Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: What's up, guys? Welcome to a special episode of the Parish Circuit. I'm Stuart Amadon. With me is David Riley. We are here to talk through some fun things today. I want to call this. I'm going to call this the comments section Roundup. That's what I'm going to call this. So just so you know, David, I'm picturing the theme of Bonanza playing in the background of my mind. Did you guys watch Bonanza growing up?
[00:00:24] Speaker B: I'm not that old, Stuart.
[00:00:26] Speaker A: Oh, wow. Oh, my God. Okay, thanks.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: Look, I've heard of it from the before times.
[00:00:34] Speaker A: Oh, man. Okay, so this is just something fun that we thought that we would do because we put up the article about the giving fridge. The giving fridge.
And then lots of people had opinions, and it was. Honestly, I'm pretty excited, personally, because one of the things that we said whenever we posted the article was, let's start a dialogue about poverty relief.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: Poverty. Yep.
[00:00:57] Speaker A: Yeah. And that definitely happened. And what's fascinating to me is the amount of variation in people's opinion of how we should relieve poverty. And so I just thought that it would be fun to make an episode to explore some of the comments that we got here and, you know, maybe push them to their logical conclusions, maybe wrestle with them a little bit on here and then. And see, you know, see where the. See where the dust settles. So just like a fun bonus episode. That's what we've got right here, a fun bonus episode. The comment section roundup here on the Parish circuit about the giving fridge. So you ready to go?
[00:01:34] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:01:35] Speaker A: Okay, let's do it. Let's do it. Let's start with.
Let's see. This is Beth Vedrin Jones. Okay, so in our. In our description, we said the giving fridge, why it didn't work, and how to move forward. Okay. Because we would say that it didn't work. It isn't working.
No, no. Real relief is actually being achieved through this. We talked about that already.
But she says, who said it didn't work? This is Beth Madrine Jones said, who said it didn't work? It is working every day. People are constantly filling the fridge and pantry, and hungry people are steadily receiving food.
Okay, so let's dig into that one just a little bit.
So what does it mean for this to work? Well, what she's saying is that if it's being filled and people are taking the food out of it, because she doesn't actually know whether or not they're hungry. She says that. She asserts that.
But the real truth is that there's no actual active monitoring happened here. Right. Isn't that right? Like it just kind of sits open and come as they go. Well, it's an honor system.
[00:02:39] Speaker B: That's intentional though.
[00:02:41] Speaker A: That's a design, I would guess. So there's not any kind of like somebody made the comment we should have. Like.
I'm not saying that.
I think I read a comment in here at some point where somebody said there should be like biometric scanners or something by the fridge. And I don't know, that seems impressive.
[00:02:59] Speaker B: I think, man, I just think the mindset that people are coming at this issue with necessitates this non relational.
I insert stuff into the fridge and someone takes it away.
I don't know who. I feel good about putting it in the fridge, but.
[00:03:25] Speaker A: And we assume that they feel good about taking it.
[00:03:27] Speaker B: Yes. And now I'm not. I'm not like, we're not accusing the designers of this particular fridge of those motivations, but that is what is coming across in these comments, I think.
[00:03:37] Speaker A: Isn't that interesting though? So it is. Kind of what we're creating is a mechanism that doesn't have any accountability first, but we're also kind of seeing that just because it's being taken.
Everyone says success, right?
[00:03:53] Speaker B: Well, not everyone.
[00:03:53] Speaker A: Again, I'm sorry, I'm speaking in generality,
[00:03:56] Speaker B: but let's be real there.
I think the majority of people who commented or liked the post were in general agreement, at least with the article.
[00:04:07] Speaker A: Well, at the very least, I'd say it's 50. 50. Yeah, we've got 50, 50 people who are like, yeah, we agree with the premise. And 50% of the people who are saying no, we think the giving fridge is a great idea. That seems to be the schism that we've drawn here. And then there's a few smatterings in between. But let's define work.
Like, what would we say a system like this should do? What should it do?
[00:04:31] Speaker B: You should.
If you haven't yet, you should listen to our original podcast that went along with this article.
[00:04:37] Speaker A: No one has.
[00:04:37] Speaker B: Because we did.
A few people have. I think because we did go into it. We did go into that.
[00:04:42] Speaker A: I checked the stats a little bit and most people only read the headline and moved on.
[00:04:47] Speaker B: Maybe. And look, even in that episode, we didn't go fully into it, I guess. But one point we would make an assertion, we would argue is that even if it worked, if everything went as planned, that this is not how poverty relief actually should be accomplished.
[00:05:07] Speaker A: Correct. Not only is it not how poverty relief happens. This is actually how dependency is created. And we would say poverty gets worse, not just for the people who utilize the fridge, but also for the people around those people.
[00:05:20] Speaker B: Right. So when they say, who said it's not working? And it's actually working because people are taking, we would say, well, let's do our podcast. And we would argue that, yes, you're actually incentivizing the staying in poverty. Really?
[00:05:38] Speaker A: Yeah. Because now there's just this place where we can come and take something.
But they would say that it's working because it's used now. I would also further point out and say this is the same problem that gets us into deeper and deeper holes in the welfare state every year.
[00:05:56] Speaker B: Right.
[00:05:57] Speaker A: If the metric is the amount of people on government assistance, then the welfare system's working.
[00:06:05] Speaker B: Right, Right.
[00:06:07] Speaker A: Isn't that the same thing? And every year. So statistically speaking, since the Johnson administration, every year, the welfare state in America only gets larger. The amount of money spent only gets bigger. The amount of dollars that actually reach people that are considered poor and needy and need to be on these systems, the percentage goes down and it doesn't seem to end.
It has hit amazing highs.
In fact, it wasn't too long after the Johnson administration that it was something insane. Like 1 out of 100 people in the nation either worked directly in poverty relief or right next to it. One out of 100. That's a big number.
[00:06:50] Speaker B: Right?
[00:06:50] Speaker A: It's a big number.
And we would say that doesn't mean it's working.
And I think.
I think that. That people who are like, no people just take from the fridge. It's working. I think that they would agree with us saying that about the welfare state.
[00:07:05] Speaker B: I think maybe. Yeah.
[00:07:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:07] Speaker B: It depends on their background.
[00:07:08] Speaker A: Yeah, true. And I would say, hey, just push that logic to its conclusion. Just keep going and see where you actually land. Right.
What is the definition of work? The definition of work is that it's empty.
Okay.
[00:07:25] Speaker B: Yep. So, yeah. And we would say that this will work to the degree in the same way that the war on poverty in our nation has worked.
[00:07:39] Speaker A: More people are on it.
[00:07:41] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:07:41] Speaker A: Now this, look, there's a larger welfare pool.
[00:07:44] Speaker B: This is small scale.
And we'll say this. We were talking about this beforehand. We are at least thankful that an effort like this is privately funded. Thank you. You're not.
[00:07:55] Speaker A: That's wonderful.
And look, if you listen to no tax dollars used.
Let's go, baby.
[00:08:00] Speaker B: Yes. Amen.
And look, if you listen to a podcast put on by some Christians, you can expect to hear some Christian stuff. And if you go listen to the, I don't know, Communists of America podcast, you can listen to the communist stuff. So don't be like shocked. Don't be surprised when we don't agree with the kind of socialist leaning policies in our country and some of the practices that. That flow out from that.
[00:08:23] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:08:24] Speaker B: But some. While we're on that topic, just some interesting numbers here. So do you. Do you know how much money we spend roughly every year on welfare programs in the United States?
[00:08:35] Speaker A: In America? Yeah. I have no idea. How big I assuming it's monstrous.
[00:08:39] Speaker B: Nearly $2 trillion a year. A year? About $1.8 trillion per year.
No.
Yeah, yeah, 1.8. So over a trillion comes from the national government.
[00:08:54] Speaker A: What?
[00:08:54] Speaker B: And the rest comes from state government entities.
And that's insane. That's a huge amount of money.
[00:09:03] Speaker A: And when it first launched with the Johnson administration, it was less than half a million dollars a year.
[00:09:08] Speaker B: Totally less than half a million.
[00:09:09] Speaker A: Like total budget.
[00:09:11] Speaker B: Crazy. Now, that was while we were still fighting the Vietnam War. I think once the Vietnam War ended, things really ramped up.
[00:09:18] Speaker A: Things got crazy. Yeah, the 80s.
[00:09:19] Speaker B: We decided to aim our crosshairs as a nation not at the Viet Cong, but at poverty.
[00:09:26] Speaker A: Yeah, the war on poverty. That's right.
[00:09:28] Speaker B: And the war went about just as well as the war in Vietnam.
[00:09:32] Speaker A: Real talk, like the war on poverty actually made poverty worse. It increased the amount of dependency, the lack of independence and the amount of people who can't seem to get out.
[00:09:44] Speaker B: Right.
[00:09:44] Speaker A: To get out of it.
[00:09:45] Speaker B: And one of the reasons it's grown to nearly $2 trillion a year in welfare is because you can't. You couldn't. I mean, I think people are willing to speak truth more openly now, but you couldn't push back against it without being labeled.
You hate poor people. You hate poor people.
[00:10:01] Speaker A: You're a racist.
[00:10:02] Speaker B: Right, right. All the accusations there.
[00:10:06] Speaker A: So far, no one's called us racists.
[00:10:09] Speaker B: Not for this article,
[00:10:12] Speaker A: this thread.
[00:10:14] Speaker B: But no, that. But isn't that fasc. You can, if you're. If you have a perspective that the government is not the answer to all of our problems and that in fact, if you are highly reliant on other people's money via government programs, that it's not a good thing long term, you'll get accused, you'll get called all sorts of names.
[00:10:38] Speaker A: Yeah, well, or accused of slander, for that matter. That happened, sure.
So let's see. Who is there? What's her name? Alison Hagan. Alison Hagan. Is, I think, Hagen. I assume that's how you pronounce the name.
She came in, she said, hi, co chair of the giving fridge here. Next time you want to write an article on our work, can you ask us for input before you slander us on a project you definitely seem to not know much about?
Well, and I responded to her. I was like, hey, can you tell me where we said anything that was false?
And she said back, well, you make it sound like this.
You make it sound like something. I'm like, okay, great. So no slander happened.
[00:11:20] Speaker B: Right? Right, right.
[00:11:20] Speaker A: Because that's what slander means.
We got that. Thanks for getting that accusation out of the way.
But her, I invited her to come on the show. I was like, hey, let's talk about this. You know, let's. Let's continue this conversation. So far, she hasn't taken me up on it. Allison, if you're listening to this, Allison. Allison. That's her name.
The invite still stands. Come and talk. I also reached out. I got a text from Mike Fontenot. You remember Mike Fonto?
[00:11:46] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:47] Speaker A: Mike Fontenot apparently was also involved in this project. He's an old friend of mine. He's like, hey, man, you want to talk about this? Basically, as we said, I'm paraphrasing. I said the same thing to him. I'm like, mike, let's talk, like, come on the show. So, so far, I've got two invites out to people who are attached to this project. No responses yet. That's okay.
Just know, both of you, if you're listening to this episode, you're still invited. We would love to continue the conversation. This what we want to do. The point of the Parish circuit, the point of what we're trying to do, is press the Bible into every single corner of life. That's really what we're after here.
And that includes projects of generosity.
[00:12:26] Speaker B: Absolutely. Now, people are going to get hung up on that, I think, because we've. In this kind of maybe current culture, we've equated any sort of thing that has been labeled as generous or charitable or giving.
I guess most people would connect that with, like, the Bible. They'd say, well, isn't this the sort of stuff we're supposed to be doing? Oh, you're right. And I would say, again, go listen to our first episode. But we could talk about that a little bit more here.
[00:12:52] Speaker A: Let's do it. Let's talk about a Christian ethic of generosity. That would be helpful.
[00:12:56] Speaker B: And let me just circle back quick to the maybe the broader war on poverty in our nation. And then, then you should talk about kind of the biblical approach.
[00:13:05] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:13:06] Speaker B: Excuse me, but what is the.
Back in the 60s and then growing and growing and growing throughout the 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s, our nation launched this kind of war on poverty without a biblical foundation.
[00:13:20] Speaker A: Johnson ministration.
[00:13:21] Speaker B: Right, okay, sorry. Is that better?
[00:13:25] Speaker A: There's a frog in your throat.
[00:13:25] Speaker B: There we go. There you go. Clear it with bigotry.
It's been growing and growing and growing. It did not have a biblical foundation. It was a very like pragmatic, top down government will swoop in and kind of solve all the problems.
We've been spending billions of dollars on war. So let's redirect that towards poverty. What a noble effort. We would say the government is not the right way to go about that. But what have the results been?
More poor people.
The more that's been spent, the number of poor people or people dependent on these programs that we're talking about, welfare programs in the United States has only
[00:14:06] Speaker A: increased, only gone up. Spending's only gone up.
[00:14:08] Speaker B: In other words, the war is actively being lost. And it has been every year. Like we lose the war every year, but we keep doing it. We keep doing this. We keep doing the same. Yes, the same thing.
[00:14:22] Speaker A: Because.
And this should frame this entire conversation, Everyone is afraid of being marked as the bad guy.
That's what's actually happening.
[00:14:33] Speaker B: Right.
[00:14:34] Speaker A: And that's like a lot of the heat that this article is getting is people saying, you guys are mean now. They're saying it in various ways. Sure. In fact, one particular person had a whole string of expletives attached.
[00:14:49] Speaker B: Right.
We're just over here trying to tell the truth and do it even kindly. And some people. Yeah, it's all right.
One last point on that. In case you were wondering.
The amount of money that our nation spends on programs that ultimately, we would argue kind of incentivize people to stick day in poverty, the amount of money that actually makes it to the people who are poor, quote, unquote, need it or the poor, is about 30 cents on the dollar. That's crazy.
On that almost $2 trillion that our nation spends. The vast, vast, vast majority of it holds up and pays for the high salaries and great retirement plans and healthcare
[00:15:44] Speaker A: benefits for all of the government employees,
[00:15:47] Speaker B: for a bureaucracy for millions of people at this point.
[00:15:53] Speaker A: And I've seen the bureaucracy work, man, I know how the money falls down the chain. I've watched the dollars fall from Washington to national entities, to regional entities, to state Entities to local entities, to county parish entities, and then to city entities. And everybody gets PA along the way. It's the way the system. I've worked in systems like that. I own a marketing agency. I've seen the federal dollars travel all the way down. That is by design.
It works that way on purpose. And we have got to fix it. And the way that we fix it is we first are willing to take our lumps for applying the Bible in all of life.
That's step one.
Some of the stuff that we say is going to sound like so mean and it's because it's critical of someone else or what someone else is doing. And what we're really trying to say is, hey, this is what the Bible does, man.
It rubs you the wrong way at times. It interacts directly with you. It's sharp as a two edged sword. It cuts to the bone and marrow. Like sometimes when you interact with the text and with biblical principles, it does not feel nice.
Amen.
Amen. And the biblical model for generosity, like we talked about at the beginning of this episode, comes with accountability.
So let's talk about a Christian ethic for generosity. Okay, so first, I would send people to second, Thessalonians, chapter three.
It's where Paul is teaching about how to help people the right way, how to help the poor in the right way. Okay. Then he basically says if they're not willing to work, they don't get to eat.
Okay. And this is Bible. This is Bible verse, right?
This is Paul saying, hey, here's how we really help people.
If they're not willing to get up to go to work, to do the job, then they don't get food.
If you don't work, you can't eat. Now people hear that right now and I guarantee you it bothers them.
It like, oh gosh, I can't believe you said that. To which I would say, that's Bible.
[00:18:15] Speaker B: The Bible said it. God said it.
[00:18:17] Speaker A: Yeah, Paul said that, not me. The Bible says that, not me. I'm just.
[00:18:22] Speaker B: Can I hit you with some anticipated rebuttals?
[00:18:24] Speaker A: Oh, okay, I'm ready. Let's do it as we do this. Let's go.
[00:18:27] Speaker B: Well, Stuart, how. Why are you assuming that people who would take from the giving fridge aren't working?
[00:18:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Why did we decide that the food pantry models don't work?
So go talk to the people who run the food pantries in Acadiana. They have check in processes, checkout processes. They know who's coming in, they know who's going to ask and many of these food pantries that are run by Christian organizations apply this principle, and they apply it very effectively. And they know when somebody is just abusing the system.
[00:18:59] Speaker B: Nice. That's awesome.
[00:19:01] Speaker A: Yeah, they're great people. They really are. And they're giving themselves this particular work. Go talk to the food pantries, man.
They know firsthand experience that you have to have some type of a system like this in place.
What we've created here is a system where we can only answer the question, well, I don't know.
I don't know what happens to the food on the other side.
[00:19:24] Speaker B: I was gonna say that. That gets back to our comments. So several of the comments reference that, like, I don't. Kind of like I give or we shouldn't care who gets the food. All I know is I put it in there, and if some. As long as someone gets it, then it's good. It's working.
[00:19:42] Speaker A: Yeah. It's doing what it's supposed to do.
[00:19:43] Speaker B: So that's. That's kind of the. The attitude on display by some of. By some of the comments. Yeah.
How would. How would we direct that or maybe respond to that?
[00:19:52] Speaker A: So I would say that you're in violation of this biblical principle by Paul.
And it requires. It necessitates real generosity, requires necessitates relationship and some type of oversight.
This is why we operate most of our generosity through our church. Okay. Because the people that are in that room, and we go to church with people who are impoverished, and the generosity that operates inside of that room operates in the context of relationship. And we obey.
2 Thessalonians, chapter 3. We obey what Paul says. Hey, you should probably work.
And people who are on government assistance programs, we help coach them to bring them off, to get them to a new place. That takes time.
It takes direction and trajectory for them.
But people do. They do enter new phases of life. In fact, many have entered into drastically successful phases of life. Now, after years and years of faithful work and repentance and confession and everything, the Lord has brought about new things for them. That's good and right. So we want to apply this principle. We want to, like Christians, want to live by the Bible.
So let's live by the Bible.
Another principle here that we can see is found in First Corinthians 7, where Paul is talking specifically about the widows. Okay?
And there's a widow's role now in time of First Corinthians, whenever a husband would die, a wife, especially a wife with children, is in a lot of trouble. Like a lot of Trouble. Okay.
And what's going to wind up happening with her is she's not going to have anything and she's not going to have anybody protect her, anybody provide for her. This is the story of Ruth and Naomi. This is why they went back to their land, to try and find rest in the land and in Ruth's people.
I'm sorry, in Naomi's people. And also to find what they hoped would be somebody who would be a kinsman, redeemer. And boom, they find it. Boaz, it's a beautiful story.
[00:22:02] Speaker B: Okay.
And there was a beautiful picture of poverty relief that necessitated work.
[00:22:10] Speaker A: Yes. And it. And what she was doing was she was. She was bringing in the sheaves.
Subtle hint drop to a great book by George Grant that you should pick up and read.
It's out of print, but you can
[00:22:22] Speaker B: stop telling me to read books.
[00:22:23] Speaker A: Stuart.
[00:22:24] Speaker B: I don't have time for all this.
[00:22:25] Speaker A: Get out of here with you and your books. But anyway, so, yeah, George Grant, bringing the sheaves. Very helpful book on this topic, too. I know we've recommended some other books on other episodes related to this. So this idea, in 1 Corinthians 7, what they're actually saying is, hey, there's a widow's role for people who get in real, real trouble. The church is going to take care of them. But Paul says to them, but if you're a young woman, you need to just go get married again. In other words, he's saying, hey, you have responsibility, right? Don't be a burden to others.
If you have capacity to deal with this in this case, in their current historical context in which Paul is writing, he's like, hey, young women, go get married. Go find another provider. Right? The context is responsibility that falls on them. So he's saying this to women and he's saying it to men. And we would also talk about, in reference to the story of Ruth and Naomi and Boaz in Leviticus, the principle that's playing out as Ruth is walking through the fields and gleaning, she's bringing the sheaves. She's gleaning.
What's actually going on in that moment is Boaz is obeying the law of God.
God has given them a clear command to not harvest their fields all the way to the edges, but to rather leave margins, leave some excess so that the hungry can come to your fields and glean, so that the people who have need can still eat. But what do they have to do to eat?
They have to work.
You see, this is a biblical principle. Now, I would also Say that the New Covenant Church doesn't know or. Sorry, not the New Covenant. The contemporary American church has a really hard time with that, with leaving margins.
Right.
[00:24:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:16] Speaker A: It's difficult for business owners, people who are working in jobs, to think, where are my margins? Where's my space here?
And I would say, okay, figure it out.
Let's wrestle with this.
[00:24:30] Speaker B: Yeah. What you're describing is harder, considerably harder. Yeah.
[00:24:34] Speaker A: Right. It's much easier to just buy some food or cook some food and stick it in a pantry and leave. Agreed. Yeah, much easier.
[00:24:44] Speaker B: And you could apply it on a broader scale at the national level, let's say, and just more and more comfortable with more and more tax dollars being put to various programs and believe that you're being.
[00:24:55] Speaker A: I'm helping.
[00:24:56] Speaker B: Genuinely generous.
When we've, as we've already discussed, it's not.
[00:25:00] Speaker A: You're actually not helping.
[00:25:01] Speaker B: Not the way to do it.
[00:25:02] Speaker A: Yeah. No, you're not actually helping the end person. Yeah. But it is easier. See, you're right. It is easier. It's much harder to try and develop these systems and to create businesses and projects and bring people in and give them money. What I'm really saying here is, hey, what if you had jobs around your house that you could just pay somebody to do?
What if you just had a shop floor that needed to be swept?
What if you had some type of system, some type of work like that that you could implement for people as a margin and it would be hard.
But, man, I think that's what we're
[00:25:45] Speaker B: called to do, right?
Yeah. And obviously there's things that go along naturally with that sort of a setup where relationship is automatically going to have to form between you and the person that you're being generous to by providing an opportunity to work.
We've seen this before. I see this especially with young men.
Not always people in poverty, but sometimes. But just people realizing the fulfillment that actually comes from putting in a day's work and receiving fair wages for what they've done, and then. And growing in experience and expertise and knowledge and receiving more reward for it. It's like a. It's. It's a good thing.
[00:26:26] Speaker A: And it takes time.
[00:26:27] Speaker B: Yep, it takes time. Takes time.
[00:26:29] Speaker A: But you know what's amazing, though, is when you do this, the Bible promises that you'll be blessed if you. If you care for the poor, if you obey the Lord's commands. And the margins is a command. And Paul's edict, they know, hey, if you don't work, you don't eat. That's commands if you obey the Lord, the Bible says you will be blessed. In other words, yes, it will be harder, but man, it will be worth, will be. God will give you more resources. God will. If you're faithful with little, he will give you much. We talk about that all the time in this office. So we want to be faithful on a micro level with everything that we have.
If you're faithful with little, God will give you more. That is the same truth for the poor.
That is that truth doesn't go away for them. What about systematic oppression? And what about the people who have a poverty mindset or a scarcity mindset? Or what about. What about. What about that rule? That principle still applies. I've seen it. I've seen it.
People have lived and changed drastically in their lives because they just decided to live by what God says.
And it works. It works. And not only will they be blessed, but the person who is, who is providing the margins will be blessed because they're also obeying. And soon they'll have more margins to provide.
[00:27:49] Speaker B: Yeah, this just made me think of again, many, many stories I've heard in real situations that I've seen. But no matter where you're at financially, let's say you can look around and ask, what do I have? What have I been given?
Do I have a vehicle?
How can I. How could I use this to turn a profit, to do something worthwhile? I have time, right? I might not have a lot. I might not have a vehicle. I might not have. But I have time. What can I do with this time to gain skills, to invest it somewhere?
Some people are gonna have more resources to work with. Others are going to start with less.
But I think practically what you're describing is taking a look around and saying, how can I be faithful with what I have right now in front of me?
[00:28:38] Speaker A: And what is the Lord giving me to do right now? So that's actually what's going on in the book of James too. So if you go read the book of James, the famous passage where it says the purest form of religion is caring for widows and orphans, okay?
The framing around that passage, I think it's James, chapter one. I think it's James one. The framing around that passage is that the church is running for its life. They're being persecuted like wild. Their men are being taken away and imprisoned.
All these things are going around in the context. James is very, very early church. Very, very early church. One of, if not the earliest book in the New Testament written down. Okay, so everything's in Chaos.
What James is really saying, whenever he says, take care of widows and orphans, that's pure religion.
That is true. But what he's actually saying is, hey, guys, look around you and meet the need in front of you. That's what he's actually telling them because the men have been taken and imprisoned. And as we saw with Ruth and Naomi, and Paul's addressing to the widows in First Corinthians, they're in trouble.
If somebody doesn't take care of them, they're not going to make it.
And so we can take that passage from James and say, same principle. Look around you.
[00:29:56] Speaker B: Yep. Now I'm just here to play devil's advocate.
[00:29:58] Speaker A: Right?
[00:29:58] Speaker B: Let's go. Let's go.
[00:29:59] Speaker A: I love that.
[00:30:00] Speaker B: What if someone has actually. I'm hype right now. What if someone has actually listened to this episode and made it all the way here without rage quitting because we said. Because we quoted some scripture?
[00:30:12] Speaker A: Amen.
[00:30:13] Speaker B: What if they say, well, that's what this is. That's what the giving fridge is. That's what giving free stuff to the poor is. Right. It's seeing the need in front of us and doing something about it. How would you respond?
[00:30:27] Speaker A: I would say, you saw that need, question mark.
You verified that need. You know those people.
You had conversations. I guarantee you the recipients of these gifts would benefit far more from a direct relationship. Far more.
My point goes back to the beginning of what we said. If we don't actually know, Right.
[00:30:50] Speaker B: There's no accountability involved.
[00:30:51] Speaker A: There's no accountability. There's no relationship. There's no. There's no submission to these biblical principles of saying, hey, how do we do this? Now, somebody in the comments, I can't remember who it was. Now, somebody quoted the.
Whenever. The. Whenever Jesus fed the 5,000 or the 4,000. I can't remember which one it was.
But Jesus feeds the masses, okay? They quoted that. They were like, see? Jesus did it, so why can't we do it?
Sorry, I'm not trying to laugh. I'm not trying to laugh. I want to take this seriously. So they said, Jesus did that. Why can't we do it? Okay. The Bible also says that Jesus knew the hearts of men.
Jesus also looks around and he knows, both intuitively and because he's Jesus supernaturally, that these people are hungry. And he makes the argument. He says, they can't walk home to eat. They're going to faint on the way.
Remember?
[00:31:47] Speaker B: Right.
[00:31:48] Speaker A: So he has intimate knowledge of them before he performs that miracle.
But even if you skip all of that and say, no, Jesus just fed people. Even if you said that, then I would say, yeah, And Jesus also made bottomless vats of wine for a wedding feast.
Do we now just do that, too?
Can I invite you to my house, please? Keep the wine flowing.
We wouldn't apply that that way. Right. Of course we wouldn't.
We want to say. And our goal. Parish circuit. Our goal. David and Stewart's goal. We want the Bible to be pressed into every corner. We want the Bible to be permeated in St. Landry parish. And we're fine with taking the lumps to do it, but we've got to be able to be willing to receive biblical criticism. Amen. And apply the Bible rightly to all of life without.
I'm not sure exactly how I'd say it.
You know, our emotions hit the ceiling and we're. We're not paying attention anymore. Right. Yeah. We got to be able to work through this.
[00:32:55] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:32:56] Speaker A: We're happy to do it.
[00:32:57] Speaker B: Yeah. Something I thought of while you were. You were talking there. If you didn't listen to our previous episode on this one note on, like, the Hungry Part, One argument we made is that that isn't a. That. That isn't actually a legitimate major problem in our nation today anymore.
Yeah. If you. If you went back to the Great Depression, I was really. I was actually trying to leave it
[00:33:17] Speaker A: in the 80s, too, like.
[00:33:18] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, we don't have to go back that far.
[00:33:20] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. If you go back to the recession of the 80s, there was some serious stuff going on, like, in fact, bringing in the Sheaves, George Grant.
[00:33:27] Speaker B: It's kind of in the. In the midst of that. Yeah.
[00:33:29] Speaker A: He talks about that in some of the introduction material.
[00:33:31] Speaker B: Nice.
[00:33:32] Speaker A: And he was. He was a practitioner in the space who knew the people, knew the needs, and worked to develop a Christian answer to poverty. And I. I would say developed it well.
[00:33:45] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:33:46] Speaker A: But in the 80s, especially in, like, major metros like Houston, there was a. There was tent cities everywhere. You know, there was pretty serious problems. It was like early 80s, 1980. 19. 1982. Somewhere down there.
[00:33:59] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:00] Speaker A: But great. Great Depression also, too. But today, contemporary today, you know.
[00:34:05] Speaker B: Right. If, like, so if you're out, if you're hearing us, but you're just like, nah, and you're out is.
No. There's hungry people. There's people that are starving. You need to know that that's not the case right now.
[00:34:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:34:18] Speaker B: Right. And you can look it up. I looked it up just out of curiosity. And virtually no one starves to Death in the United States, it just doesn't happen. And what a blessed time to live. Like, think about that. Historically speaking, that's an incredible moment in history to live where that is actually not a desperate need right now. So.
[00:34:39] Speaker A: Yeah, well. And I would say counter to that.
Oh, now I'm devil's advocate. We change.
[00:34:45] Speaker B: Go for it. Do it, do it.
[00:34:47] Speaker A: I would say counter to that.
Hunger is a great motivator.
Okay.
[00:34:57] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:34:58] Speaker A: Especially the hunger of other people that you are responsible for is a great motivator.
[00:35:05] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:08] Speaker A: When we, when all our risks are taken away from us, all the danger of the world is taken away from us.
[00:35:16] Speaker B: I hear what you're saying.
[00:35:17] Speaker A: Yeah. We don't.
Human nature is that now we don't work as hard, we don't try as hard, but when the burden of responsibility is placed squarely upon our shoulders, especially responsibility for other people, historically speaking, we deliver.
People work harder, they come through.
That's just how the world has worked.
At least in Christian circles. I should say it that way. At least in Christian circles.
[00:35:45] Speaker B: Yeah, man. There's a lot we can talk about there too.
[00:35:46] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:35:49] Speaker B: But the answer, the response to living in a time where there aren't famines that in our context, there aren't famines that suddenly result in thousands of people starving is. That's one less thing we have to worry about. Let's use our energies not to be lazy or to seek more leisure, but to seek more kingdom minded work, take more ground.
Yeah.
[00:36:19] Speaker A: Yeah. Cool. So there you go. Comment section, roundup complete. Thank you guys. Even if you, like, hate everything that we just said, thank you for listening.
[00:36:31] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:36:32] Speaker A: Our goal, just so we're all clear here, our purpose and what we're doing with this podcast and with this online magazine is to bring the truth of God to bear on all of life.
That's what we're after here.
And that's okay. If people don't like it, we don't mind that.
That's okay. If you sharply disagree, that's fine too. Because I believe the truth of Jesus will win.
I believe that if the gospel and the commands of God and the word of God are allowed to operate in the public square, which we haven't done faithfully as a church, like as the American church, for the last hundred years.
But I believe that if we do that, it will win. It will win and it will gain ground. And that's what our effort is to do. So thank you guys so much to people who are listening to this episode. Maybe you got different opinions. We'd love to hear them in the comments.
That's fine. You can shoot us a dm. Maybe you've got questions. Maybe you're somebody who's listening to this episode right now and you're like, okay, I get where you guys are coming from. I don't like the way you're doing it. I don't like the way you're saying it, but I understand where you're coming from.
But what about this?
I would love to interact with somebody like that. I would love that.
[00:37:51] Speaker B: Right?
[00:37:52] Speaker A: Like, let's have that conversation, man. Let's go. And we could record later episodes. Maybe we'll do some FAQ episodes later on whenever people got different questions and we could go through things. We would love that. But. But our goal is to push the truth of Jesus into every corner of life. That's what we're after and that's what we're trying to implement. So thank you guys so much for listening.
Hopefully this was helpful to you at the very least.
I bet the comments section is entertaining.
[00:38:20] Speaker B: It was fun. It was a good time.
[00:38:23] Speaker A: Oh, man. Thank you guys so much for listening. We'll catch you all next time.
