Season two of Love in Context podcast welcomes you. Get ready for engaging unscripted conversations
with your hosts, Ben and Spencer. Our mission remains unchanged to explore the Bible through
the powerful lens of love. In this new season, we'll embark on a journey together, unearthing
fresh insights and gaining deeper understanding of how we can love God and live out our faith
in practical ways. So let's dive into this season of Love in Context, where love in the
context of the Bible intersect to transform our lives.
All right, everyone, welcome back.
Campside, fireside. I think fire is like campfire is like your love language.
It's therapy. Yeah, is what it is.
Hot dogs, mangoes, dried mangoes and
campfire, hunting, fishing, and dried mangoes.
Yeah, there are no hot dogs.
I mean, I like hot dogs.
Listen, here's the thing. I'm just we've talked about this in the past, but you can eat some hot
dogs. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah. It's common for me to put like four to six hot dogs down.
Forty six. Forty six.
Yeah. Four to six.
Joey Chestnut. Let's go.
Yeah. Yeah.
How many did Joey Chestnut do?
I don't know.
Wasn't like 17 or something like that.
He would treat me like a hot dog eater.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, he's a professional eater.
Yeah. It's always crazy to me on professional eaters, like how much they can eat and they're
not very big people.
Like there's their stomach coming and they're done.
They're just like, like, and then they go back to skinny.
And I'm like, how are you doing that?
Do you do it? Yeah.
Right. I'm sure there's an actual science to it.
So anybody wants to email us a Wikipedia article?
Well, we'll definitely look at it because let's be real.
We're not going to look at it.
The time we finish recording this episode, we're not going to remember to Google.
Nope. Nope.
So recap and James.
Yeah. And we were going to do this with Brian Qualls, but unfortunately, they are now down in
Idaho.
Our loss is Idaho's gain for sure.
I did see on on the Facebook when he posted and he's like, it's 103 degrees.
I was like, oh, did I forget to mention it gets hot down there?
So, yeah, yeah.
I was talking to someone today and they're like, oh, like, I just I just love the heat, like
places that are like 115 and summer and stuff like that.
And I'm like, you're a horrible human being.
I didn't say that, but that was what was going through my head.
It was like, I was like, yeah, no, it's like this sounds miserable.
Well, Tara's sister, we were just down visiting and it was 85 and she's like, oh, I'm getting a
little chilly.
We like what we mean, you're chilly.
I mean, I mean, shorts and a T-shirt sweating.
And you're like, I can't be there more without being offensive.
Yeah, it's so good.
It's a book of James.
Yeah. Just recapping.
So jumping back to chapter one.
Yeah. Like what are what are the what are the big things like in James?
Like when we're walking as Christians and like we're having conversations, like if you're
talking about the book of James and you're with your believers, you're in your your family
that we talked about where you're you're choosing to invest in each other.
What are the pieces that are really important?
Three things I can think of is one is acknowledging that life's not going to be easy.
Because James is writing to a context in turmoil.
Right. Right.
That's one.
But that also with it not being easy, it becomes an opportunity for God to do great
things. Absolutely.
That in chaos is the opportunity for God to reign supreme.
Absolutely.
So that's one is that life's not going to be easy.
Right.
And I think oftentimes with that, we mix up what the definitions of easy and good, because
like we'll take it.
We'll take it like, well, this is good.
That doesn't mean it was easy.
Right.
I have to tell everybody why I got distracted over here.
You have ducks.
Yep. And I was trying to figure out what that flapping noise was.
That's ducks. There is also a chicken over there that is currently on a fast because
it's going to become dinner.
Oh, so.
Yeah. So I got some chicken nuggets.
Mm hmm. Yeah.
Yeah. So and some of you are like, you're going to do what to a chicken?
I was like, yeah, you're right.
You can think about it.
We won't say it on YouTube.
Yeah. But so one is life's not going to be easy.
There's a difference between good and easy.
And sometimes good things are really difficult.
It's true. Really difficult.
Well, yeah, I would actually say most things that are good are not easy.
Mm hmm. Right.
Marriage is really good.
It's not easy.
Mm hmm.
Parenthood is really good.
It's not easy.
And if anybody types of comments says, no, parenthood is really easy.
I was like, yeah, I'm not going to say that.
I'm not going to say that.
It's really easy. I was like, we need to have a conversation with both you and your
spouse and see if you both agree.
Oh, no, no, they just got easy kids.
Maybe, maybe, maybe.
Yeah.
So that's one.
The second thing is James has to deal a lot with how you treat people.
Correct.
So you see that in James Chapter two when he's talking about partiality and
favoritism, right?
Where he's like, OK, if someone comes in as well dressed, looks like they have
money and you treat them better than the person who's poor or looks homeless.
He's like, you have a problem.
Do you think you think maybe one of the ones rather than well dressed or poor?
I mean, because that is still an issue in modern society, but I think it's one
that we're maybe more cognizant of.
One of the ones that I think we don't necessarily recognize is when somebody
might walk a different side of the aisle than us politically.
Showing partiality in the way that we love people.
That one hits you where it hurts.
You know that God loves all people.
Yeah. And it's important to love all of them and not show partiality just for
people that you might agree with more.
And yeah, yeah.
And it's it's tough.
It's just loving people is messy and it's difficult.
And because it's much easier to write someone off because they disagree with
you than it is to embrace them in the mess.
Yeah. Right.
But we're called to embrace them in the mess because that's exactly what Jesus
said. Yeah.
And I was having this conversation because this is related ideas.
So I'm not going to get too far off the rails because we are recapping.
But this idea of like when Jesus comes, he he suffers at the hands of men is
crucified, dead, buried and resurrected.
Right. But we talk about the suffering of Jesus and there's there's throughout the
scripture, they talk about how we're invited into the suffering to.
Right. But the purpose of Jesus's suffering was actually to draw all men close.
Right. Like if we go back to the Levitical, like when we talked in Leviticus, when
you have this sacrifice, you lay your hands on and you put your identity onto
the animal, the blood is taken and then it carries you to this place.
Right. And so as we cast our identity onto Jesus, his suffering actually brings
us into the third room of God.
Yeah. And our suffering can do very much the same thing as we put the kingdom of
God on display so that those that are on the outside are being brought in through
the grace of Jesus Christ.
Yeah. Right.
Your suffering is not pointless.
No, it actually serves a purpose when you're serving God.
It is actually it is a it is a another way that people are being drawn up to the
kingdom. Now, I want to stress there are sufferings that we bring on ourself.
I thought Brian in week two of James said this really well.
He said he's like, there are trials you bring on yourself that don't necessarily
refine your character because they were bad decisions that you made.
Right. And so we call those consequences.
Yeah. Yeah.
And I think sometimes in the Old Testament, too, just tying into that, we will we
will we'll take this idea of like, oh, man, God's punishing them for that.
I was like, is he punishing them or is he just letting the natural consequences
take place? Right. Right.
Because there are times where both happen where he's like, you did this.
So this is going to happen.
Right. And there are times where he's like, no, this is punishment.
Like being rained down on you because you're being stupid right now.
There's there's those times, too.
But oftentimes with the natural consequences, if you you just have to suffer
those like sometimes you walk through those like and the hard thing is, like
even after forgiveness takes place, sometimes there's remnants of those
natural consequences that you still just have to that you still just have to sit
in and just be like, OK, this is taking place.
This is what's going to happen.
Why step into the situation or back in this relationship?
Right. Like I can think of like I can think of some friends who have been
divorced, but joint custody of kids, stuff like that.
There's ramifications when they all have to come together for something.
Right. There's there's there's a different relational dynamic of suffering,
of consequential suffering when they all have to be at graduation together or
they all have to be at a wedding together or so on so forth.
Right. And God can do great things in the middle of that.
But that's not always going to be the case.
Sometimes you're just going to have to.
Work through it.
You know, sins tend to put people in jail.
Right. You may have a felony on your record the rest of your life.
It may never go away.
Yep. There's not there's not anything you can do about that.
It is a permanent consequence for the rest of your life based on the fact that
it's a permanent consequence for the rest of your life based on a decision you made.
It doesn't mean that God is done with you, but it does mean that you're going to
bear the marks of the of your choices.
And and it's tough.
You know? Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
And so like there's there's times where it's like, OK, well, that was a decision
we made and now here's the consequence.
We have to figure that out.
I also like kicking off of this, but this whole idea because we're talking about
partiality, partiality, but also suffering well and also suffering because of our bad
decisions. There are there's also the flip side of it is James has a set the
statement where he talks about if you know what is good and you don't do it, that's
sin. Right.
And so if you know the good you want to do, not on partiality, if you know you're
not supposed to show partiality and you choose to do it anyways, like it's almost
like that's double sin. Right.
Like you're intentionally choosing not to put Jesus on display.
If you know, and you could plug and play anything in there.
Right.
But if you know the good that you want to do, you know that you know God is moving
in somebody's life and you know he's calling you to be generous to that person
and you're like, yeah, that'll be fine.
Right.
Like that's sin.
If you see someone who's cold and hungry and you don't give them clothes or food,
what good have you done?
Yeah.
That's in the book.
Oh, James.
You know, and you know, and it's and and I think James does a really good job and
it's all throughout the book where you've talked about.
I've talked about that people have taken James and they said, oh, James is anti
wealth. No, James is anti wealth at the behest of somebody else's life and and
building your wealth on the back of other people and building it on anything but the
firm foundation of Christ and not having a generous life that demonstrates that
you follow God.
James is actually at the risk of going too political.
He's actually very progressive.
Yeah.
And his writing.
Yeah.
If you're comparing it to cultures of the day, especially Roman culture, where
wealth was built on the backs of others.
Well, and it's funny you say progressive because he's really quoting Torah, which
was a very progressive law and stay now progressive, not in the political sense,
but in that it was moving people moving the needle forward.
Yeah.
Right. I think sometimes that word gets co-opted to be all about political agenda,
where it really means that you're moving towards like a specific goal.
Yeah.
Right. And so God's goal was always progressive to move us to be more like
Jesus.
Yeah.
And I think if there's a third takeaway from James is it's just be careful with
what you say.
Yeah.
Like, be careful with your words because words can be harmful.
They can hurt.
And I've been hurt more by words than I have in the physical context.
Yeah.
And I want to be clear, like I've gotten my fair share of fights over the days,
over my days, and my body suffers the natural consequences from that.
But words can be just as painful.
Yeah.
And they can words can wreck relationships.
They can wreck marriages.
They can they can flip your world upside down.
They can wreck employment status.
They can wreck your wealth.
They've absolutely wrecked churches.
Mm hmm.
Absolutely.
Right.
And so and there are there are people who have a very poor understanding of who
Jesus is because somebody who claimed to follow Jesus shared words that were
incredibly hurtful.
Yeah.
And not helpful.
Mm hmm.
And so James had he talks about being slow to speak, slow to anger, and quick to
listen.
And the reality like we often view is this three different things, but combine it
together.
If you put them all together and see the progression of it, when you're slow to
speak and you're willing to understand where someone's coming from, you're less
likely to get angry.
Yeah.
Because you're hearing their story.
Well, those things kind of work in harmony.
Yeah.
Each other.
They're meant to harmonize each other.
Yeah.
You know.
Yeah.
And then when you're quick to listen, when listening to go to, you're going to
you're going to remove yourself from making false assumptions about that person.
Yeah.
And when we make false assumptions about the person, you know how the saying goes.
But when you make when you make those assumptions about this person, it not only
ruins your perspective of them, but also ruins your potential relationship with
them.
And part of the reason why James in the end of the book says talks about restoring
a believer because it's not just for you restoring that believer, but for you also
being restored to that.
Right.
Yeah.
I feel like in that section, he's really stressing that like throwing away
relationships haphazardly is not acceptable.
Right.
Like there is that you invest in people and then and it's not that there isn't a
point where you do say enough.
But we are actually being vulnerable enough with each other to build
relationships where we can speak into each other.
Yeah.
And so building boundaries over past discretions to make sure that we can exist
in relationship continually.
Yeah.
And then if needed, we can cut the relationship and go back to this position
where we're not brothers, but you're actually somebody on the outside that I'm
trying to bring in.
Yeah.
You know, that's coming from another book, but it's a similar idea.
James is going to be coming from that.
Yeah.
So those are three takeaways.
Those will be the three that I have.
And all of these are incredibly valuable in this season of American life.
I'm sure that you are all perfectly aware of what is going on in America right now.
Every two years and four years, we go through what I call political season.
And there is a lot of statements said on both sides of the aisle about people,
words that are shared that they can't take back, statements that are made,
statements that are split.
And what's the one thing we're called to as believers when it comes to our
political leaders?
Pray for them.
Love them.
Intercede on their behalf that Jesus Christ would move in their midst.
I was, I remember a few weeks ago, I was preaching at church and I was speaking on
Jonah and Nahum because we're doing the Minor Prophets.
And I said, you know, it is really, I understand that we belong, that America is a constitutional
republic, right?
But I as a Christian serve in a monarchy.
Jesus is King.
And so everything that I do in a constitutional republic is a reflection of what my King tells
me to do.
And that's where your politics has to come from is in service of King Jesus.
And he tells us very specific things.
Like you said, pray for your leaders to care for the widows and the orphans.
Like there are some very specific things that he gives us that we can do.
And we put this in context globally.
Yeah.
So the US church makes up about 4% of Christians globally.
So what we do, what we serve a kingdom that has transcended all government structures,
policies, setups, political agendas, so on and so forth.
Yeah.
It's transcended that it's worked through thick and thin.
It's changed in dictatorships, it's worked in monarchies, oligarchies.
It's worked in every form of government.
And the reason it has worked is because the government that we serve is not of this world.
Amen.
Right?
We're going to like, don't get me wrong, I'm going to vote according to what I believe.
And according to what God's called me to.
Well, because I'm called to live in this world, but not be of this world.
Exactly.
But at the same time, if we are thinking that Christianity is going to fail because of a
political election in a country where 4% of Christians live.
Yeah.
Oh boy, you are so deluded.
Yeah.
And I don't want to be rude on that.
But it's like, man, there's so much more to this walk with Jesus than who's in the White
House.
Yeah, there's a statistic out there.
This is not specifically behind you, James Moore, what you just said, where they're talking
about how people are leaving the church and a lot of these different things.
Well, actually, the church globally is growing, growing significantly.
And a lot of what you're seeing in America is you're seeing people who threw on Christianity
as an identity that are leaving.
And what you're actually starting to see is that one of two things is people are either
digging deeper into Christianity as an identity or a political identity, or you're seeing
people who authentically live out what Christ puts in their life.
And it's actually going to be more apparent and it's going to be more effective as we
have more of these people who are living out Christ in the world.
And I mean, let's just call it what it is.
America is actually becoming a mission field for third world countries.
Yeah.
There are people in third world countries who are believers, followers of Jesus, who
are saying, I'm going to America as a missionary.
And I welcome them.
Yeah.
Because one, I love the global church.
But then I don't want to I don't want to give up responsibility of us being a mission field.
We also have been blessed with a lot.
Absolutely.
When we're talking about these rich people, like people who have a lot of money, we actually
need to make sure that we live with a generous heart to the people around us, specifically
the countries around us, and invest in like seeing God, God's kingdom grow globally.
Right.
I have one more thing.
I was trying to think about what you were what you were you're saying something and
I was prompting in my brain.
Prompting it might be gone.
But partiality, tongue.
That's gone.
Yeah.
So I think those are really those are really good things.
And I think one of my things that I really encourage you if you don't have a somebody
that you sit around a campfire like Spencer and I, we have we have not just us, but we
have other friends we sit around when we just talk faith and life and family and like these
things and how to walk these things out on a regular basis.
You need to get it.
Absolutely.
Right.
Because this is what's going to keep you invigorated and going in day in and day out and putting
your life down on behalf of other people.
Because you can run a race alone.
It's a lot more fun to run with other people.
Absolutely.
I was actually thinking your wife and mine ran the there's a 13 mile race that they have
marathon.
Yeah.
And they wrote ran it together.
They all got matching uniforms and they did like relays and stuff.
And then they got done and they're all really happy.
And you know, it was it was half marathon, but they split it between three people.
One that's a lot easier.
And two, they had so much fun.
I think that there's there's definitely something we can learn there about faith, having fun
in pursuit of God.
Like it's a very serious job, but we should enjoy life.
Well, even the individualized sports are team sports.
Yeah.
So track and field.
Yeah.
Right.
Like you usually have an event you run.
It's a team sport.
Swimming usually have an event you run, but you have a team around you encouraging you
and pushing you to be better.
So on.
So forth.
And this goes on.
Usually so like one of the ones I did a lot when I was in high school and college and
now that I'm old and somewhat fat, I don't do it as much.
But I was rock climbing.
Like I've climbed some really big walls in my life.
And but you're never doing it by yourself.
For the most part, like you're always doing it with someone.
And I know some people are going to be like, well, what about those National Geographic
and I was like, well, who do you think was filming that?
Right.
He wasn't by himself.
There's always someone behind the camera.
Even if you're a driver in NASCAR, I have a picture.
Yeah.
Not to mention they have a coaching team that helps them like learn how, hey, you took this
turn at this angle.
Here's how we actually do this better.
Yeah.
Right.
So so even if it looks like an individualized sport, it's still a team effort.
Yeah.
It's still a community doing it together.
Yeah.
And there's a lot we can learn from that.
So moving forward, I think the next episode, we're actually going to move some of our mini
series around.
We're going to do a little book, big message.
And so we're going to be hitting single chapter books and just talking about like, what do
these have to teach us about our faith in walking with Jesus over the next couple of
weeks?
Yeah.
All right.
Till next time.
And that's a wrap for today's episode of Love and Context.
We hope you enjoyed this engaging conversation and gained valuable insights into the powerful
message of love within the Bible.
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