a Marvel Comics, snap Survivor Shades. Which features Thanos on it, which is just, just hardcore right there. Like that's just put the villain right on your temples and just wear it. Probably.
[00:11:22] Jesse Schwamb: Even I know what that means. Yeah. That's how far we've come.
[00:11:25] Tony Arsenal: It's true. Jesse, are you affirming anything today beyond my sunglasses and let's,
[00:11:30] Jesse Schwamb: yes.
[00:11:30] Jesse Schwamb: No, I totally, totally on board with you, the sunglasses, but when you take those sunglasses off because your eyes need to read something, let me affirm something that you should put your eyeballs on. This is a book called Range by David Epstein. It's basically about a book of what learning is like and how basically an age of.
Specialization and increased like ability to get so nuanced and narrow because we feel like this is the way to achieve things. There's the so-called 10,000 hour rule. This pushes against that. I read this book, got it out from the library because I thought, well. I'm interested in this. I'm curious to see what he says.
It totally took me in a different direction. I'm just gonna stop there. You everybody, I think should and would benefit from reading this especially, and I'm recommending it or affirming it in this light that, especially as reformed people with reformed theology, we tend to double down maybe sometimes a little bit too much.
Not to the extent of it's always worth to double down on the truth, of course, but. But there's something we said about being more creative, being more understanding, have a greater sense of knowledge, being a better communicator because you read, you study, you have curiosity that is wide and broad. Yeah.
It doesn't even necessarily need to be deep, but wide and broad. So. This book range by David, David Epstein is right in that vein. I think that a lot of our listeners will be encouraged by it, find interest things to reflect on, and also find that they might be inspired to look at learning and reading and studying and watching all these things in a slightly different light in a way, again, that you might not expect it.
So I'm referring with this. It came to me by recommendation, and then it has come to me as a surprise in the way that I've enjoyed it, so it felt like the right thing to say, listen, everybody should pick up a copy or just go to your library. Yeah, go to your library,
[00:13:15] Tony Arsenal: check
[00:13:15] Jesse Schwamb: it out. Read
[00:13:15] Tony Arsenal: it. Looks like a good book.
I'm, I'm looking@itonamazon.com. Looks like it'll be an interesting read off to check that out.
[00:13:20] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, it's kind of like a iconoclastic, because I think we've been taught in this like host kind of Adam Smith way that like the way in which we get ahead now is to become hyper specialized and there's something to be said for that.
Right. That knowledge could be super helpful, but what I appreciate is David Epstein doesn't throw out the baby with the bath water on this. He says yes for certain types of tasks, what he calls kind disciplines or kind activities, things with like immediate feedback loops, like set rules where it's very clear there's compartmentalization, things like chess.
Or golf. Yes, that can be helpful, like playing the piano, but for most of life it's actually not. Yeah. And so he makes a really strong case through lots of great studies. It's not just all these anecdotal things, but it's a way to kind of test and challenge the way in which you understand the world and how you learn.
And I don't know, I'm loving it. It's also like, I think you and I are kind of curious people. And we, we've made the argument like you should read wide, read above your head, read broadly. But that interest in being like a polymath, it just turns out that that might actually be the way to go and you'll be more creative.
You'll have actually greater ideas. And actually like, so when I read this, honestly I thought about you and I a lot, Tony, not in a super weird way, but like in this weird, in this way, that it's like, I think we use like a lot of like analogy language when we talk about theology. And part of this book is talking about how like that is the best way to learn.
In fact, like because goes this whole thing about like Copernicus and Coupler, like they coupler was like trying to describe things that literally nobody had language to even try to understand or comprehend.
[00:14:56] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:14:57] Jesse Schwamb: And so we talk about that a lot with theology, right? Because there is no language in some ways to talk about those things.
But that creativity doesn't just come. If you just chill and sit on your couch and just read in one or study in one particular vein of life. It's when you really open yourself up to like reading and talking about all kinds of things. And God has given us this great big, giant world with all kinds of knowledge.
So enjoy and learn and read lots of things like do the thing which you never thought you'd be interested in. Try it out. So go ahead and check out range. I like it. I think it's like a lot of. Implications for understanding of theology, that would be super helpful to us.
[00:15:30] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. It's funny, every once in a while, um, I get, uh, somebody who's starting a new podcast that messages me to ask for advice or for ideas or, or sometimes they want, you know, help getting started.
And one of the things that they often ask is like, how, how is it that you're, you've been able to sustain 300 plus, you know, 300, whatever that current episode count is, more or less never taking a break. And, um, where other shows tend to like fizzle out. And one of the things that I, I often tell people is don't pigeonhole yourself into like a particular gimmick too much, right?
Because if you pigeon yourself, like let's say you're doing a, a podcast that's just about, um, the Westminster Shorter Catechism. Well, what are you gonna do when you finish episode 107? You're gonna keep going. Well then you're gonna have to change like the very nature of your podcast. Yep. Give it. And that like is exactly the idea here is like the re one of the reasons that we are able to keep going is because like we're a generalized, I mean, we're specialized in that we talk about reformed theology or theology from reformed perspective, but we're generalized in that we don't have like a particular like gimmick or topic that we've locked ourselves into.
And it's that same kind of idea. And I think that this is. You see this in academics too, like in biblical studies you'll have people that do like a PhD on one, like one set of verses in the Gospel of Luke, and then they wonder why they can't get a job teaching somewhere. It's like, well, your, your only expertise is in this like teeny tiny niche topic.
How are you supposed to teach other. Other topics when you've only ever really studied this in depth, versus someone who does a much broader PhD may have a harder time finding a program to get into to do their PhD, but they're much more marketable once they're finished with their PhD. Um, and I think that that goes to any set of skills.
If you can only do one thing, but you can do it really well, if you find the right job, then you're probably the only person who can do it. But finding that job is gonna be tough. So, yeah. I'm, I'm gonna check this out. I think this will be kind of my next non theology book. Um. Non theology and air quotes.
Everything is theology, but non theology book, um, that I, I take a look at.
[00:17:38] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. I recommend, I think I had you in mind in some respects. I think you would like it. It's, it's not quite like productivity that we talked about, but it is about how do I think more creatively, how do I communicate more effectively?
And there's a, a massively strong case here for range and. I just think that's, that's super awesome. So speaking of gimmicks, gimmicks, like what are you denying against on this
[00:17:58] Tony Arsenal: episode?
[00:17:58] Tony Arsenal: So, um, I, I'm denying against something I saw at the grocery store. Uh, it's a well established longstanding magazine that has basically become nonsense, I'm denying against National Geographic.
Oh, interesting. So National Geographic used to be. Like nature and anthropology, but like current anthropology and maybe a little bit of like archeology. It used to be very objective, very scientific. Um, the most recent article of National Geo or uh, issue of National Geographic that I sat at the grocery store was 50 influential figures of the Bible.
So of course I picked it up and I thumbed through it. And I was dismayed to find, not only was Jesus just listed as one among all of the other 50, but several of the figures that they were listing as the most influential figures of the Bible were not even in the Bible. So for example, they have a whole landing page on people in the Bible.
So I guess they've been doing like a, I don't know, like an ongoing, I dunno, series or whatever. Uh, but they list here an article that says. Where is it? Um, there was an article about a Babylonian meet the Biblical heroine who beheaded a Babylonian and saved her people. I will give you a million dollars if you can tell me which woman in the Bible.
This describes
[00:19:18] Jesse Schwamb: my word. Uh, I would love I the things I could do with that kind of money.
[00:19:25] Tony Arsenal: Um. Is somebody actually in the Bible? See? Yeah. That's why I felt safe taking this back. 'cause it's not, it's Judith from the book of Judith, which is not in the Bible. So I mean, I guess maybe you could argue as a Roman Catholic, it's in the Bible, but like, come on, this is supposed to be National Geographic.
They're supposed to know the difference here. They're supposed to do their research. So, yeah, so don't, don't go buy, certainly don't buy this. Don't waste your money on it and if you buy it, be ready for a nice heaping dose of second command violations when you get to the Jesus section. Uh, but yeah, I'm just, I'm denying this sort of, this sort of movement in academics and in like modern and no investigatory, academics, I dunno what you want to call it.
Sort of like the history channel, the, the Discovery channel kind of thing. It to sort of like, feel like they have to investigate this stuff and then get it, and then they just get it all wrong. Like they don't even do basic, basic levels of research on this. Um, there was one article that was like, um, meet the Woman who, uh, king David's Rise cost this woman everything.
And it's like Risa, which was like one of Saul's Western known concubines. He, he just like, you know, there's like four passages in the Bible that talk about her and they make it sound like David did this terrible thing to Risa. But like, David actually attempted to defend all of Saul's offspring. Like he didn't wanna kill all of Saul's offspring.
And so that was, that was really frustrating for me to see that. So. I guess maybe don't check it out is the recommendation here. Don't check out this issue. Don't check out what National Graphic has to say. My son is very upset about these articles as well as you can hear. He is so angry about the Risa article.
He just can't contain himself.
[00:21:11] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, I, well, listen, I feel him on that because I'm, I'm with you. It's one of those things where have you noticed this, like around the, this always happens like equivalently with like the history channel around Easter. They were inevitably like some docuseries, like who is the real Jesus?
We were answer that question as if, and of course it applies Presuppositional, like the scriptures don't tell us about the real Jesus, like we need some kind of like extra biblical history, some kind of outside exogenous influence to really explain to us who the real Jesus was. So I'm just gonna jump on you with that as like a denial because that I find, if not offensive, personally, just annoying.
There's like all this material maybe that is like in the, the spirit of like my affirmation with range, like this doubling down and this narrowness where it's like, let's talk about Saul's concubines because like nobody's written about them and we're gonna just blow this up into such an extent where it's like, well, we really need to give them a voice because in some way David did this great injustice.
Yeah. And it's, you know, having too much time enough. Uh, enough of attentional focus on legitimate things. The first priority is the first principles. If we're gonna spend our time trying to like unearth what might be shocking, if only because it's not accurate, so I'm totally with you. But I see that like again, a lot like Easter or like when we celebrate Easter or Christmas, like here's a documentary on Jesus and you didn't know the real Jesus.
And it's always, again, usually the word real is involved as if like. All this, I cut to Paul who's like, listen. I met the real Jesus. Yeah. And the one that you described is not him?
[00:22:47] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, um, I, I didn't read any of the article on Jesus, but like, they also on their website have an article that's like, how does Jesus' childhood influence the gospels?
And I'm like, like, not at all, like a verse and a half words. Absolutely. So it's, it's kind of like just. Just if you wanna read about the Bible, then read some real scholars who read the Bible about the Bible. Yeah. And read the Bible. Um, and it, I think it speaks to this sort of like generalized, first of all, the Bible has become a subject of fascination, which says a lot about our culture.
That it's no longer like the bread and butter. Kids used to learn to read because their families read them the Bible. That was how they learned to read. There wasn't a lot of other education. They just learned to read that way. And, um. It's become a subject of fascination, but also it's become a, a subject that people still feel the need to know something about, even if they don't fully understand why.
So yeah, I just think it's not even like I used to say, like, yeah, these kinds of things could be good discussions. It's not even that, like if you wanna talk to someone about Jesus, you should just. Talk to them about Jesus. Don't try to have some clever intro about this thing you were reading in national.
Just talk about Jesus, just the real Jesus, not, not the real Jesus. That the quest for the historical Jesus or the Neo National Geographic Jesus, like the actual Jesus of the Bible. Not the, not the Christ of faith, the just, just Jesus. It's just Jesus. There's no, no modifier necessary.
[00:24:11] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, it's one of it's, would you say it's one of those things where it's like somehow along the way, the Bible didn't become a primary source, though.
It was always accepted that way. And if you study it and understand it, even in its in its own historicity, it stands on its own. It is a primary source. Right. But 'cause it is. Intimately coupled appropriately with a religious expression that somehow invalidates it as a primary source. So we need to like in our modern, contemporary culture, go outside and find like, again, like let me get historical sources.
And even sometimes I see like Josephus isn't even acknowledge as that kind of source. Instead it's like, let, we're gonna find a manufacturer and be able to speak into this way. And we would say, listen, God is playing like Psalm nine 19 style. He gives general and specific revelation. It is a hundred percent accurate because God always tells us the truth about the way things are.
[00:25:00] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. For real.
[00:25:00] Jesse Schwamb: And so that is the bottom line. So the real Jesus is contained in God's holy scriptures to us. It's unvarnished. It's the way we ought to understand it. We don't need anything else outside influences though. And I'm not talking about like commentary, I'm just talking about like those who would say the Bible is insufficient or does not portray for us an accurate representation of Jesus.
That is absolute nonsense. Why? Because God loves us. He wants us to understand who he is and the way that he's revealed himself in that way, and he gives it to us in the scripture. So not to mention like do we have any joy in salvation that God the father would give his son who would condescend to become like us?
Yeah. But without sin and have eyeballs and blood vessels and be tired and have to eat food and then die. The death of a human being on a cross. Like you just got me started, Tony. Yeah. This is, yeah. We, we need to transition. Otherwise, I'm just gonna go Philippians two style all over this.
[00:25:56] Tony Arsenal: Okay. Let's do it.
That's true. We, we could, I mean, we could, we say this all the time and it's true when we say it, but this really is a topic that probably bears more discussion from a, almost like an apologetics cultural commentary kind of perspective. For sure. We couldn't, we couldn't do it justice in one episode, let alone just like the 20 minutes we can devote in a affirmations denial segment.
[00:26:18] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, for sure.
[00:26:19] Jesse Schwamb: And I should say at this point, like, and we're slightly ahead of schedule, but not much in the way we're recording this. You sent me, was it a meme or was it like a, uh, lemme was just a text. Oh my. And it was, it was making poking fun at podcasters who was like, oh yeah, just get right into the topic at the 40 minute mark.
It's true, it's true.
[00:26:38] Tony Arsenal: That's the beauty of podcasting though, is you can, you just don't listen to us if you don't want to. Listen, there are no rules. Loved ones.
[00:26:45] Jesse Schwamb: We, we do what we want. I, that, that's not like a weird libertarian perspective. I'm just saying there are no, there is like no particular record of principle with when you need to start a topic.
Even on like a Reform podcast, would you agree?
[00:26:59] Tony Arsenal: It's true. Yeah. I mean, just it, if you don't like the podcast, don't listen to the podcast or skip forward. You can just skip forward. It's not like live television, not, not like anyone watches live television anymore, but it's not like live television. You just push fast forward until you hit that little 15 second button a couple times.
Yeah, that's true. Listen.
[00:27:17] Jesse Schwamb: Maybe people are not comfortable with this. We don't actually know. We don't get a report that says like you skipped anything that we said, we don't actually know. That's true. But now that I think about it, if I ever meet somebody who listens, that's the first question I'm gonna ask is, have you ever skipped anything that I've ever said?
[00:27:35] Tony Arsenal: I'm gonna be like, episode 327. What was Jesse's denial? Go. Go. I don't even know the answer to that. How dare you blocked. It's true. Well, let's, let's jump on into some Lord's prayer action at the 27th minute mark. So we are, we're ahead of schedule. Last week we didn't start literally until 40 minutes, which
[00:27:54] Jesse Schwamb: exactly that.
That's why that meme was like so perfect. There was like, for a second there was a part of me that was convicted and I was like, yeah, I'm fine. Yeah.
[00:28:02] Jesse Schwamb: So let's talk about the, the Lord's Prayer, and again, as has been our custom, as we've been praying this together, and I want to again, uh, confirm and affirm to everybody that you ought to be.
Using this, like you've said, as both like a model in which to pray, but there's no harm in using the exact words. I think you and I have made a strong case that it's helpful to use these words. So because we're talking about specific words, let me read aloud one more time, and by that I mean one more time on this episode.
'cause it's gonna come up again. The prayer that Jesus gives his disciples. In Matthew chapter six, beginning in verse nine, Jesus says, pray then in this way. Our father who is in heaven, Holloway, to be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
[00:29:05] Jesse Schwamb: So we're, we're moving again from one petition to the next, and we're finding ourselves in this place where we're asking, and I think in some ways this can cause some small amount of debate that God would lead us away from temptation.
And so probably we should start with parsing out what it means that we're asking God to lead us away from temptation, but we're not saying to God, would you not tempt me?
[00:29:29] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Well, I, I think there's a couple different, there's some elements to this that we, we aren't gonna have time to go fully in depth on, but they need to be at least verbalized.
So this, this is a passage that can be a little bit of a challenge because depending on how you understand it, you have to square it up with other, other sections of the Bible, right? So there are sections of the Bible where it seems very clearly that God, um, leads us into. Temptations and we, we can talk about what that word temptation means and what the context are, but just right off the bat.
He, the Holy Spirit leads Jesus into the desert for the purpose of being tempted by the devil. Right? So, so on one level it's, it's biblically true that God does lead people into temptation. And then you have passages like in James one where it says, God tempts no one with evil. So we have to understand, I think, carefully what this text is saying.
And I think our, most of our English translations. Don't really help us to get at the understanding that is there.
[00:30:26] Tony Arsenal: So most English translations and the way most people memorize it hear, read something like, lead us not into temptation. And so they, the, the phrasing, the placing of that word not sort of implies that it's kind of like not into temptation is the destination and Right.
Lead us is so it's a positive command or a positive request to lead us. To this, this location, not into temptation. That's actually not sup supported by the Greek, and I've heard entire sermons and entire, I've read entire articles that are arguing from the English text. It's really clear they're not doing any Greek exegetical work, that that's the way we resolve this.
That what we're asking God to do is to lead us into a place where we do not face temptation. Like that's the outcome is not into temptation. Lead us there. The Greek text is very straightforward. It's do not lead us into temptation. Right. Right. And you, it could even be more emphatic and say like, never lead us into temptation.
Yes. But that word not is negating the, the verb lead. So it's, it's a request for God not to do something. It's a request for God to not lead us. Into temptation. And that's, that's important because if we, if we are praying for God to lead us into not temptation or lead us, not lead us not into temptation as this destination, then that causes some challenges for why.
Why then would we pray that when Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit, like do we not wanna follow after Jesus' lead? And if we don't understand. This passage kind of in the context that we're asking God to not do something, then I think we might get a misunderstanding of what we're actually asking for. So the, the Greek, as I said, is very straightforward.
It's just simply, uh, do not lead us into temptation or never lead us into temptation. So in this petition, what we are asking for God to do is to refrain from the activity of leading us into temptation, which means that on some level we have to acknowledge that it's a possibility that he would lead us into temptation.
Um, I don't know whether we'll go there or not, but there's, there's a relatively straightforward way to square that up with James, so we don't have to worry about this causing some sort of unreconcilable contrast or conflict in the Bible. But we do have to honestly square with the fact that what we're asking God to do is not to lead us into temptation.
Meaning he could potentially and sometimes does. I think that that's a, that's a, maybe not an implication, but it's suggested by the text that God sometimes does lead us into temptation and so we're petitioning him not to do that.
[00:33:00] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah.
[00:33:00] Jesse Schwamb: I see this somewhat as kind of like what we were talking about before in the affirmations and denials to bring it together this, this idea that.
I think you're right. Like God could. But we're also like trying to stand in the shadow of his brother. We're taking on all that he's accomplished on our behalf and saying, because Jesus has gone through, he's recapitulated, he's rebooted in some ways humanity in the proper sense by undertaking and going into the place, into the stead, into the, that complete vulnerable space of being actually tempted and doing it to such a degree where he has had perfect obedience.
That we receive as righteousness. In some ways we're saying like, father, would you prevent me from having to experience that because Jesus has done it on my behalf? Yes. In some ways to me, like I think of, you know John ler saying, like when Jesus says like, can you drink the cup? And they're like, oh yeah.
Definitely. And he's like, no, you cannot. Yeah, there's like a great kindness in God. He's saying, ask that you would be spared because Jesus was not ask that you would not be forsaken, that you'd be remembered because Jesus was, and here we find that in this prayer by way of like negative, which is something kind of unique to your point, right?
It's saying like, would you ask for God to do the thing that you don't want to be done? Yeah, and that's a little bit weird, at least in our language.
[00:34:16] Dan Taminski: Yeah.
[00:34:16] Jesse Schwamb: But its meaning is really important because again, notice like the Lord's Prayer is not in the affirmative. It's not like, father do not tempt me.
That's like a holding unnecessary prayer. Right. Instead, it's like, do not lead, like you were saying. Do not lead me in temptation, which is. As my understand it, do not allow me to be near the allure of sin. Do not bring me near to the devil. Do not permit me to be in a situation where the enticement of sin will be greater than I can bear.
And the only reason we can pray that is because there is one who has gone before us. Who again is like us in every way, but what yet without sin, who has born up underneath that temptation, who carried that mantle completely and so therefore transfers righteousness by active obedience through imputation.
To us. We're asking that to be applied to us in our daily living, and in some ways, I can't think of anything more practical. It's basically like saying, God, would you pro prevent me? From getting into situations where there's gonna be massive nuclear destruction, like in my own life, in my relationships, would you do that for me?
Who wouldn't wanna ask that? Like spare me like, so one of the things, speaking of range and analogous kind of conversation. One of the things when my wife and I travel, we always pray or I always pray over our time of travel.
[00:35:31] Jesse Schwamb: One of the things I often pray is in the negative that God would spare us that he would not, uh, allow us to encounter like breakdowns That the car itself would maintain its composure that my wife, who is often driving very graciously, that she would be made alert.
We would be spared from calamity that the trip would be easy. In some ways, that's what we're asking for in this prayer, that in this position of saying, God, would you make my way, my path easy? Would you crush these large boulders into the softest sand between my toes? Yeah. Because you are great and gracious, and because you are the head crush.
You were the one that can take away all of this, and it is an asking of this kind of like great favor of God, isn't it? Because he has through his son, made a way, so it comes at a cost. It's a bit like asking like, would you apply? The price has already been paid onto my own life so that I might be spared knowing all the while that if God does not spare us from that, if in fact we are in some ways led into a path of temptation, that he would also, in the same way as Paul talks about, spare us by way of saying there is an out, there's a way of escape, right?
That also comes through what has been accomplished through Jesus.
[00:36:41] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, and I think. You know, this is, we are gonna probably break this into two episodes just because both of these clauses and, you know, we're, are so packed with meaning and they're, they're, they're worth, they're worth investigating and, and dividing the time to.
But by breaking them into two pieces, we also need to be careful not to overly separate them. Because the, the second clause of this petition, which is deliver us from evil, isn't just this abstract, totally separate. It's not lead us into temp. Lead us not into temptation. Full stop. Deliver us from evil.
It's not two petitions, right? So the but deliver us from evil is a explanation of what it means for God not to lead us into temptation. Right. So we'll talk about what it is and we'll get into questions about, is that deliverance from evil or from the evil? We'll get into all that next week. But the, the point of this is that we are, and I, I like the way that you articulated that in this petition, we are not, um.
We are negatively asking God. And what I mean by negatively is we're, we're asking him not to do something. And in so doing that, we're basically asking him to protect us. So just like when you say God spare us from any, any v you know, road accidents or bad construction, whatever it is you're asking him to spare you from, for safety on the road, you're asking him to protect you from those things.
And this functions very much the same way. And so that's, that's part of where. The resolution with James comes in is what James teaches us, is that it's not God that tempts us with evil. It's it's our own. It's our own evil desires that tempt us with evil. Yes. And so when we pray to God and ask him not to lead us into temptation, we are asking him to deliver us from evil.
And that's the means by which we are asking him to lead us not into tempt. Or to, to not lead us into temptation is by delivering us from evil, first and foremost, from the evil that's inside our own hearts, right? Yes. With without the evil in our hearts, temptation is a relatively neutral thing, right?
There are good things out there, and apart from the evil desires that we have, we can discern what good things are appropriate to grasp at what time and what things are not right. And if there was no evil in our hearts, we would never be tempted to reach after or grasp at for something that wasn't a good thing.
But there is, and so in this petition, we really are praying for God to protect us first and foremost from ourselves, but then also from the wickedness that's out there that is actively seeking to get us, which is where we, we do get into next week's differences between evil as an abstract concept and the evil one.
We'll talk about that, but it's, it's all wrapped up into that concept that there are forces internal to us and external to us that are, are. Actively trying to lead us into sin and towards destruction. And that is what we're asking God to protect us from when we ask him not to lead us into temptation.
[00:39:23] Jesse Schwamb: And that's somewhat of like a minority and unpopular opinion, isn't it? Maybe not like in the reformed,
[00:39:28] Tony Arsenal: yeah.
[00:39:29] Jesse Schwamb: World or tense. But I'm totally with you. That's why I think it's worth like parsing them out in some ways, bifurcating them at the expense of maybe. Somehow compromising, like their continuity, which is also important.
But we, I can we just submit, uh uh. Let me say this. I'll just submit. I'm a person born with a natural affection for sin. Yeah. So I have no shortage of opportunities to consider sin and to consider the desire to commit it in like literally in infinite varieties.
[00:39:54] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.
[00:39:54] Jesse Schwamb: That is my disposition. So like for instance, when Jonathan Edwards speaks of this, you know, when he talks about like sinners in the hands of Ang, God, what I think I was, I'm most moved about in that particular sermon is how he goes to this great length of, again, of analogizing.
The fact that you're kind of like on a slippery log, like you're trying to walk across some chasm of, you're like, it's your own weight that will cause you to stumble. That's all it takes. And so here what we're saying is, God, you know us best. You tell us the truth again about how reality actually is. And the truth that you tell us is that we are naturally depraved, depraved completely in the sense that every part of us is compromised, which means that every part of us without the restraint of God.
Seek after and have affection for sin. And so, like we said before, when God says no, what he often means is do not hurt yourself. Yeah. But we need some kind of external force, a transcended influence to say to us, I will save you. I will literally save you from yourself. That's what we're asking for here is that, God, we don't even know what to what today or tomorrow brings for us.
We've asked just now for our daily bread, and it's ours because you promised it, and part of that daily bread is to say, not only would you give us righteousness and blessing, bless the work of our hands, but would you save us from calamity, the kind of calamity which I would willingly run headlong into on my own nature.
I think somehow the temporary rewards of seeking this sin will somehow be greater than the enduring costs that will result because of it. And we're asking God to say, would you save me from myself? And so this prayer puts, I think, for me, into focus two things. One is how good God is to us. That he would do this.
[00:41:34] Dan Taminski: Yeah. That
[00:41:35] Jesse Schwamb: he knows what's best to like a good father. But the second that if I'm not praying this, I'm gonna be prone to run into situations while I compromise everything. That we're always this far away, not from losing our salvation, but from making a shipwreck of our salvation, aside from God himself, who reminds us that even in this great spiritual sense, we are still contingent beings.
Yeah, we need God every day, not just on the day of our justification. Every day. That's subsequent to that where we are working towards some kind of way in which we are working out our salvation as he wills and works within us.
[00:42:10] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, and the other thing I think is important, we haven't really touched on this too much throughout this prayer, but the, the context of Christ's teaching this prayer, I think is really important because this is one of those passages of scripture that gets memorized and recited.
We sometimes abstract it from its immediate context, right. But immediately preceding this. He says in verse eight, he says, do not be like them referring to the Gentiles for your father knows what you need before you ask him. And every one of these petitions in the Lord's Prayer is something God is already doing.
And so it's not, it's not. Um. We should be really careful when we pray the, particularly when we pray the Lord's prayer or the model prayer, whatever we're calling it, we are not asking God to do new things, right? Yes. Amen. God. God is already hollowing his name. He's already, uh, bringing his kingdom. To Earth as it is in heaven.
He's already sustaining us with our daily bread. He's already forgiven, forgiven us, and forgiving us of our debts as we've forgiven our debtors. And he's already protecting us from evil and lead and not leading us into temptation. So again, the there are times where God withdraws his protection. 'cause that's the other thing to keep in mind with this clause is that.
Even for unbelievers, God is restraining their sin. Right? That's, that's part of what common, what we talk about when we talk about common grace, right? Almost nobody, or probably nobody is as wicked and evil and sinning continuously as they could be. Right. Some people are more wicked than other people, so, so some people are restrained by God more than others, and there are various ways he does that.
The second use of the law we talked about, um, just common grace. The fact that we still have a conscience. There are all these things that God is doing that restrains. All people from sin and retrain his people even more so from sin, right? Right. The presence of the Holy Spirit restrains us from sin.
There are times where God withdraws that restraint even even with Christians, right? Our confessional documents tell us that sometimes God allows his children to fall into serious sins in order to teach them and chastise them, right? There's a purpose in it. But what we have to acknowledge, and this is part of why I think like this particular understanding of this clause or this petition is not super well liked in the the broader Christian world, but is typical in the reformed world, is this strong understanding of God's sovereignty.
Right? Amen. So when we say that, we say that God is restraining our sin. And we pray for him to not lead us into temptation. We're actually praying for him to continue the activity he's already doing, leading us into temptation or allowing us to fall into temptation. That's a quote unquote passive act.
God's never passive, but passive ish, right? That's a passive act in which God ceases to do so. And so when we pray that God will not do that, that's what we're saying is continue to protect us from temptation, continue to deliver us from, from the wickedness of our own hearts, from the evil that's in the world.
And in so doing that do not lead us into temptation. That is not to say just like there are times where our Christian May go hungry, right? We talked about that last week. There are proverbial, um, there are proverbial times. The statement that the Christian will not go hungry. There's this passage in one of the Psalms where I think David says something like, I've never seen the righteous go hungry.
Well, that's just not, not true in a practical. A hundred percent of the time promised sense. There are genuine Christians in the world that will starve to death today. Right? That's a reality in the world. The same is true here. It's a proverbial sort of a proverbial statement that when we say that God does not tempt anyone, we say he is not tempting people with evil.
He's not causing evil, right? But there are. There are times where for our good and for his glory, he allows us to fall into that temptation, and that's all the more reason that we should pray this way. Because that is a sanctifying prayer. It's a prayer that God uses to change us and transform us, to give us this desire not to fall into evil, to give us this desire to be delivered from the evil within us and the evil without us.
Right? That's a prayer that God uses to accomplish the ends of the prayer. And that's really the way it is with all of these petitions, and I just think it's really, it's really remarkable. That this is so frequently said without a deep level of thought. People pray this without really thinking through what they're praying, and if we're not careful, we really do sort of take this perspective of like, well, God, God does tempt us and he does lead us into evil and, and we're just asking God to do us as solid and stop doing that.
That is not at all what we're saying. We're asking God to continue his good work of preserving us. Even when we acknowledge he may at times have a good work involved in not preserving us, we are asking him to continue that good work that he's already doing. That's in my mind, that's how we resolve that tension that we feel between.
Christ very clearly being led into the desert to be tempted. Yes, we can do some linguistic stuff with like the difference, the difference between temptation and testing and trials. We can do that. Those are valid, but I don't think we even need to do that if we recognize God is already doing the good work and almost is always doing the good work of preserving us from the depth of our own awakeness and.
Although at times he, I don't remember what what it was, but it was, um, there was a phrase, it sounds like something a Puritan would say, so I'm gonna assume it was a Puritan where it was something like, um, wrath is God's peculiar work or his unusual work, like God's default is to be kind and just, and merciful.
Yes. That's, that's his default. Yes. And although we have theological explanations that explain how this doesn't violate simplicity. It is, it is. It's not contrary to God's nature to be wrathful, but it's not his default. It's not his default disposition. It's something that we, in a certain sense, this is gonna sound terrible, but it's a certain, in a certain sense, we have forced him into wrath.
Our sin has caused his justice to manifest as wrath. Right. That's, that's the reality. This is a similar kind of thing. It's not God's default. To let us fall into our own sin. It's, it's his default to protect his people and even to protect those who are not his people from the depths of their sin. And that's just, if we can get that in our head and, and be thinking about that, this becomes a prayer that's not like, do me a favor, God, it's praise you, Lord, for the work you're always doing.
Please continue that work in my life. That's what we're praying in this petition.
[00:48:32] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, I think you're totally spot on about that. Like God doesn't need to be PE to be provoked to love. He needs to be provoked to anger, right? His disposition is love towards us because he's kind and gracious and beyond that, what we're asking for here is to God, to honor his great love towards his children.
'cause is the prayer for children of the Father, those who have been adopted, those who were in Christ, that he would continue to fulfill his promises. So I'm totally with you. One of the things I, I sometimes pray is that God would prevent me from asking for things that he has already done. And so as we do this right, we, we just like, we ask God to be kind toward us for the, bless the work of our hands or that he would be present with us.
And I have to think as bold as this is that we can cut to God being like, yeah, I've, I've already done that. Like ask for something greater. That, that is like my, my normative default position for you, that I'd be present with you. I've, I've given you the signed seal and I've delivered you to myself by the Holy Spirit.
So that's why I think I get floored by this prayer in combination with one Corinthians 10, which I think you already referenced before, where Paul says, and, and this is just straight up, like full stop. No temptation has overtaken you. Such as is common to man and God is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able.
But with that temptation, we'll provide the wave of escape also so that you will be able to endure it. So here we have God's showing up as like the indicative and the imperative once again saying like, I'll provide a way. And what this verse kind of confers to me is that it's equal parts encouraging and condemnation.
At least the way I understand it. Yeah. Because what they're saying to me is that every time you fall into temptation, where you allow yourself to be in that, that is because of your sinful desire, right? It's not because God has in his graciousness right away as if like brother part of the Holy Spirit.
You might in that moment, take a second to process. To meditate, to metabolize on the goodness of God, to reassess and to ask for the Holy Spirit's protection. Instead, we want what we want. We do what we want to do, even if that pulls against what God has commanded us in his good law. So I'm totally with you.
I think what's better than being spared from a temptation is to have a heart that doesn't want to even seek the temptation to begin with. Yeah. And what we're asking for is that God would continually to transform us in such a way that our sanctification by His power in the Holy Spirit would move us in such a direction.
That we wouldn't get into the crisis moment, but that we would seek only what is good, that we'd praise only him. That we'd have no either other idols at all, that there'd be no gods before him. And in so doing, while we will never achieve that on this side, that we would have an interest in it, and that we'd ask God to promote that interest to accelerate our ambitions toward Christ.
And toward purity in Christ. And so it makes sense to me that after all of this, giving us our daily bread, our sustenance, that we might might move almost in hierarchical levels to saying, God, now that I have been satisfied in who you are. Would you protect me from everything that is not who you are.
[00:51:44] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.
[00:51:45] Jesse Schwamb: And so therefore, not make a shipwreck of my faith or my life or my relationships because I trust in you and I want what is pure that is I want you.
[00:51:54] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:51:55] Tony Arsenal: I mean, we, we will definitely pick up a lot of these themes next week as we talk about the second half of this petition. And, and I, I know.
People often, uh, people often give me feedback that like, they just wish that we had more time to talk about these things. Really? I mean, that sounds like people to say that. Yeah. That, that sounds like I'm making that up. But people, people tell me they, that they feel like the topics are rushed. And I'm glad that because we're doing this over the summer, because we're kind of spreading it out, it's giving us this space to really digest these things in a slower way.
Like it, I'm not scarfing down this burger, I'm like, savoring the steak. Right? Like that's the way that I'm looking at this is it's, I'm taking time to chew and, and to like really meditate on this stuff. Yeah. It, this is the good stuff. And if we're gonna pay attention to anything. Slow down for anything.
It's, it's slowing down for the instruction that the Lord has given us on how to, how to pray, right to pray. And for me, we, we started talking, when we started talking about this, we started out by talking about how prayer is, by definition, an act of faith, right? You have to start from a position of trusting the Lord.
This has just reinforced this with me because all of these petitions are already, you couldn't ask these things of someone that you did not already trust, had the ability and the desire to grant them. So, so I'm excited to sort of like chew on this, uh, petition for the next week as we get ready for the next episode.
And I would just really encourage people to like. Slow down during their prayer time and really pray. Pray the Lord's prayer during your prayer time. Yes, but think through it. Like really slow down and pray and meditate on each petition, each clause. What do they mean? What are you asking the Lord for? If you do that, I really do think that your prayer life will be changed.
I, I just, I just do like God. This is God's instruction for us on how to properly pray. Um. You know, and then on top of that, the Holy Spirit enables us to pray, and he fills in the gaps for us. I just, I don't think you can underemphasize or spend too much time talking about this particular topic.
[00:54:04] Jesse Schwamb: It's all about approach, isn't it?
I think that there are different traditions that employ this prayer as if somehow by repeating these words it accomplishes something merely because you are just articulating what has been written,
[00:54:18] Tony Arsenal: right?
[00:54:18] Jesse Schwamb: And I think obviously what we're after is just say it and trust God. To work in your life, to read you as you read this prayer.
But it is that repetition, that constant bathing in this that does transform us, I believe. And when we approach it in this way where we say, holy Spirit, you lead us into all truth. The Sun has given us this prayer to pray, which we believe to be the truth.
[00:54:42] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.
[00:54:42] Jesse Schwamb: And what we find in it. Is this amazing depth.
It's this amazing landscape of all the things we've talked about so far, and it's not that every time we need to like really relish in every single thing, but I do trust that even as I pray this, as I've been trying to put this into my practice more recently, that God continues to illuminate, that he's faithful to bring about new understanding and different applications.
That comport with all of the scriptures. And the one thing I realize above all things, as you and I have chat chatted about this, and as you and I have tried to pray this, is that it is the most brilliant prayer. There is just nothing. Yeah. That holds the candle to it. So no matter how we feel about the way we prayer, pray, or the way in which we have heard others pray that we think are particularly improved, uh, like just impressive or improve something upon us.
This really is the model and there's something to be said for going after these words and just continuing to repeat them, asking that the Holy Spirit would do something with them. Yeah, that we're not trying to manufacture something. We're not trying to like create like some kind of magic ordering of words that God would do something for us, but merely saying, God, you have asked that.
We pray this way. Your son told us to use these words. He says, pray in this way. Yeah. Would you do something in my life as I pray in this way? That is different than anything I've ever experienced in prayer before because I am just returning to you. They're very words that you've given me.
[00:56:10] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.
[00:56:10] Jesse Schwamb: There's something special about that.
And this is in some ways saying, God, you have hegemony over my logic and my reasoning. You've said that we ought to pray this way and I we're gonna do it. I'm gonna see what happens.
[00:56:20] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Well, since we're coming back to this next week, I know we usually spend like 45 minutes with all of the outro announcements, but I'm gonna just bypass that and Jesse, I'm just gonna say until next time.
Honor everyone
[00:56:32] Jesse Schwamb: love that brother.