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Tony and Jesse nerd out over the hypostatic union and the book of Micah.
Jesse Schwamb 0:02
Welcome to Episode 165 of the reformed brotherhood. I'm Jesse.
Tony Arsenal 0:16
And I'm Tony. And this is the podcast. We're brothers don't shake hands. Brothers got a
Jesse Schwamb 0:30
classic reference.
Tony Arsenal 0:31
Yes. Hey, brother.
Jesse Schwamb 0:33
Hey, brother, how are you?
Tony Arsenal 0:35
I'm doing well. How are you?
Jesse Schwamb 0:37
I'm doing great. I for some reason, I'm just excited this week to talk about Mike actually sounds horrible. like as if this week in particular, the Bible was more enticing to me the normal but I'm really stoked about this passage again. But I'm also kind of curious, I always love to talk to you and get into affirmations, denials, because I don't know if you feel this way about mine, but I never know where you're going to go with With each of those things,
Tony Arsenal 1:01
that's probably because I never know where I'm going to go until about 30 seconds before we start recording. So our little pre pre recording conference is me trying to figure out my affirmation denials.
Jesse Schwamb 1:12
So like, here's a little peek maybe behind the curtain for people. I don't know do you have sometimes you have an affirmation that strikes you earlier in the week? You're like, Okay, I gotta remember that. I gotta hold on to that. Yeah, you ever had that are all yours. Just kind of like we sit down and we're like, oh, yeah, affirmations, denials? What's that going to be about?
Tony Arsenal 1:27
Usually, it's a denial that strikes me earlier in the week because it's like something that happens online or I read something that I like, really hate. And I remember that. It's actually affirmations are harder for me to come up with and denials. But usually, it's one or the other. It's very rare. It's very rare that I come into an episode, like really knowing both of them.
Jesse Schwamb 1:50
Well, let's flip it up. Then let's start with the Niles. You want to kick it off?
Tony Arsenal 1:53
Sure. So you know that the Star Wars universe is this amazing? Seeing robust Jesse just spit out some sort of multi beverage I think the Star Wars Star Wars universe is this amazing, robust, like story universe. And I don't know if you know this because it seems like you all the sudden are really into Star Wars which is a little strange to me.
Jesse Schwamb 2:21
I'm trying to be
Tony Arsenal 2:23
Sure. So you know that the Star Wars universe is this amazing? Seeing robust Jesse just spit out some sort of multi beverage I think the Star Wars Star Wars universe is this amazing, robust, like story universe. And I don't know if you know this because it seems like you all the sudden are really into Star Wars which is a little strange to me.
Jesse Schwamb 3:34
Yeah,
Tony Arsenal 3:35
yeah. And so there. There's the first order which is like the big bad guys. They're shooting at the cruisers. The rebel cruisers are resisting cruisers up front. But the bullets or the laser blasts wherever they are, are actually are working through space like they're shooting cannonballs, there would be no reason or no mechanism for those to arc through space. So like that. There was the first thing and like, there's one scene where the guy is like, well, they're lighter and faster than us. You're in space. Nothing is lighter or not later in space, like there's no such thing as lighter in space. So there was that it was just bad storyline. I mean, some of the dialogue was so cheesy. So yeah, I'm really hopeful that this next one rises, Skywalker is going to redeem the whole thing. I'm a little nervous that they're going to destroy my childhood. But yeah, so I'm denying the last Jedi. It was it was a really terrible movie.
Jesse Schwamb 4:36
made me laugh so hard, because we we entered that whole denial thing. And then there was just this amazing defeat in your voice and it started with so the Star Wars universe. Yeah.
Tony Arsenal 4:49
Yeah, I haven't started the Mandalorian yet. I'm pretty excited to get started. I heard it's amazing. But yeah, that movie was just bad. It was really disappointing and Luke's character was Kinda like, I don't know, he was annoying. It was like they tried to make them like a human version of Yoda kind of like cranky and crotchety and he just came off as like annoyed and angry all the time. Like, instead of being like a crotchety old teacher, he was just like a crotchety old guy. Yelling get off my lawn most of the movie.
Jesse Schwamb 5:18
Yeah, I think that's pretty accurate. I've been trying to understand the whole Star Wars universe thing as best I can, having only had kind of like a cursory introduction, it seems. I think maybe all of the movies actually haven't seen some of the ones or tangents like I haven't seen Rogue One. Yeah, I know. It's not necessarily critical to the whole arc of the series.
Tony Arsenal 5:39
I mean, it is it is it it's Rogue One. Rogue One was a phenomenal movie. But the problem with the problem with Rogue One is that you know, all of the characters, like Right, right, all of them and the same thing with solo I didn't actually see all of solo I slept through most of it at the beach while you guys were watching it, but like, there's no drums. Matic tension in those movies, because the main characters of the movie in Rogue One, since you've never heard of them, and they're apparently war heroes, like, you know, they're going to die. And like the inciting conflict of getting the Death Star plans like, you know, they get them because they have them at the beginning of New Hope. So it's like all of the dramatic tension and like the what's going to happen, all of that is gone. So as great as as Rogue One was, it still was kind of a little bit of a letdown. And solo was not a great movie. And then it was I had all of that as well.
Jesse Schwamb 6:33
It's just, yeah, it's true. I mean, that's why those are interesting tests of storytelling because, you know, they have to be microcosmic, they have to create their own tension, right and own really captivating energy and story in themselves. Because you're right, you watching that you're like, Well, I'm not worried about the characters per se, because obviously these guys are going to die and these ones are going to persist.
Tony Arsenal 6:53
Yeah, yeah, I'm a little bit nervous because the next Marvel movie that's supposed to come out is black widow, and And it happens between Marvel civil war and infinity war. So the end of civil war Black Widow asked to kind of go on the run and she goes in hiding and then she's just back at infinity war. So this movie fills in the gap of like what happened during that time. But again, like, as as many dangerous situations that she might be in, or whatever like the main threat is, it can't be that big of a deal because there's like no impact and no consequence that we know for Infinity War. She obviously doesn't die because she's alive and infinity war. And on top of that, it's like it's like character building for a character that's now dead in the MCU. So what do we even care if she's like, the story, like, what does it really matter? So yeah, we'll see. I'm a little nervous about it, but I think it's gonna be good.
Jesse Schwamb 7:49
That was like a really good tonight and also kind of a weird, depressing denial. Yeah, I know. We're talking about fiction and storytelling, but still, that was the that was the best opening I've heard so far. So the Star Wars universe is so many places that could have gone and that just the defeat and the sourness in your voice was so palpable that that just made me laugh so hard.
Tony Arsenal 8:10
It did. What about you? What are you denying?
Jesse Schwamb 8:13
Are you familiar with clever haans? Huh? Do you know what I'm talking about? Okay, so I had a clever Hons experience a couple of weeks ago. And so let me give you the denial up front and give you a little bit of quick backstory. I'm really denying against cognitive bias and how I just think that's such a profound results of sin and our own sinful nature, and how everybody just has latent hubris that we don't even recognize, and that's why it's so dangerous. So, in the 1900s, like the, I think around the turn of the century, there was this horse named Clever Hans, who could do math. He was owned by this dude, William bond Austin, and the deal was like a mathematics teacher. He was like an amateur horse trainer, and He actually taught his horse or he said he taught his horse to be able to add, subtract, multiply, divide, work with fractions tell time. I think you've talked for calendar and some other like weird things, something with some stuff with music, too. And so basically what he would do is he trained the horse, he would either give him a problem verbally or write it out, and then the horse would stop his hook until he arrived at the answer. So if you gave him the question four plus three, he would stop seven times. And so here's the crazy thing about this story is, it wasn't a scam, at least like the owner wasn't trying to defraud anybody. And but here's what's interesting. Of course, this horse got like tons of notoriety because he was actually doing this stuff. He would go in front of crowds that give them problems, he would stomp out the answers and he would get them mostly correct. So like a noxious percentage, she would get correct. And so there was a formal investigation done and what they found out was that basically the horse was responding directly to the involuntary cues and the body language of the trainer. And the trainer his owner didn't even know He was doing this. That's crazy. And so yeah, it says he actually, as I understand in the story, the owner was like devastated to let the horse actually I couldn't tell time know how to do multiplication. And so just this like amazing story of like wanting to see what you want to see and that you know what you think you know, or thinking that you understand what you think you understand. So how this relates to me my own clever hands experience was, I've been going for runs in the morning and because it's crazy dark in the morning. And so I've been trying to get ready for these runs in the most respectful way I can with my wife, which is using as little as possible. And because I guess I'm a running nerd, I have the socks, people who run know about this, their socks that running companies make that are like you know, better suited and their tailoring toward running. They have some unique features. One of those is structural. And so there's usually a left and a right sock, right and it sounds crazy, but there's actually a left and right sock. And so, in the mornings, I had to pay attention to like which sock I'm putting on So I just grab a sock. And I try by like what little light exists in this room to just like see if I can read on the printing which one it is. And so for last several weeks, I've been going, you know, a couple times a week, I grab one sock of the two at the 50% chance of getting it right. And I keep getting, I was noticing I kept getting the left sock and I was like, wow, I'm pretty good at this. I was more like one of the chances like obviously, I know, statistically speaking, it's a 50% chance, but they're all independent probability. So if you flip a coin, you could get a string of five heads in a row wouldn't mean you're awesome at it, it just means that they're all independent. And so in the long run, they'll regress back to some kind of average but representative in a small sample, you could get a long string. So I'm like, I'm getting a long string of left handed sides every morning. This is just kind of cool. Like I'm just getting into it now to get because I think I have like skill and choosing just because it was really fun observation. So I'm folding laundry later or I guess this past week and I noticed my wife says to me, make sure you put your socks in your drawer and my socks in mind. We have the same running socks. And I was like, I didn't even know that. I was like, how can I tell? Which socks are which and she's like, well, your socks have an element for large. That's how you'll know. So this whole time
Tony Arsenal 12:24
I love it. Yeah.
Jesse Schwamb 12:25
wasn't actually so all this to say like I'm just denying against how easily like an IT you find this amount like people that are into like behavioral science, behavioral economics and finance. Like they'll say, I know all the things like I've done the studies, I've written the books, I won the Nobel Prize, in some cases on, you know, these behavioral cognitive biases, and yet I still fall prey to them. And I'm just like, man, sin is so pervasive, like yeah, turn that portion off. And so I'm denying against cognitive biases this week.
Tony Arsenal 12:54
That's pretty funny. So So wait, the Sox do have left and right They're not labeled with an L for left.
Jesse Schwamb 13:03
Yeah, it's they're labeled in a totally different way. I was just reading the tops of them and that was the size and not the footedness.
Tony Arsenal 13:10
That's awesome. But But you still weren't getting the left sock though, right? Because you're putting it on your left foot.
Jesse Schwamb 13:19
Well, that's maybe another type of bias that I can tie against. I think because in my mind, I thought I had chosen the right one. Right. Okay, there were definitely not Yeah, they were definitely not right. So, I'm telling you bias everywhere.
Tony Arsenal 13:32
That's amazing. I think that's amazing. Get it out of here. Get it out.
Jesse Schwamb 13:35
Get out of here. So what about affirmations? turn us around on this.
Tony Arsenal 13:40
Yeah, so I picked up a new book. I don't know that I would recommend buying this book because for some reason, this tiny hundred page book that looks like if you look at it looks like a little composition notebook. For some reason. It's like $58 but I don't know exactly how but I stumbled on it for $10. It's called on being reformed. And it's a set of essays. A couple of the names you'd recognize would be Chris kagi, from the glory club podcast and our Scott Clark from being our Scott Clark. And yes, essentially, it is a series of four essays on the question of what it means to be reformed. So Chris kagi and Crawford Gibbons kind of take a sort of skeptical approach on even being able to define what it means to be reformed. And then there's a couple essays one is an essay by Matthew bingum, about reformed Baptists and whether or not that's a useful term and it's a it's an act like effectively describing something real term. There's an essay by dg heart called Baptists are different, which I have not. I have not read yet. But I think it probably has to do more with the idea that Baptists aren't reformed because dg heart, I think probably seeing that position. And then there's a response by our Scott Clark to the first two essays, which he's going to take the position of restored. reformed has a very particular defined definite historical meaning. And you know, I've only read the first essay, but it was really good. And it made the point that it's kind of hard to explain in full, but the basic point he was making is, those people in our modern era who want to tightly deformed, define the word reformed in accord with the reformed confessions, have a bit of a dilemma that they have to face because most of the people in the 20th century who would define reformed that way, according to like the Westminster Confession, they're actually affirming the Westminster Confession in a way that the original authors of the Westminster Confession would not record. humanizes confessional because they've changed the context in terms of church state relations and, and that kind of stuff. So he's making the definition that we need to figure the the argument that we need to think a little bit outside of just saying like, well, this document is what it means to be reformed, which I think that there's definitely an element of needing to tie yourself to some sort of historic confession. But he's kind of making the point that like there's the reformed confessions in the 16th and 17th century. And then there's kind of this hereditary lineage that comes down out of that of other confessions and confessional traditions that draw their ancestry to the Westminster Confession, and he would include like the the London Baptist confession as part of that ancestry. So he's saying we need you to find a little broader. So it's a really good book. I mean, I'm not sure at this point, which part of the discussion I land on where you know, who I think it's the most compelling, because I've only read the first one, but like I said, it it's really dickless Lee expensive for some reasons to try to snag it on a bargain, or get it at your local theological library. But it's very good. I'm very impressed by it. That's
Jesse Schwamb 17:11
great, actually. It's really a kind of a almost eclectic mix of some really interesting topics.
Tony Arsenal 17:16
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it's something that as reformed people, we all need to wrestle with a little bit of what, what do we even mean by that? So some people would say, like, well, it means to be covenantal. Well, the early reform confessions don't have a fully developed covenantal theology. I mean, there's the seeds of Covenant theology are there but in terms of an actual expressed articulation of Covenant theology, we don't really get that in a full form until the later confessions really like the Westminster Confession of Irish articles, maybe Scott's confession a little bit maybe. So we really need to, to wrestle through that and think through it. I think it's just a good conversation to have.
Jesse Schwamb 17:54
Yeah, that's a wonderful, that's a good thing. You should get together with some people and have a do like a little mini book club on Because you're getting you're moving through a bunch of different topics, but super interesting. And I love that title like Baptists are different.
Tony Arsenal 18:07
Yeah, like that. Yeah. But again, don't buy it at full price. Even our Scott Clark who said he doesn't make any money off of it said don't buy it at full price for some reason it's really expensive. I think it's because it's a British imprint. So you probably paying some to actually get it over here. And it's not like it's a this isn't please anyone who is one of those authors that might hear this Don't take this the wrong way. It's not a significant enough of a book to be like mass printed in the US. So when you buy it, I think you're actually probably paying in part the the extra cost it takes to get a UK book published in the US, but it's great. It's called on being reformed. It's published by Palgrave pilot press. It's very good.
Jesse Schwamb 18:50
Without you're going to say that our SCART clocks like his his actual blurb on the back was please don't pay full price for this book.
Tony Arsenal 18:57
Yeah, he did say that on the on the hydro cast, though. So what about? That's great. What are you up for? I'm so
Jesse Schwamb 19:04
glad that you picked a book because I got an affirmation that is something we both use. I'm doubling down on because we've talked about it before. And you can take that book that you've affirmed and then apply it to the affirmation, which I'm about to drop. And that is, I'm coming back again to goodreads.com, which I think is just an amazing, fun resource for connecting with people and for tracking reading. So for anybody who's unfamiliar, Goodreads, com, which is a place basically where you can go and log both your progress through books that you are reading, and you can log all the books that you have read. It's also a great place, I find myself going here a lot. Now, when I want a decent recommendation for a book or better yet, I want to see what people have said about a book whether I want them weighing something out and I trying to decide whether or not I actually want to read it and invest the time. So it's kind of like social media feed for like your books, like if you'll connect with other people, and then you'll get to see what they're reading and how they're progressing through the works. And I just think this is a really fun way. To interact with people, I love it. When I see people that I know, reading books I read, or oftentimes I'll see somebody is reading a book. And I think I want to read that I would have never come across that, but I definitely want to read it. And something that's just popped into my feed. I think the last thing that's really awesome about this is it allows you to create what they call like all these shelves, which are basically just like categories for books that you've read. So I think right now I have like three or four shelves, like one for finance, one for mathematics, one for fiction, one for theology. And if you're like me, sometimes you come across somebody and they'll be like, oh, is there a book you can recommend? In this particular area? Or what's like the best book you've read recently on this topic? This having goodreads.com keep all this information is so useful, cuz it's like keeping track of everything I've read, and then I can jump into it real quick and find the list of things that I'd never be able to remember that I thought, Okay, that's good, because even like the books that you think are so meaningful, when I go back through my list, sometimes I'm like, Oh, yeah, that book was awesome. I totally forgot about that book and forever and so they have it here where you can reach them, catalog them. And keep like your own little organized library, especially for references and resources is super sweet. So you use it. What do you think of it?
Tony Arsenal 21:09
You know, I really liked the website, although I don't use the website all that much like per se. What I really like about it is I use an app for my iPad called laio l E I O. And what laio does is it syncs up with my, with my Goodreads shelf, and automatically updates my progress. But I can use laio as the interface and it like I use the timer tracks how long I read and how many pages I read and then helps me to project how quickly I can get through any given book. So Goodreads itself is a really great resource. But there's also all these other apps and different things that tie in hook into Goodreads that really makes it even more useful. For example, I can tell you that Jordan Cooper, who has a Lutheran podcast gave justification by Michael Hart and volume one for stars. He liked it apparently Go. So yeah, I think it's great. I mean, I I don't use it as like religiously as some people do. Have you ever heard of a book Tube Channel? Do you know what that is?
Jesse Schwamb 22:10
Know what is that
Tony Arsenal 22:11
book too is like a it's this new corner of YouTube that it's not new. It's new to me. But it's like this this weird like, super nice corner of YouTube of people that do like video book reviews. And it's interesting because they have their own like language and their own just like any other like informal organization. But they also have their own like particular kinds of drama as well. So I'm actually thinking about maybe starting a booktube channel, but you can you can really like a lot of the same kind of stuff that you can get on Goodreads as far as recommendations. If you get a good book Tube Channel, you can get that too. Most of them are really like absorbed with like modern fiction. So I've never seen a good theological booktube channel so there's like a merry go there.
Jesse Schwamb 23:00
Yeah, Filling in the gap. Yeah, I'm with you. I think that we are super book nerds because we're talking about somehow kind of basically taking and appropriating the YouTube real estate space to just talk more about books. And I love every part of that. I will get down with that. Yeah, every day, the week and twice on the Lord's Day. We're Well, in case anybody was not aware. We're super book nerd. So I think this is like a great time to affirm Goodreads. Because if you're thinking about getting your reading calendar set up for next year, which I realized those combination of words is super nerdy in and of itself. But if you're like me, and you're thinking ahead, it's this is a great time. So I also I think, if you're looking for a little bit of kind of encouragement and reinforcement for reading, it's also great because it helps you kind of track the progress of your books. It's like a bookmark in many ways. And that can be something that's very satisfying. And if your Kindle reader, it automatically integrates with Kindle. So you can just throw your book bookmark in your Kindle book, or publish to the website and just automatically update the website with the book. So it's just a really fun compliment. I think that if you're like me, and you have a library of books, like at least in your mind, theoretically that you read, this is a great way to catalog catalog
Tony Arsenal 24:08
catalog,
Jesse Schwamb 24:10
to catalog. And then to be able to like, share that when you need to and when you want to. So enough said, Go check out Goodreads. come find us on Goodreads, look us up and connect with us so that we can get a growing network of brothers and sisters who are reading good stuff because I love to see what you're reading when it pops up. It's you know, always some like crazy systematic theology book. And I love it.
Tony Arsenal 24:33
It's true. I have right now I think I'm reading five different systematic theology books concurrently. Well for and one of them, I'm listening to an audio book.
Jesse Schwamb 24:45
We should go Can you pull up your stuff right now and say what you're reading because it will show you
Tony Arsenal 24:49
Well, there's some stuff that I'm reading that isn't synced to Goodreads because like I'm reading part of a book,
but let's see see all
I'm reading the Feasts of repentance, which is a book in the new new studies and biblical theology series by IVP returned to me because in that same series, the economy of the covenants between God and man, which is where Herman Herman Herman Herman witzy, reformed preaching by sikhi reformed dogmatic by Gary artist FOSS, basics of biblical Greek fourth edition by William mounts justification by my corten systematic theology by Robert least some systematic theology by john frame Institute's of the Christian religion. And I'm being reformed, previously referenced. What do you
Jesse Schwamb 25:43
see? It only sounds like it was hyperbolic, but note that this is actually what's happening. It's all up and down. Yeah, I've got five right now and talk about like a random random list here is almost embarrassing. So I'm going back and reading getting things done. The Art of stress free productivity. That's by David Allen, that famous book. I'm reading the pastor in prayer by Spurgeon. Set your voice free by Roger love reform preaching which we have in common by Joe beaky. And then CFA program curriculum 2019 level one volume for corporate finance and portfolio management. So that's my list
Unknown Speaker 26:19
right now. Nice. Nice.
Tony Arsenal 26:22
Check us out. Speaking of social networking, Can I throw in a little plug for something new that we're doing?
Jesse Schwamb 26:29
Of course,
Tony Arsenal 26:30
so as many people know, by the time this comes out, the news will have broke. I was a, I was formerly an admin in the reform pub. But I have since stepped down from my admitting responsibilities. Life just gets busy and sometimes there's too much going on. You have to cut something out. But I have restarted the reformed brotherhood Facebook group. So everybody in the sound of my voice except Jesse who doesn't do social media, except reads apparently should go join the reformed brotherhood Facebook group. Because I don't, I'm not I'm not like planning on growing this to some enormous size. That's not the goal. But you know, as we've gone through this journey now we're at 165 episodes. We are, we've got people on just about every continent who listen to our show. We've got all this different stuff going on. It makes sense for us now to have kind of a centralized hub outside of the podcast for people to chat and talk about what's going on and to connect with each other, to share ideas to share struggles to pray about things together. So check it out. You can go on Facebook and just search the reformed brotherhood and you'll find both the page which you should like and the group which you should join.
Jesse Schwamb 27:48
Now, there's a beautiful Interjection. I try. Well, let's do this. So here's a bit of a challenge. I guess, like maybe this would be about the goal would be around like Brothers and sisters joining like the volume of people or I'll leave it up to you like maybe there's something else. What can we set as a goal that would like make me jump into facebook and join and do this?
Tony Arsenal 28:11
oh my
Jesse Schwamb 28:14
what should it take to get me to join skirt?
Tony Arsenal 28:18
grew to 200 members by January. Does that seem realistic? I mean, that's like a third of our listener base joining the group.
Jesse Schwamb 28:28
All right, listen, I'm in Sorry, I'm committing timestamp. I'm totally in if we can get 200 people by end of January.
Tony Arsenal 28:37
Oh, I was just saying by January if you want to say ended January that's like a that's like a lock.
Jesse Schwamb 28:43
Serious. Okay, well, let's make it a stretch goal then. So by like the end of this year,
Tony Arsenal 28:47
yeah. But by January 1 200 200 people in the Facebook group, and Jesse will join Facebook.
Jesse Schwamb 28:54
Yep, that's how it goes.
Tony Arsenal 28:56
I'm gonna go create 199 Facebook I'll be right back. Seriously though, check it out, we'll make sure there's a link in the show notes that actually will be because I care about us meeting this goal because I have been trying to get Jesse to join Facebook for real for years. So none of this none of this fake lurker profiles either Jesse.
Jesse Schwamb 29:19
I'd be like, I've made a horrible mistake.
Tony Arsenal 29:22
It's all right. You can just like have a Facebook and not use it. That's that's the thing too.
Jesse Schwamb 29:28
Well, speaking of the, like the opposite of horrible mistakes, so the Bible,
Tony Arsenal 29:32
yes, let's talk about the Bible.
Jesse Schwamb 29:34
Let's talk about the Bible. And we're back into Mike again, I'm loving this series, we're making our way through the book. We just rounded out chapter four, and we're about to get into chapter five. And man, it's almost like Providence is an actual thing and that God holds all time and uses all of that for His glory and his power. Even in silly little podcast. It's almost like that's the thing.
Tony Arsenal 29:57
It's true. Although we I have to like indefinitely postpone this because you're not allowed to talk about certain passages in December.
Jesse Schwamb 30:06
That's true. It's actually
Tony Arsenal 30:07
true. It's a law that you're not allowed to talk about Christmas passages in December. It's true. It's true. Just kidding. You can talk about whatever passage whenever you want, even in December, there's no law. We tricked you.
Jesse Schwamb 30:24
Okay, apparently, in this particular cast, I'm just finding, like, you're, like sharp witted sense of humor. And like all the sarcasm like insanely funny, like, I love that you had to clarify, you know, actually, just kidding. It's just, it's just a joke. We went back and forth and said, it's true four or five times, and wanted to clarify, it is really a joke.
Tony Arsenal 30:44
It's true. We did actually talk about that when we talked about the directory of public worship, that preachers can preach on whatever they want, in accordance with Christian wisdom.
Jesse Schwamb 30:54
preachers gotta preach.
Tony Arsenal 30:55
preachers gotta preach. So Jesse, do you have that text in front of you? Why don't you go ahead and read. We're going We're gonna do a little overlap I guess. So you're gonna read five one through what did we decide through nine?
Jesse Schwamb 31:07
It's like a big job but how about we about we hit just the first five to start out with
Tony Arsenal 31:11
I? Let's do it. Go ahead.
Jesse Schwamb 31:13
Okay, so here's Micah beginning chapter five, verse one. Now muster your troops, oh Daughter of troops see just laid against us with a rod they strike the judge of Israel on the cheek, but you, oh Bethlehem Africa, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me. One who is to be ruler in Israel, who's coming forth is from an old from ancient days. Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she was in labor has given birth, then the rest of his brothers shall return to the people of Israel. And he still stand and Shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord in the majesty of the name of the Lord, his God, and they shall dwell secure. For now he shall be great to the ends of the earth, and he shall be there. Peace,
Tony Arsenal 31:59
feeling We need to get like Handel's Messiah going on up in here.
Jesse Schwamb 32:04
Oh, it's coming. I'm hearing that. I don't know if that's what you're talking about. I
Tony Arsenal 32:07
feel like I can't hear that anytime.
Unknown Speaker 32:11
Well done.
Tony Arsenal 32:12
Yes. So this this passage, of course, is like the big mama of all Christmas prophecies. Right. So this, this passage is the one that's read. You know, this is the passage that sends the wise men to, to Bethlehem to find the Christ child. Right? So when, when the wise men or the magia, whoever these mysterious figures from the east are, they end up in Herod's court, because where else do you go to find a king except to the palace? And they say, where's where's the Christ? Where's the one who star rose and guided us here? And the Israelite priests at the of the day, knew enough about the scripture to be able to say, well, the Messiah is going to be born in Bethlehem and this passage is why and so you know, There's a lot of different things going on in the book of Micah. There's temporal judgment and temporal redemption and salvation. And then now there's, there's the coming Messiah, which has its own sort of form of temporal blessings that come with it. And then there's then there's the eternal reality that that Messiah brings into play. And this is one of the things you have to understand about the prophets. We've talked about it a little bit before, but it's this phenomenon called prophetic telescoping. And the idea is that the Prophet sometimes sees, or is revealed different events that may be separated by hundreds or even thousands of years of time, but he sees them like like overlapping mountain ranges where it's hard to tell the difference. And so, you know, muster your troops, oh, daughter of troops, the sieges light against us. Well, that's probably referring to a vision he said he's seeing or prophecy he's being delivered. an Oracle he's giving of the immediate Siege of Jerusalem which would happen within the next 50 years right within the next 40 or 50 years. But then all the sudden we flash forward from Michael's point of view, and we're jumping forward 700 years into the future 600 years in the future, and then all the sudden we're jumping forward again to he shall be there peace. And now we're probably talking about eschatological realities. So we're not only jumping forward 700 years from the perspective of Micah, but we're jumping forward at least another 2000 years from the perspective of Micah, because we're in the sitting here in the year 2019. And still the reality of Christ being the peace of the nation's has not come to be. So we have to understand that phenomena that not everything that happens in close proximity in the prophetic books is necessarily happening temporarily in close proximity.
Jesse Schwamb 34:57
right that's well said. I think this idea telescoping is So important because when we consider that the scriptures are the power of God, that these are, in fact, the words of God, God's specific communication to us in this written form, that we should expect that if he is who He says He is, if he is purely authoritative if he has sovereign control over all things, then what we see here is this brilliancy in some respects of him revealing that power in that control, by way of taking something that's happening in a contemporary sense, and not not impounding it or giving it meaning that doesn't necessarily have, but using one context to communicate a larger context and doing that, it shows that he is glorious, right? Because who else can do this thing? Who else can, at the same time provide this telescoping vision that is both relevant in the contemporary mindset, but also is so relevant in parts of time that are yet to exist? There is only one who can do that and it is God. So it's almost as if it makes perfect sense on multiple levels. And this is where I think as well this is A great passage that we read, but also because it is the scripture again, it reads us as well. Yeah. And what I mean by that is in the sense that, you know, as Paul says, You're sensible people, read the Bible and see if you do not see here, the prophecy of the Christ and the fulfillment thereof. And so here's one of those passages where of course, in the Christmas season, people uniquely want to go to because appropriately so it is both demonstrating the power of God, His ability to address a particular situation and then to use that particular situation, to also display his power in showing that he's in control of all things, and through types will bring will bring Jesus Christ into the fray, to be the peace, to be the strength to be the Messianic King. That is just brilliant, cuz I'm seeing like, everything that that people wanted here. Everything that people have always wanted is Jesus. Yeah. And so here is the scripture drawing us to that yet again.
Tony Arsenal 36:53
Yeah, you know, let's, let's dig into this specifically a little bit. So we commented last week, that in verse one It talks about how that with the rod they strike the judge of Israel on the cheek. And the commentators I've read are a little bit a little bit divided on this, whether that whether that's basically saying like the rulers of Israel, during the time of going into the exile are going to be struck on the cheek, or whether that's a reference to the imputed judgment that Christ receives on the cross. I tend to go with the latter. Some people go with the former, I don't know that the two necessarily conflict with each other. The rulers of Israel, even the really bad rulers of Israel, were a type of Christ in that they sat on David's throne. Exactly. And so so they still prefigured Christ, even if they were unrighteous rulers who were were receiving the guilt of their unrighteousness. But then we jump in here and this this is one of those passages that i think you know, we here at Christmas time we hear just most of the time, you know, when this is red, it's red as part of maybe like an hour. Advent candle lighting or it's a reading on Christmas Eve or it's, it's it's kind of in the background I don't know that I've ever heard a sermon preached on this passage. Right most of the time during Advent people are preaching on the songs of Christmas or the, you know, the different people that are coming or something you know, there's, there's all these different kinds of series. I don't know that I've ever heard a sermon preached on this. But there's such great, amazing Christology that reveals not only where the Messiah would be born, but the fact that the Messiah who would be born is pre existent. Right so verse,
Jesse Schwamb 38:37
exactly,
Tony Arsenal 38:38
you all Bethlehem of Africa, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah. Right? So this is a, this is the part we usually look at. This is the part that tells us where Messiah is going to be born. But then it says, from you, Bethlehem shall come forth for me. One who is to be ruler in Israel, who's coming forth is from an old from ancient So some commentators look at this and say, Well, this is just saying that like, this is a prophecy that had already been prophesied before. So like his coming forth had been foretold from ancient days. But I think the text is actually actually more talking about the fact that the one who is born in Bethlehem, who comes forth from Bethlehem is actually coming forth from out of eternity. Right? So he's, he's stepping into time out of eternity. He's coming forth from ancient of days. And he is the one who is coming forth from old. So there's this beautiful statement of the fact that this Messiah who would be born is actually at the very least, is not a not an ordinary human person. You could Yeah, some people do make the argument that it's it would be possible to read this as some sort of angel who's who simply had this existence that was prior to being born in Bethlehem, but in reality, this angel days. That's a phrase that means your way, right? That's the phrase that indicates we're not talking about an angel. We're not talking about some powerful old being we're talking about the Ancient of Days. He's coming forth from the Ancient of Days. He's coming forth from the Father. He's coming forth from a volt. So there's this statement in here that is so clear that you almost have to try to miss it, I think.
Jesse Schwamb 40:26
Yes, exactly. That's, I mean, it's it to be sensible people is to see what this says on the face, because some actually would even translate ancient days as from the days of eternity. So there's definitely a sense here, right. I think actually, that Micah clearly understands that the rulers origin long predates his anticipated future coming and there's definitely a more than human figure in view here. I don't think it's just merely like a recapitulation or repetition of some kind of previous or, you know, prophecy that he would have understood or heard. I think this is a unique delivering a message to him and that he is understanding and grasp. exactly what it is that he's writing with respect to, from eternity past. Here comes this Messiah. It's the one who predates all of us who has the existence since the beginning of the world and before then as well. So let me quote because you brought this up and it's great. There's a right on I think, let me read like Isaiah nine, and I'm going to, it's a little bit long, so it's verses two through seven. But this is like the quintessential you'll find embedded in the midst of this is the passage is going to be immediately familiar to everybody's ears. But Isaiah nine beginning of verse two reads like this. The people who walked in darkness I've seen a great light. Those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness on them has light shone, you have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy. They rejoice before you as we joined the harvest, as they are glad when they divide the spoil for the yoke of his burden and the staff for his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor you have broken as on the day of Midian for every boot of the championing warrior in battle tomo in every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire. For to us a child is born. To us a son is given, and the government should be upon his shoulder. And his name shall be called a Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, of the increase of his government and of His peace, there will be no end on the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it, and to uphold it with justice, and with righteousness. From this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. Yeah, so what I always think that's hilarious about this passage in it and not in a hallway, but in an ironic kind of way is, you know, I've never gotten a Christmas card that was like, you know, happy holidays. And the verse quote is, for every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumor and every garment rolled in blood will disappear over the fire. Yeah, even though that is the proceeding verse for the For unto us a child is born. So two things jumped out at me by based on what you just said. The first is that even in this amazing Christology, because it is the child is born. The sun is given, it's not the other way around. So I think you have the same understanding from Micah here that there is a child born a son is given the sun is given because he pre existed he was never just born. And the second thing is that there is something embedded in this that the coming of Christ is that coming in a sense of a sort of the division is the beginning. And it is the prerequisite of the judgment, in the sense that what you say about Jesus is what you say about everything. Yeah. And so I think even Mike is saying that to like, embedded in what he's pronouncing in this prophecy is this Masonic the Smithsonian, a king is going to be equipped for his work of ruling with the power of Yahweh. And in fact, like his his whole role being actual manifestation of God's revealed character, like in the Old Testament, you have the temple and there's so much talk. If you look back to the Old Testament, when the temples being built as a shadow representation of God's name, it's all about building a temple for my name, showing the glory of my name and here you have Jesus Christ. Who is that real reference sensitive and not just the name of God, but God Himself. And he's coming to bring the peace, but it's a special kind of peace. It is the peace for his children, which results in a reunification. And he talks about that later. But this bringing together a, a bringing and unifying together of the soul that was divided and harmed and destroyed through sin. Yeah, is now reunited by God because of what Jesus Christ has accomplished on the cross. But there is also a violence awaiting there is this tramping warrior? There's this this battle tomorrow, that's waiting for everybody else. And so I think that that there's like this, this bitter hard edge, if you will, I think to the incarnation, with respect to the fact that when God comes in power, he comes in power. Yeah. And so that power is resulting both in a amazing amount of pure unadulterated love and obedience. But as a result of that loving obedience, because the simplicity of God there is also judgment. Yeah, and I think that we often miss that in look This passage.
Tony Arsenal 45:01
Yeah, yeah. And I mean it, you know, it says here in verse three, therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labor has given birth. So, so this, this imagery of like a woman in birth pangs, right Paul picks up on that, that's picked up on in Revelations with a woman who gives birth in the desert and the dragon tries to eat the baby like that imagery of this woman in birth pains is the imagery of God's people prevailing in exile prevailing and in tribulation, until the time when current when Christ redeems all of the reality. So so he gives up, he gives them up, he gives up the people until the time of the birth of this woman who's in labor, and then the rest of his brothers, the rest of the Messiah, his brothers will come back in, right. So so we have we've now moved from in the beginning of this passage, we move from the historical timeframe that Micah is in to now. We've gone past where Christ is born. And now we're moving towards the eschatology here. And here in verse four, and this is just, this is one of those passages that when you read it, and you really get your head around what it is, you almost have to like, push your Bible back a little bit and sit back and just take a deep breath and sigh and contentment says, and and he shall stand and Shepherd his flock and the strength of the Lord and the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. Right. Again, now we've got this beautiful Christology that not only is the Not only is the Messiah going to be coming forth from the Ancient of Days, but he's going to be worshiping God. You can't have those two things be working if we don't have the static union. And then it says, and this is the part that just makes you want to side with contentment, and they shall dwell secure. And they're like, there are no more beautiful words in all of the Bible in that they shall dwell secure. It's just amazing. here's, here's what Calvin has to say and Calvin, Calvin is a smart dude, but he's not always super poetic. But I think that this is a fairly poor Adequate from the say it. This is out of his commentary and Micah he says, He shall feed in the power of Jehovah, and the majesty of the name of Jehovah, that is as much power as there is in God, so much protection will there be in Christ, whenever it will be necessary to defend and protect the church against her enemies. And then it goes on to say, and he says, Why? Because we have a king sufficiently powerful, who has undertaken to defend us, and to whose protection the Father has committed us. So not only, not only do we have the sun, who is God, and who is strong and capable of protecting us as much power as there is in God. That's how much power there is in Christ for us. Right that power is now power for us. But on top of that, the father has promised the sun and is committed our protection to the sun. So part of the obligation that the sun and this is a This is some like, top shelf Trinitarian theology. Part of the promise that the Father has made to the sun is that once the sun has completed his task, he will be given a people who have been prepared and made spotless for him as a bride. But what the sun has to do, the obligation the sun bears in the covenant of redemption in the pack them salutis the obligation he bears is to protect those people with his very life, the life of God was laid down to protect you and to protect me from the forces of darkness. If you can't find the assurance and contentment and security, if you can't do well secure in that I don't know why you can do all security.
Jesse Schwamb 48:48
And we have to think about the method by which that security was conceived and accomplished because what strikes me in this passage is that no human mind could conceive. Advent the gospel, it's just so alien and otherworldly. Especially with respect the fact that here's this King of glory, and he comes in unassuming power. So the way that he is accomplishing all this is by it's it's a quiet power, it's a strength, but it comes not in the way that we would expect it to be. And so that reference again, like to Bethlehem and effort though being small, I mean that those two terms literally mean the house of bread are fruitful. So here is the bread of life. He's being born in this small place. And the origin was insignificant, because it's not even referenced like in the list of cities. Yeah, that Judah takes in in Joshua 15. Just not even reference there. So it's really this such a small unassuming way. And this, I think, is what strikes me of how our King of glory works, that when he comes in and regenerates the heart, it's almost like he does it in such a gentle and surprising way. There is a winsome a gentleness which he does it, but the power the transformation of the change is so radical That it seems almost juxtapose the way in which he does it. In other words, I don't know that God necessarily runs in and just tramples all over everybody's heart so to speak. Yeah, it wins it over. It is this wooing, but it is not the wooing of a frustrated lover, because whom God Wus he always saves. Yeah. So there is in the sense of I'm making like this makes sense to you like this. I see this wonderful juxtaposition that I wouldn't expect of here is God coming in power, but he comes as the baby he comes to the nursing babe. He comes to the teenagers being born from his this mother Mary. He comes and of course is born in a stable and he goes he's born in this small, really insignificant, like backwards for lack a better way to say it place. And of all the places in the world we'd expect the King of Glory to come. Wherever we expect him to manifest His glory by way of trampling over every power structure. We just don't see it. We see it in the inward being. We see In the heart and the spiritual condition, because that's where the real battle needs to be fought. And so that's why I'm I continually encouraged when I hear testimonies when I consider reflect in my own life. When I see and look at, for instance, the words in the life of Paul, this is how we know God is powerful, because I think one of the hardest perhaps the most difficult thing in the world to turn around is the human heart. It is the mind that is natural, and is predisposed to fight against God is the clenched fist, that is in every one of us. And so here's this King of glory, gentle coming as a babe with power, though. And so this is the blood that will be spilled, that will eventually dissolve our fear in his blood come and bring liberation and come and bring this peace and like the word us for peace here that we talked about before. This Prince of Peace is not peace that exists in the lack of strong circumstance or distress. It's actually the peace that exists in the midst of that kind of thing and he That is a quiet peace. We see Jesus Himself exercising and this quiet contentment and reliance on God the Father. And so there's I don't know, like within this, I just see so much mystery I see so much beauty, because there are things I cannot comprehend. But my mind and tongue are just on the edge, I think so have so many times of seeing. Wow, like just being mystified. Is any that makes sense, or am I just this point that I'm just like completely rambling to myself?
Tony Arsenal 52:28
No. I mean, I think it makes sense. I mean, this is one of those passages that you have to really, it you know, it's like a good wine, like you have to slow down and taste all the different notes in it. Like you have to, you have to take a drink and just hold it in your mouth for a little while to let everything ruminate and and this passage, I mean, you could write an entire theological treatise about the hypostatic Union just in this passage, right? Sure. So so even that, in itself, theologically is amazing. And then you talk about all the implications of it, and so success In goes into some of these right? He says, In a word and he's talking about the fact that the Messiah here receives power from the Lord. Like, let's just talk about that for a second. Right? We sometimes are so quick to think about Jesus as operating in his own power. But we I mean, we've been we've I think we've done four or five episodes now where we've talked about, like, Jesus isn't a superhero, Jesus isn't Superman, right? He is he doesn't have the ability in his own self and his own person to just turn on his divine power whenever he will. Right. Right. So the power he receives the miracles that he does, he does so by dependence on the father in the power of the Holy Spirit. And right here is where it says it right, he shall stand and Shepherd his flock and the strength of the Lord. The power he receives is from the Lord, and in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And here's what here's what Calvin says. In a word. The Prophet means that God is not to be viewed by the faithful except through the interview. mediator, and he means also that the mediator is not to be viewed, except as one who receives supreme power from God Himself, and who is armed with omnipotence to preserve his people. But here's here's the kicker, right? The omnipotence that he is armed with, he received from the Father. Right? So so we're talking about the god man, the human Christ, who's receiving omnipotence from the Father to accomplish all things, and chiefly to accomplish our salvation. And you know, I was reading in boss this morning, and he picks up the same thing in his christological section. And he talks about basically how you know, in, in the the reality of the mediator, we have to always, once Christ takes on flesh, we no longer can consider him to be God and abstract. We now must only think of him as the mediator as the god man, right? Not just God, not just man, but as the god man. And that's something that I think we really miss. Like, I don't even think about that very often that it's so easy for us to sort of slip back into this deset Christology, where we lose sight of the fact that the power that the sun is received the power that the sun executes, as the god man is power that he's received from the Holy Spirit. We very quickly flip back into this idea that Christ is just God with a flesh suit. And he, you know, he knows things because he's God, he does things because he's God, he is things because he's God, but in reality, all that Christ is in does for us as the mediator he does in the power of the Holy Spirit. And I think that that that's where it comes in here is that this passage is a beautiful Trinitarian passage about our redemption, in that it's the power of the Lord, the power of Yahweh, which comes from the Father by the Spirit that the Messiah can be the shepherd of his flock but he couldn't be the shepherd of his flock if he wasn't also man. So right in this passage, we have the not just, you know, yeah, blah, blah, blah, great. It's a Christmas passage about the incarnation. But it's not just this sort of surface level Christmas passage about the incarnation. There's an entire theology of the hypostatic Union packed into these five verses that I have never seen or talked about this verse in that context before.
Jesse Schwamb 56:29
I actually think about this a lot, especially at this time of year because sometimes I don't mean any disrespect by this. A lot of sermons, they focus on the low hanging fruit here, which is this idea of God with us, right? In many respects, God has always been with us, right? There is a special way in which he makes himself to dwell with us in this physical sense as you just described it, but here's it blows me away about that and where I think we often kind of leave it there and we forget to take it up and run with it more with the idea. And that is, there is a permanency in this God, man, but that's what blows me away. Yeah it would be enough if there was kind of this just temporary encasement of flesh and he can come and be the god man and be like us. And OBO perfectly obedience and of course, cover our sin by that perfect obedience, earning what we could not earn for ourselves. That would be enough. But the fact that Jesus dies, is raised from the dead by the power of God through the Holy Spirit, and then bodily ascends eyelashes, arm hair, yeah, like teeth, to be in the presence of the father as the perfect human being in stands in identity with me, even right now as a human being as the god man blows me away. That's like, I think such an extraordinary gift of God, that He would forever identify with his creation in that way, not temporarily, like this is just unparalleled in any kind of worldview in any kind of religious system. And I think the reason why it's unparalleled and extreme is no human mind could conceive or invent the gospel. And so what we're seeing here is the real work of the only one who could do this kind of work and bring it to And that is God Himself. So it's just amazing. Like, I wish I had better words, but there are no good words to describe, I think how much God has done for us in Jesus Christ.
Tony Arsenal 58:10
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I know we're definitely not going to get to the rest of this passage because there's there's so much here and we're already out of time. But, again, I mean, I just keep going back to that, like this is a passage that you just have to chew on. Yeah, chew on it, you have to go back to your sources. You have to look at what the the fathers of the faith in various generations have said about this passage. And at the end of the day, what we have to realize and this is this is what blows my mind is when the the Jews of Christ day they knew the scriptures, right. They knew enough about the scriptures to rightly predict and say, Well, besides can be born in Bethlehem. They went straight there and found him like it wasn't as though they had to go look around, right sometimes we sort of think about like, oh, the star, you know, the star form, it's like spotlight on the ground. And they just walk to where the spotlight was. That's probably not what the text is saying. Like they came to Herod's palace because the star had guided them to Israel. And the star rested over the house in a general sense. But that I mean that there's Bethlehem wasn't that big, but there's a lot of houses like there's more than one house, but they knew to go to Bethlehem. Because the Scriptures for told it. And here's here's where I'm going with that is that even though this is plain as day clear as day in Scripture, right, Herod knew enough to go to the scriptures and find where the Messiah was be born, and rightfully predict and understand where he was to be born. Yet the power of the Scriptures had not transformed him and saved him such that he's still then committed infanticide, right. So we have to come to the scriptures. We have to chew on it and most importantly of all, we have to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal it to us, because looking at this passage, being able to use our intellect to say, yeah, incarnation, hypostatic, Union Trinity at all there. That's not enough. We have to let the spirit or we have to ask the spirit with the bag, the spirit to illuminate this to us. And here's the best part. He wants to do that he wants to give us that good gift. He's already purposed to give us that good gift. And the birth of Messiah was in part to be able to give us the gift of the revelation illumination, the Holy Spirit because he lives in
Jesse Schwamb 1:00:33
Right. Right. Yeah, let me say one more thing that just really came to my mind as you said that and that is when things we should remember as we celebrate this time of year is that when Jesus draws near, of course, nothing remains the same. But there's always a great stirring up. Yes, stirring in our hearts as a stirring up in our circumstances. And we see that demonstrated in his life over and over again, but there is almost a violence of violence of the heart that is warring against The spirit of violence sometimes in our world because there was a profound rejection of Christ a trying to cover up as a daddy trying to defeat him. And so even as a babe, we see that because what Harold Herod tries to attempt in trying to destroy Christ is it's almost like everywhere he goes, there is this kind of response. Yeah, so it's no different in our own world as the Holy Spirit works in our lives. I think we will struggle with this profoundly. Because when Jesus draws near, everything gets turned inside out and upside down. I love this idea of that. Like I said before, there's so many people that have beautiful testimonies, of being through very difficult times, and struggles, again, is rescued from those things. But my story is not quite that one. It's more one of a sense that God has rescued me and saved me. And now all my life is just trying to recover from that I'm still trying to recover from that and every day, as God is good to me, by revealing to the power of the Holy Spirit, what it means to live rightly and wholly, to have a purified Mind such that my heart is transformed that it's always warm all the time. And I'm just trying, I'm hoping for the day where it'll wake up and oh, it'll be easy. Yeah, that Day will only be waking up in glory. And so there's still always this warning. And we need this king who is both the Prince of Peace, the one who holds up the government on his shoulders, and the one who has the full power and authority to defeat our enemies. This is the one we need. We need the Messiah that Mike is talking about, both in the contemporary sense in his like practical way but also an Escalade. eschatological sense as well.
Tony Arsenal 1:02:33
Yeah. Yeah, that's a good note to end on. Jesse. Tony, since we talked about a Christmas passage today. Yes. You know, what makes great Christmas presents.
Jesse Schwamb 1:02:46
What Well, actually, I need some ideas for great Christmas presents. Would you please share
Tony Arsenal 1:02:50
reformed brother had merchandise. Thanks, Greg. Chris.
Jesse Schwamb 1:02:52
That's I should have thought about that. And where would somebody go this is such a setup. Where would somebody to find such Said amazing gifts of the reformed brotherhood type
Tony Arsenal 1:03:02
you can check out confessional weird, calm. There's some awesome reformed brotherhood gear. There's some awesome reform pilgrim gear, who are a proud part of the reform brotherhood. They're good brothers in the faith, they have a great show. And you can also pick up some of our gear from podcasts experiments like the public domain, confessional web. com. There's also a bunch of other really cool stuff on the website to beyond just our gear. So check it out. If you're looking for a midwinter, no reason gift, you can find it at confessional were calm.
Jesse Schwamb 1:03:36
And of course, anything that you purchase on that site that has that beautiful reformed brotherhood logo does as well a small, small portion of that goes to support the cast here. And of course, we're always appreciative of that.
Tony Arsenal 1:03:48
It's true. We would love it. You know, honestly, we would love it if you got some reform brotherhood gear if you took a picture of it, and put it up in the Facebook group, but you have to join the Facebook group first. Yes.
Jesse Schwamb 1:03:58
Yes, so all 200 people that are going to join the Facebook group allegedly before the end of the year and forced me to join Facebook, post a picture of yourself wearing some sweet sweet referring to brotherhood paraphernalia.
Tony Arsenal 1:04:13
It's true I have another Photoshop challenge other this one will be relatively easy. The photo of you with your face photoshopped onto the rocks body, which I can confirm is a is an accurate representation of your physique. I would like it if someone would Photoshop that so it looks like not only is Jesse's face on the rocks body, but Jesse's face on the rocks body is wearing a reformed brotherhood, I guess, spandex shirt, I guess it wouldn't be a T shirt. But if you guys could get on that, I would love it. I would love it. I expect that by Thursday.
Jesse Schwamb 1:04:50
We should mention that not only do we have fantastic listeners and brothers and sisters, but I sense that we have like a disproportionate number of listeners who pretty skilled in Photoshop because the photoshopping of my head on to various other people is like not corny photoshopping. Like, it's pretty good.
Tony Arsenal 1:05:11
Yeah, I showed that picture to mom and she actually was like, you know, if I didn't know Jesse, I could actually believe that was real photo. Which was sort of backhanded a little bit. I don't think she meant it that way. But it was a good Photoshop, not the one the one where it was like him with his like bare chests and chat tattoos. That one wasn't quite as good. I mean, it was a good Photoshop, but not believable. But the one where he's wearing like the type black t shirt, I could totally see. You could get jacked like that.
Jesse Schwamb 1:05:40
I can see it well. Yeah, the shirtless one was just confusing because I don't have that many tattoos. Otherwise, it would be pretty darn close. It's
Tony Arsenal 1:05:46
true. We're going to get that tattoo at the beach though. The Rock tattoo,
Jesse Schwamb 1:05:50
like our whole left side. It's like a whole like a pictorial like Hawaiian type, like tribal.
Tony Arsenal 1:05:57
Yeah. I think it's Minoan Minoan. That's what Yeah, yeah, like marijuana.
Jesse Schwamb 1:06:03
Yes. Well, well really well done really well. This has been some like premier podcasts in between, like the hypostatic Union and a full breakdown of the rocks tattoos. Really, what more could you want out of a podcast? So this is a people.
Tony Arsenal 1:06:17
Also all the spoilers you could ever ask for was Star Wars.
Jesse Schwamb 1:06:23
Did we do a whole episode the ones where we just did like 45 seconds of straight spoilers.
Tony Arsenal 1:06:28
We did. We did. It was April Fool's Day episode. Also, didn't you and Conrad do like a seven hour episode explaining the force.
Jesse Schwamb 1:06:38
There is I mean, technically, maybe there were seven hours of recording that got her down to 30 minutes. But there was he's an expert on that. So I will defer to him. Yeah, people can go in and check that out. I'm trying here's the thing. I like the I like the Star Wars idea. I'm having trouble really waiting into and getting my arms around the Marvel Universe thing. I think it's more expensive. I could be wrong about that people probably are wanting to punch me in the neck right now. No, I think it is screaming.
Tony Arsenal 1:07:04
I think it is. If you if you look at just the movies, it definitely is.
Jesse Schwamb 1:07:08
So it's intimidating to me Star Wars. I have an affinity for like, you know, everybody grew up watching different things. I remember watching those things, but I'm also getting it's almost like so I know how much you love Star Wars. I know how finely tuned Your mind is around that entire story arc. So it's also one of those things where when you see somebody really enjoying it, it makes you also have like a new and profound appreciation for that thing. And so that's part of what's been happening last several years, I've been like, wow, this really is a really interesting, fun, eclectic, and really thoughtful tale. And so I've just been trying to learn more about it and just enjoy the movies. I watched solo and I thought for like it being a standalone movie. It was just good clean fun. Like it was a lot of great yeah, Star Wars type fun. And so I think it's it's still done its own but then I remember part of the fun for me was I saw it and I was asking you like is that really how he got his name? Mike and you're like, Yeah, I don't know. It doesn't. We don't know. What about this? You've got Yeah, we don't really that's just part of the things. Yeah. And then talk to people about them. Yeah, that's my plug for Star Wars.
Tony Arsenal 1:08:11
All right. Well, there you have it, folks. Jesse's gonna join Facebook. If we will see 100 members, and he loves Star Wars now. I don't even know who he is anymore.
Jesse Schwamb 1:08:24
Well, it wasn't that I never loved it. It was that I didn't know enough about it to like really appreciate it. So I'm, I'm kind of fanboying it these days, but I think also there's been like a Star Wars resurgence like since Disney a little bit of that whole bad boy. It's kind of like a coming back. So I'm just curious. I would love to like go back and read the books. But I think you and I've talked about this in the past. And apparently that's like a really mixed bag like some people feel very strongly about the books. Others feel like it's not proper canon. Some feel like it's some kind of commingling of what's proper and what's not. So it's not
Tony Arsenal 1:08:57
it's not there's no debate about whether it's Canada or not, it's absolutely not canon.
Jesse Schwamb 1:09:03
Oh, really? It's 100%.
Tony Arsenal 1:09:03
There. So there are, there are some books that have come out since Disney purchased. All right, well, we'll have to ask Conrad about this. But there was a bunch of books that were written after the original trilogy came out before the prequel trilogy came out. That Okay, sort of like moved the story on past the original trilogy. And all of those were considered canon until Disney bought the rights to Star Wars. And then what they said is, those are all not canon anymore. So the only thing that was canon where the movies, a handful of like cartoons that had been made, and then anything else that was produced after that, so those are called Star Wars Legends, you think of them kind of like, I mean, they're like the Apocrypha of the Bible. They're like fanfiction, basically, of the Star Wars universe. So some of those ideas have worked their way into the movies. But yeah, there's no different They're not cannon at all, which is lame. Some of the some of them are really good stories.
Jesse Schwamb 1:10:04
I think we should end on this point. This is like I feel like we coined so many funny and unique things in this podcast. Like I noticed. We've said the words it's true about, I don't know 60 times in a sock so it's true. I also liked the idea of the that's Jesus again should be a bumper sticker. But my favorite one from today where I think we should end it is apocrypha equals fanfiction.
Tony Arsenal 1:10:27
Also, the me me just yelling Oh no, it's 100% not canon. would be like someone's like, have you heard of the Book of Enoch and be like it's 100% not Canada. Second, Maccabees. 100% and I cannon
Jesse Schwamb 1:10:42
I love it. So many applications.
Tony Arsenal 1:10:44
I know. Well, Jesse, until next time, honor everyone. Love the Brotherhood.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai