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Colossians | The Worthy Walk Episode 30
39 Plays18 days ago
In this kickoff episode of Colossians, Danny and Shane discuss some of the key points from the message. We discuss Gnosticism, the Early Church, where we got our Bible, and what was the Seeker Friendly Movement.
If you're interested in more context on canon and early church and the development of Christianity, please check out these podcasts and episodes. I cannot recommend Gavin Ortlund enough if you're curious about protestantism and the history of the Church.
Gavin Ortlund - Truth Unites
Protestant Canon https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-protestant-canon-defended-with-javier-perdomo/id1700282740?i=1000714506306
Did the First Christians Worship Jesus? https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/did-the-first-christians-worship-jesus/id1700282740?i=1000697402665
How do we KNOW the New Testament Canon https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-do-we-know-the-new-testament-canon/id1700282740?i=1000682281382
How to Study Church History https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-study-church-history-and-why-every-christian-should/id1700282740?i=1000638214656
Phylicia Masonheimer - Verity
The World of the Early Church https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/125-the-world-of-the-early-church/id1495210734?i=1000635643769
How the Early Church did Church https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/128-how-the-early-church-did-church/id1495210734?i=1000638397705
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Table Talk Discussions
00:00:32
Danny Price
Hey everybody, welcome back to Table Talk Discussions. I'm Danny Price and I'm here with Shane. We're going over the message from this previous Sunday. We're starting a new series on Colossians, so it was really exciting just to kind of get going with this. This was the first, I want to say I can't say first episode, the first sermon, the first sermon on Colossians.
Why Study Colossians?
00:00:51
Danny Price
um Shane, why why are we doing Colossians? Give us a little background on like why you chose this and um why this is an important letter or a book of the Bible to go through.
00:01:03
Shane
um Well, honestly, the reason I chose it is because we'd never preached it. um Most of the shorter, yeah, most of the shorter letters in the Bible, um we've preached through um at different times as a church, and we've never covered Colossians.
00:01:08
Danny Price
Really?
00:01:17
Shane
um And I went back through, because I have notes from, you know, even when I was a youth pastor stuff, and i I could not find anything where I've gone through the whole book. I mean, I've preached passages at different times.
00:01:30
Danny Price
Mm-hmm. Uh-huh.
00:01:30
Shane
but never where I've gone to the book. So, so for me, part of it was just like, Hey, we've never covered this and you know, let's, let's cover it. It has a lot of the same,
00:01:41
Shane
you know all I would say you know the what I called the ah Go Eat Popcorn Carefully books, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, those all have some overlapping themes.
00:01:54
Shane
But Colossians, one thing I like about it is that it it definitely focuses on the deity and supremeness of Christ um a little bit more than the rest.
00:02:06
Shane
And
The Richness of Smaller Biblical Books
00:02:07
Danny Price
Interesting.
00:02:07
Shane
yeah, so...
00:02:09
Shane
um So yeah, I mean, that's basically basically why. um And I think why it it's definitely worth a look at um because of that focus on Christ and who he is.
00:02:20
Danny Price
Yeah. I mentioned it in the last podcast, but it's crazy to me how a lot of these smaller books that we... we go through really quick. Like if you're doing like a Bible reading plan, you might read through this in a day and there is so much theology and like same thing I think with a, with like Titus, for example, like some of these books that are that are smaller, James is smaller too. And like a lot of these books have just so much richness in them.
00:02:43
Danny Price
um and there's nothing wrong with reading through it quickly if you're doing a reading plan not knocking you if you're listening to this and you're like i do reading plan and should i not do that no you should that's fine but it is cool to go a little bit deeper and like really take i think we're taking eight weeks you said right to do this to go through colossians hmm
00:02:43
Shane
Yep.
00:02:55
Shane
Yeah. Yeah. yeah And that's why i always recommend switching up your Bible reading. You know, I mean, I, I think it's great. I, I think, you know, every believer should probably do a, like every 10, 10 years, do a read through the whole Bible.
00:03:09
Danny Price
yeah
00:03:09
Shane
But then, you know, that's of reasons when we do these short letters, I'm encouraging like, hey, read it every week, you know, um you know because if you're doing that, yeah these deeper issues will start to seep in. You know, a lot of people think, well, I read it once, you know, and then I'm good. but But when you keep rereading the same themes, um
00:03:31
Danny Price
hu
Challenges in Sermon Planning
00:03:33
Shane
like things that you just never saw kind of pop out.
00:03:36
Shane
I mean, honestly, when I'm preaching to a book, that's 70% of my study is I just keep reading through it and reading through it and reading through it and highlighting and marking and going, oh wow, that's a whole, you know, thing that I wasn't even going to preach on if I just read once or twice.
00:03:48
Danny Price
That's cool.
00:03:54
Shane
So, you know, yeah.
00:03:55
Danny Price
Interesting. That's cool. That's cool how the Holy Spirit works with that too. Like you read it one, um and I gotta to be careful. I'm not saying the Bible is saying different things, but to you, you might notice different things as you read through it.
00:04:06
Danny Price
Um, you know, the first time versus the 50th time, it's like, Oh my gosh, I've never, it's like Lord the Rings. When I watch Lord the Rings, every time I watch it, I'm like, Oh, I never noticed that makes them that much better of a movie.
00:04:17
Danny Price
Um, joke that I have with Shane.
00:04:17
Shane
Yeah.
00:04:19
Danny Price
Cause I love Lord the Rings.
00:04:20
Shane
yeah You know, the other thing about it kind of stinks because whenever I commit to like, okay, we're going to do this in eight weeks. um Because so like when I decided to do Colossians, I read through it probably like five times, right? Just the whole whole thing. it was like, yeah, okay. I like how this breaks up and I broke it up.
00:04:40
Shane
But then as i start rereading each passage intently and making notes, I'm like, oh, man, I really should. ah i really only have time to cover like four verses.
00:04:53
Danny Price
That's funny.
00:04:53
Shane
um So it kind of. um Yeah, so I was in my I end up getting myself stuck because I'm like, dang it. Now I've got to cover
Consistency Across Church Locations
00:05:01
Shane
all this 35 minutes.
00:05:03
Danny Price
Yeah, that that that is really tough. I didn't think about that. it's you I guess the thing is, you don't you want to be planned out enough to be able to say this is a series. And I guess just for congruency with you know the Gateway campus and whatever, it's hard to like limit yourself, but you kind of need to for so in a certain way.
00:05:15
Shane
Yeah.
00:05:21
Shane
Yeah.
00:05:21
Danny Price
you know like If you were just to say, I'm going to preach to this, going to take as long as I need, it might not be fair to like Gateway or to other places.
00:05:22
Shane
no anymore
00:05:27
Danny Price
Yeah.
00:05:27
Shane
Yeah.
00:05:28
Danny Price
other places
00:05:28
Shane
There are churches, you know, that, um that don't do that. There are churches that just go, Hey, I'm preaching through this, you know, but those are the churches that like the whole church kind of centers around the preaching.
00:05:40
Shane
um You know, like, um like Matt Chandler, I don't think Matt Chandler like tells them, you know, Hey, I promise I'll be done with this by, by this point. um Francis Chan, they don't do that.
00:05:50
Danny Price
You might extend it.
00:05:52
Shane
They just, they preach whatever part they get through, you know,
00:05:56
Danny Price
Yeah.
00:05:57
Shane
but um But those are preachers that, I mean, people will continue to go to that church only for the preaching. And so
00:06:05
Danny Price
Right.
00:06:08
Shane
so I think when we're looking at a more trying to have, you know, Bible studies and have, you know, the family all study the same things and do all these different different stuff, you know, it's it's it's a lot easier for people to work through it when we do it the way we're doing
00:06:08
Danny Price
Right.
00:06:25
Danny Price
Yeah, totally. No, i don't think there's anything wrong with being planned out. And that doesn't mean you could never come back to Colossians.
00:06:29
Shane
Yeah, no, I'm just saying I don't think there's wrong with either way.
00:06:33
Danny Price
Yeah.
00:06:33
Shane
I think they both have their benefits.
00:06:33
Danny Price
oh
00:06:35
Shane
So...
00:06:35
Danny Price
No, that totally makes sense. um Was there anything that you did not talk about on Sunday in the sermon um that you wish you would have hammered more or talked about more? Or did everything that you kind of thought you were goingnna say kind of make it into the sermon?
00:06:47
Shane
Um, no, not that I wish I hammered more. I mean, like I said, I didn't, I, you know, I didn't talk much about Gnosticism because I just was like, you know, Hey, we can do them here.
00:06:56
Danny Price
Yep.
00:06:57
Shane
Um, I, uh, um,
Historical Background of Colossians
00:07:03
Shane
like I said, you know, I easily could have just said, Hey, I'm just going to preach verse three through eight.
00:07:08
Shane
And then next week do nine to 14. Because, you know, we could have talked all day about verse 10 and 11, how bearing fruit leads to knowledge and knowledge leads to abiding in him and abiding in him leads to bearing fruit in that, that whole circle that was, you know, yeah.
00:07:26
Danny Price
The circle.
00:07:27
Shane
So, um you know, cause that's, ah you know, I mean, for me, that's probably the hardest part of my faith is just abiding in Christ.
00:07:37
Danny Price
Right.
00:07:38
Shane
So.
00:07:38
Danny Price
That makes sense. um So first question that I had, it was more just like a background. what's And then you mentioned a little bit of the beginning of the sermon, but what's the background on the Colossians? And then, side note, this is really funny. Me and Shane have us whole argument argument going on right now about how you pronounce the um the the city because it's the Colossians.
00:07:57
Shane
In the way you say it.
00:07:58
Danny Price
But I say, I always grew up either saying Colossi and never with the Colossia Colossia. I've never said it that way. I've always said Colossi and I don't know if I'm wrong hard or right.
00:08:10
Shane
Yeah.
00:08:11
Danny Price
But then Shane said, what did what did you say?
00:08:11
Shane
And then um I said collaia or cullis Colossia Colossia.
00:08:12
Danny Price
What was it that you said in the sermon?
00:08:17
Danny Price
tellas see a Colossia, Colossia.
00:08:18
Shane
Yeah. And um but then we on Sunday afternoon, we started looking it up and we literally found three different ways that people pronounce it. So.
00:08:27
Danny Price
Nobody knows. So I was like, because it was bugging me. I was like, oh, I don't think that's right. And then I told Shane about it. He's like, no, i I looked it up. It was on the commentary. Like I had to make sure I was on logos.
00:08:39
Danny Price
And then you looked it up and you were like, see, look at right here. And then I'm like, well, why do I, when I Google it, it shows a different one than both of us are saying. i can't remember the third option, but it was funny. So anyways, what's the, what's the background on this city? Where is the city located? Like modern day, just give it whatever you like you found in your research.
00:08:57
Shane
Um, uh, excuse me, man, man, my voice is doing worse than I thought it was. Um, well, as far as, um, it was, you know, one of Paul's missionary journeys, I wish we had visibility.
00:09:01
Danny Price
No, you're good.
00:09:07
Shane
I wish we had, uh, um, a way to show a map. Um,
00:09:12
Danny Price
But he didn't go. and um You said that, right? Because it was, what's his bucket? I can't think of his name. Epaphras. I have to say his name.
00:09:19
Shane
a path, a path risk.
00:09:20
Danny Price
Because he sent him.
00:09:20
Shane
Um,
00:09:21
Danny Price
but he But Paul didn't go. Did Paul ever make it to? going to say Colossae.
00:09:25
Shane
not to To our knowledge, he never made No, he never made it to Colisee. I will say it your way. Colisee. um Or wait, Colisei. Dang it.
00:09:39
Shane
us
00:09:40
Danny Price
Colossi. I say Colossi.
00:09:41
Shane
Colisei.
00:09:41
Danny Price
Don't just say whatever you're say the Colossians.
00:09:43
Shane
Okay. To our knowledge, he never made it.
00:09:44
Danny Price
He'd never made the Colossians.
00:09:45
Shane
He never made it there. um So he's writing this from prison. I didn't even get into that. um And, ah but it was, it was located somewhat close to like Laodicea. But,
How Early Christians Learned the Gospel
00:09:58
Shane
ah you know, i don't know, without a map, that's kind of hard to explain where it was, but yeah.
00:10:04
Shane
But it definitely, from what we know, Epaphras sat under Paul and probably paul commissioned him go um to to Colossae instead of um to lead to leave Ephesus and go there.
00:10:19
Danny Price
ah
00:10:23
Shane
So, um but we don't know for sure that he commissioned him. I mean, he might have just, you know, after a while went back home and started sharing the gospel.
00:10:32
Danny Price
Interesting. Yeah, that's, that's cool. I thought that was a cool thing of just being able to sit under Paul and then go and share the gospel. And then Paul ends up writing this letter um to the Colossians just kind of as like, our as as an encouragement and then also calling out heresies and all kinds of stuff, which we see later, which we'll talk about.
00:10:48
Shane
Yeah.
00:10:49
Danny Price
Um, Let's see here. We had a question from a view from a viewer, and not a viewer, a listener. one day we'll get our One day we'll get a ah video podcast going and you guys can watch our ugly faces as we talk about, we struggle through these things of how to say where the Colossians lived.
00:10:56
Shane
The view. Yeah.
00:11:06
Danny Price
um So I'm gonna read this question. I thought it was appropriate just to get started with this early because it does have to do with this early church stuff. um The question is from Steve, and it says, can you explain slash discuss how someone in the early days of Christianity learned the gospel?
00:11:20
Danny Price
They didn't have the Bible to study, so how did people in that time learn and implement the gospel? You want to take a crack at that, Shane?
00:11:26
Shane
Yeah, I mean, honestly, they lived in a very um in a culture that was heavily reliant on um the oral word.
00:11:37
Shane
um
00:11:37
Danny Price
Yep.
00:11:38
Shane
So, you know, if you remember in Acts, Paul sits under the teaching of the apostles for a while, first of Apollos and then the rest of the apostles.
00:11:43
Danny Price
Yeah.
00:11:56
Shane
um apostles, I mean, not the rest of them, the other apostles, and then ah and then they commissioned him to go on his missionary journey. So, you know, he, in that time, was pretty much trained on what what the gospel was. And, you know, on top of that, you know, he definitely had the the revelation. But,
Understanding the Gospel
00:12:18
Shane
you You know, so then he would go and he'd preach pretty specifically the gospel. You know, when he when he went and preached, when ah when you read through Acts, it talks about Paul preaching. It wasn't like when people come on to church on Sunday morning and were preaching through different topics. it was He was preaching the gospel.
00:12:39
Shane
He was sharing, you know, the redemptive power of Jesus. He was sharing how the work of the cross, he was sharing all that stuff. And then probably for different, you know, because sometimes he'd preach for several weeks.
00:12:54
Shane
Probably it was um different reasonings on how the the work of the cross works. um You know, it wasn't all of a sudden he preached that for two weeks and went on to preaching, ah you know, like how to have a better marriage or, you know, anything like that.
00:13:12
Shane
Right. So.
00:13:13
Danny Price
Our next topic for next Sunday is going to be yeah
00:13:14
Shane
Yeah, yeah. i was It was him just hitting the gospel from all these different angles. So when people left that and went out from that, they they were pretty adept in understanding the gospel from a from a pretty holistic viewpoint.
00:13:31
Danny Price
Can you, can you explain? So just, i guess back up for a second. Can you explain the gospel, what the gospel is? I, we're going to do this with our summer staff at camp this, this summer. I feel like everyone says the the word gospel, which really just means good news.
00:13:48
Danny Price
And they don't they haven't they don't really explain it. And I'm not saying that that's wrong, because I think a lot of Christians, it's it's very commonplace. Like, oh, yeah, I know what the gospel is generally. Maybe just for someone that doesn't know or is just needs a refresher, like myself too, what is the gospel in you know two minutes, I guess?
00:14:05
Danny Price
So like a very plain speak. Just what what would what would you say the gospel is, the core?
00:14:08
Shane
Well, let me start with the 22nd and then I'll go on to the two minute. The 22nd is
00:14:14
Danny Price
Okay. Okay.
00:14:17
Shane
you're a sinner, Jesus died on the cross for your sins. um And the only way to salvation is through faith in faith in him. And he defeated death through the resurrection.
00:14:28
Shane
And through that, we can have life in him. I mean, that's the very, what I would call the basic.
00:14:31
Danny Price
Perfect. Yes. Mm-hmm.
00:14:35
Shane
But when you talk about like preaching the gospel, it's getting deeper into the fact that we are sinners from, from origin. Like it's part of our nature. You can't overcome it. Um, there is no amount of goodness you can do. Um, there's no goodness in you apart from God. So it's, it's starting, you know, there's a couple, you know, ways to start from that vantage point of, can we all agree that we're sinners, you know? Um,
00:15:08
Shane
And then once we get to that point, then it's if we believe in any kind of eternity, how do we get there? And um then from how do we get there?
00:15:18
Danny Price
Yeah. Yep.
00:15:21
Shane
the idea of and making helping people understand that there there is no level of goodness. how do you How do you measure that level? And so, you know, we need a savior. And um so then it's walking through, you know, and depending on how much you want to get into it, walking through the Old Testament and the covenant and how how God worked.
00:15:43
Shane
there And I guarantee you, Paul definitely taught all that stuff. um You know, how God used the old covenant um and the sacrifice the sacrifices and, um you know, the the atonement and and all that.
00:15:54
Danny Price
Yeah.
00:15:56
Shane
um And the atonement just basically means the like the covering of our sins. um So... So you you talking about Jesus as the sacrifice that paid the price for our sins and that the only way for us to be right in the eyes of God is through accepting the sacrifice that Jesus made rather than us trying to earn it.
00:16:21
Shane
So I mean that, you know, if you're a two minute version, that's about what I would have.
00:16:22
Danny Price
yeah
00:16:27
Danny Price
Yeah, no, that's perfect. um I'm really quickly just going to say, i i've heard I've heard this, um
The Gospel Across Different Faiths
00:16:34
Danny Price
what's the word? It's not, is it anagram?
00:16:37
Danny Price
Where you have one, you have a word, so that the word gospel in each letter, and the word gospel stands for something. I can't think of what that's called.
00:16:42
Shane
Yeah, yeah. i good
00:16:44
Danny Price
always forget what that is. i think it's anagram. um But... um I've heard it explained like this, and just really quickly just so you people can remember. So gospel, so G is for God. God created us and wants to be with us.
00:16:55
Danny Price
O, our sin separates us from God. And then S, sins cannot be removed by good deeds. There's nothing good that you can do to remove sin. And then P,
00:17:05
Danny Price
the in the gospel, paying the price for our sins. Jesus died and rose again. E, everyone who trusts in him alone puts their faith in him, has eternal life. And then L, the you know the end, life with Jesus starts now and lasts forever. And that talks about, you know, our eternal destiny with him in heaven.
00:17:21
Danny Price
But that's an old one that I've used. um I'm actually working on as a separate podcast.
00:17:25
Shane
That's good. I like it.
00:17:27
Danny Price
I'm working on a separate podcast. We'll talk about that later, but that's actually something that comes up as a gospel because different things faiths, different religions have their version of what you would call a gospel, a good message.
00:17:40
Danny Price
Sometimes it's not so good message and that's what the difference of Christianity is. But anyways, that was a really helpful thing for me. And I've heard different people talk through that before. um
Scriptural Accessibility in Early Christianity
00:17:49
Danny Price
Just to kind of be, if so, if you're ever sharing the gospel someone, it's it's really helpful because you get stuck when you're like, I don't remember what I'm supposed to say next.
00:17:55
Danny Price
And it kind of helps you like, oh, that's right. like It's like a chain that you can kind of work your way down. So anyways, back to the original question. So that's the gospel. um Can you talk a little bit about where he you know, in this question, he says they didn't have a Bible to study. So how did people in that time learn and implement the gospel?
00:18:16
Danny Price
Is that true? Do they not have a Bible? What did they have? Yeah.
00:18:20
Shane
They definitely didn't have a Bible as we think of it. um If anything, they had dad scrolls.
00:18:23
Danny Price
Yeah.
00:18:25
Shane
But but you know, especially for the Jews, the Jews synagogue life is such an important part of their, their life. um You know, and the, um the young men were, were raised learning, um like we're memorizing parts of the scrolls and especially the, the Torah.
00:18:46
Danny Price
Yep.
00:18:49
Shane
um So they definitely had that background. um And then, like said, they relied on oral tradition and um learning learning was definitely a major part of even.
00:19:01
Shane
So even the non-Jewish culture, the Greek culture, um you know, they were used to going and listening to orators and they would memorize things that the orator said.
00:19:10
Danny Price
isn' know
00:19:12
Shane
They would listen to them multiple times. um So so that was kind of part of the the culture. um But yeah, they didn't have like these letters. They didn't have all these letters, but what they did have is they'd have maybe one letter, um which is why Paul covers like so many topics in these letters.
00:19:28
Danny Price
Yeah.
00:19:31
Shane
You know, he he knew that these letters were going to get passed around and they would go um to to the church services and people would read section sections of these letters.
00:19:43
Shane
um And then they would be copied. So once he sent out a letter, um you know, they would get copied and, you know, sent around and that kind of thing.
00:19:54
Shane
So, so they might each, each church might have one or two letters, not just from Paul, but maybe one of John's or Peter's, you know, that kind of thing.
00:20:03
Danny Price
Yep.
00:20:03
Shane
So, so they had um different scriptures, but definitely not the full Bible like we have.
00:20:12
Danny Price
Didn't have everything. Yeah.
00:20:13
Shane
Yeah. Yeah.
00:20:14
Danny Price
So a little background on this, if you're just if you're curious. In terms of timing and timetables, so Colossians is written 60 AD,
00:20:19
Shane
Hmm.
00:20:23
Danny Price
um and It takes, Shane's saying, it takes a second for these letters to get circulated. As far as I know, i was looking this up and doing some research.
00:20:35
Danny Price
Colossians was actually one of these letters that's get that's that gets circulated. And then again, Thessalonians, it like specifically says in Colossians and Thessalonians, and I'll tell you the exact places, it's Colossians 4.16 and 1 Thessalonians 5.27. He talks about these letters getting circulated.
00:20:51
Danny Price
And so it's kind of assumed that they're moving around and it's not just like, this letter is only for the Colossians and only the Colossians get to read this and it's only applic applicable to them.
00:21:02
Shane
Yeah.
00:21:02
Danny Price
He's writing this to encourage those believers, but it this is an inspired word of God is scripture. So we're talking, everyone gets to hear about this. Ephesians gets passed around a little bit. I looked into that because it was interesting. Because Ephesians, there's this letter that he talks about the letter to the Laodiceans.
00:21:16
Danny Price
He actually talks about that in Colossians.
00:21:17
Shane
Yeah.
00:21:18
Danny Price
And ah people always ask like, what what letter is the Laodicean letter? Because we don't have the book of Laodiceans in Colossians. the Bible. And a lot of people say that that actually is Ephesians, that Ephesians was supposed to be a circular letter that gets passed around and it gets passed around to Laodicea from Ephesus, which I thought was really interesting because I, I nerd about, and I hope you guys are enjoying this nerd out session that I'm having because I was really into this.
00:21:33
Shane
Thank
00:21:39
Shane
you.
00:21:40
Danny Price
But the reason why that scholars say that is because in the original manuscript, the Codex Sinaiticus, which is this Greek manuscript, it's this handwritten thing. It's super long. It's this old, old manuscript that we still have access to.
00:21:53
Danny Price
Um, There was no word, there was no, um there's all these like missing, hold on, I'm going to quote this so I don't screw this up. But in Ephesus, and Ephesus is specifically missing from those, um from that manuscript. So
Canonization and Biblical Canon Differences
00:22:08
Danny Price
when in the ephesia in book of Ephesians, when he's talking about in Ephesus and all this stuff, it actually is missing in that first manuscript. So that gives scholars the idea like, hey, maybe this wasn't just for the Ephesians and it gets passed around.
00:22:19
Danny Price
Anyways, I think that stuff is interesting. The next like follow-up with that would be, just like so given giving you guys background, I'm not going to get into all this process of canonization.
00:22:22
Shane
Yeah. Yeah.
00:22:29
Danny Price
and that wasn't one That wasn't even one of the questions that I had. But if you're curious, this is a really big this is a really big deal, especially if you're trying to find out if the Bible is trustworthy and where we get our Bible from.
00:22:43
Danny Price
i would encourage I'll link a couple podcasts and a couple videos in the description so you guys can take a look at this for yourself. But it takes It takes about another 100 years after this. um So after this book is written, um Colossians, it's it's about AD 170 that we get our first iteration of the New Testament.
00:23:01
Danny Price
A lot of people will say it doesn't happen until the Council of Nicaea, which is like 300 AD, and that's not true. Christians were passing these around. This was scripture. So if you ever hear someone say... oh, you don't even have your Bible until 300 years after Jesus died. And like, how do you even know that? that's That's not true. So if someone's saying that, first of all, that's not true. Right away, Paul is saying that Peter's peter's letters are scripture and Peter's saying Paul's letters are scripture in the Bible. Like it the church is recognizing this as all as scripture.
00:23:26
Danny Price
It does take about to AD 170 for a lot of these letters to be collected together. Because again, like Shane was saying, not like they didn't have the book of Romans. The Colossians didn't have the book of Romans or the book of Hebrews or whatever. It takes a while for those to get passed around.
00:23:40
Danny Price
But if you're curious, 8170 is kind of when all those books get collected in the first iteration of the new Testament kind of comes out. And then, You can get into that on your own, but there's endless battles, and there still are endless battles of what books are included in the New Testament because we see it as Protestants a certain way, but Catholics include other books, and Orthodox include other books, and some Protestants argue for more books to be included.
00:24:06
Danny Price
Again, not new books, but books that were already present at the time.
00:24:09
Shane
Yeah, definitely not. duing i And if I can add to that, a Protestant wouldn't say there's anything wrong with the books in the Catholic Bible. We would just say... we're we're trying to, we're probably, we're a little more like, hey, it doesn't, it's not as consistent in how it points to Christ.
00:24:27
Shane
So, so there, you know, we, we, we take them out as, they're not scripture, but like, we're not like, oh, those are just like mystic and wrong, you know?
00:24:37
Danny Price
Yep.
00:24:37
Shane
Yeah.
00:24:38
Danny Price
Yeah, well, there is one book that I was reading.
00:24:38
Shane
So I mean, it's,
00:24:40
Danny Price
I was like, ah the book of Thomas, which nobody considers to be actually true. And it literally was like God, Jesus, Jesus apparently said, like in this book of Thomas, the gospel of Thomas, um Jesus says it's like these crazy heretical things.
00:24:53
Danny Price
Apparently, again, there's like no one actually believes that he wrote, wrote this, that Thomas actually wrote this. But apparently Jesus is like, I'm not God. I don't know why you get this idea that I'm God. And like says all this like crazy heretical stuff, which totally lines up with all these heresies that people were pushing in that time.
00:25:06
Shane
Yeah, but that's not in that's not in the Catholic Bible.
00:25:09
Danny Price
It's not, it's not, but there are people that will want to.
00:25:10
Shane
yeah yeah there's a fun Yeah, there's a bunch of – Reader's Digest, I remember my grandparents had it, published a the Lost Books of the Bible and the Gospel Thomas.
00:25:22
Shane
There's actually a few of them in there. and
00:25:23
Danny Price
there's Yeah, so weird.
00:25:24
Shane
know And they're all – they're definitely like every – apologist Christian, whether they're Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, would all say, hey, these these are nuts. These don't count. So um and a way I heard it once a long time ago, which kind of really helps me, is um that it's not like the Bible was um created It's not like a group of guys got together and said, hey, what um what should make the Bible?
00:25:59
Danny Price
What do you want to be in a Bible? Yeah.
00:26:00
Shane
It was they they they gathered all the ones that were already considered the Bible.
00:26:07
Danny Price
Correct.
00:26:07
Shane
So, you know, don't know.
00:26:09
Danny Price
it's ah Other people say it's a fallible list of infallible books. Like, it's ah it's a man-made list of God-inspired books.
00:26:13
Shane
Yeah.
00:26:17
Shane
Yeah.
00:26:17
Danny Price
It's not, like... man men got together and we said, hey what do we need to make the Bible. what are we going to make? What are we going make the Bible? Okay, let's grab this. Let's grab a little of that.
00:26:23
Shane
Yeah.
00:26:25
Danny Price
There was none of that. Just in case, a lot of people that are not Christians or have a poor idea of history will try to use that as a defeater for Christianity, ah which is frustrating because it's not it's not accurate.
00:26:26
Shane
Yep. Yep.
00:26:37
Danny Price
it's not based in history. So... Anyways, that was a rabbit trail. um Back to his original question. Yeah, i would I think that was a perfect way to answer that. It's just like the oral tradition.
00:26:47
Danny Price
So they yeah, they didn't have a Bible to study. A lot of people will say,
Introduction to Gnosticism
00:26:51
Danny Price
well, they still had the Old Testament. But you got to remember, we're talking about a lot of lay people here, like normal dudes that were not um able to read. A lot of these guys, like some of the Jewish people, I think, you know that had rabbis would read some of the males.
00:27:06
Danny Price
But if you were a female... Or if you were just a normal like tradesman, you probably didn't know how to read. So you didn't really have access to the Old Testament like you would you would think like we have it now, like where anyone could read the Old Testament. So they had the Old Testament. they All the scrolls and stuff were there. But again, orally was how they would transmit all that.
00:27:24
Shane
Yeah.
00:27:24
Danny Price
um I think we answered that question. is there anything else, Shane, that you wanted to just revisit with that?
00:27:29
Shane
Yeah. Now that's, know, without there again, going into all the canonization and everything, that's that's about as much as we're going get.
00:27:35
Danny Price
Yeah. Yeah, i got I got two great podcasts for people I listen to that really go into depth more on that stuff. I'll link it so you guys can do your own research on that. Because for me, at least, i don't know, maybe you're listening to this and you're like, can you please stop talking about the candidates?
00:27:48
Danny Price
But for me, this is really interesting.
00:27:49
Shane
Thank
00:27:51
Danny Price
um Next topic was just Gnosticism. You said we're going to talk about Gnosticism, so now everyone has this really big expectation, Shane. Lay us lay us all your wisdom on Gnosticism.
00:28:03
Shane
a Well, I don't have a lot of wisdom on it.
00:28:06
Danny Price
No, yeah I know.
00:28:06
Shane
ah But the best way I would describe Gnosticism for people to make sense get make sense of it is um it's not very big anymore.
00:28:17
Shane
They don't call it this anymore. But the New Age movement um was nothing but an old age movement in reality.
00:28:21
Danny Price
Yes.
00:28:25
Shane
New ages new Age movement is basically Gnosticism. It's this idea um And what was so appealing about Gnosticism to people, which is also appealing with New Age movement,
00:28:39
Shane
is it doesn't come from just one place. You know, it had a little bit of Jewish mysticism in it. um
00:28:45
Danny Price
Yep. It's
00:28:46
Shane
It had Greek philosophy in it. um You know, it ah it it took from different philosophers and it kind of, they poured it all into this mindset that if you gathered all of this this stuff, you could you could kind of,
00:28:56
Danny Price
a hodgepodge.
00:29:04
Shane
live in an inner knowledge. So it wasn't even knowledge like it wasn't a matter like, oh, if I learn enough history and I learn enough science, well, then I've obtained something. It's the idea that if just learn on in an inner knowledge, um you know, my spirit will kind of become
00:29:25
Danny Price
Ascendant.
00:29:25
Shane
One. Yeah.
00:29:26
Danny Price
Yeah, whatever.
00:29:26
Shane
So they were very big on separating spirit and matter. um You know, that our spirit was good. um All physical aspects were, had evil in it.
00:29:37
Shane
um So, um you know, but it was really popular around the first century and kind of until about the third century. And it was pretty much spread all throughout.
00:29:49
Shane
There were pockets of it all throughout um the Roman empire. So, So you'll notice if you read, like, I think I mentioned it, I know I mentioned it in one of the services. um a lot of the um A lot of the letters have little sections that are dealing with Gnostic thought.
00:30:09
Shane
um In fact, the word Gnostic comes from gnosis, which was Greek for knowledge.
00:30:14
Danny Price
Yep.
00:30:15
Shane
So...
00:30:17
Danny Price
Yep.
00:30:17
Shane
um You know, in fact, actually, those those letters that those letters we were talking about, especially the Gospel of Thomas, most believe was written by a Gnostic trying to influence um the church.
00:30:25
Danny Price
Yeah.
00:30:28
Danny Price
Yep. Yep. Yep.
00:30:31
Shane
So, um yeah, so that helps.
00:30:36
Danny Price
No, that was super interesting. that
00:30:38
Shane
There's more you want, but... um
00:30:41
Danny Price
Yeah, i when I was digging into it, um it's so interesting to me, and I don't get why this is the case, because I think even Christians tend to want to do this and some sometimes you know in our modern day, again, with that new age or new thought-like influence. But the idea that you can look into your belly button and find truth.
00:31:00
Danny Price
like you yeah All you gotta do is look into yourself and inside yourself is, again, the Gnostics would use this word, like the divine spark, and they had other words for it, but like inside you is this little piece of God that all you have to do is like look in and you have to like, and again, they would do all kinds of practices, meditation,
00:31:03
Shane
Yep. Yep.
00:31:19
Danny Price
this and that. But if you, if you only looked really close into yourself, you're going find truth. You're going to find knowledge. That's like secret. Again, there's no possible way.
00:31:29
Danny Price
Like Shane was saying, I think that's really important. There's no possible way for you to look through history or math or any other like substance or book that you're going to find. It's, it's not in there. It's inside you. Like you have to find it. And to me, I'm like, to me, it sounds ridiculous, but I think for some people it's very, you know,
00:31:47
Danny Price
engaging and empowering that the truth is inside of you and all that it's like, it's like that, uh, um, that joke that i don't know if you've seen that meme that people always say, like' like the, the, what was it? Like the, the reward is that is the friendships that we made all along. Like all the, the the whole time, the secret ingredient, like in a Kung Fu Panda, the whole time, the secret ingredient was like, I am the secret ingredient that like, I'm it. Like ah I don't need anything else. I don't know. I don't need Jesus. I don't need whatever. Like I, I'm kind of, I'm kind of a big deal.
00:32:16
Danny Price
Um, and I, so I can see how that's empowering, but to me, like just the idea that there's not that secret, the secret knowledge, it's, it's kind of weird to me.
00:32:19
Shane
Thank you.
00:32:23
Danny Price
I don't quite get it, but I can see again, back at that time with all the different, like you said, all the different influences, because they bring a little bit of like Jewish, yeah, like Jewish God. They bring a but little bit of Christianity because Christ to them was like a good dude.
00:32:35
Danny Price
He was a, he was a good role model.
00:32:37
Shane
Well, they believe that he was one one of the best Gnostics, that that he, you know, had to reach that enlightenment.
00:32:40
Danny Price
Yes.
00:32:45
Shane
And
Avoiding Gnostic Influences in Modern Christianity
00:32:46
Shane
that that was why he was so honored and why people followed him and because he had achieved it. So that's that's why when you have the Gospel Thomas where he's saying, I'm not a god, you know, but, you know, you you too can achieve this kind of this this enlightenment.
00:33:01
Danny Price
Yeah.
00:33:02
Shane
Yeah.
00:33:02
Danny Price
Yeah. No, that was really good. that'ss That's a great point. So what would be, just like to kind of so we can just put this to bed and move on. What would be, like like follow-up question, what would be the way that you avoid Gnosticism or Gnostic thought now?
00:33:20
Danny Price
Because back then they had to battle against it. We kind of have to battle against it a little bit now, a little bit differently. Yeah. What are the things that would want to infiltrate Christianity that we have to fight against just to stay true to the gospel?
00:33:33
Shane
So I don't want to say this in a way that discounts all of something, but I want to but it I really believe this. I think we got to be really leery of the whole so trying to connect the self-help movement to Christianity.
00:33:49
Danny Price
Hmm.
00:33:49
Shane
um You know, like, yeah, there is benefits in some ways of, you know, not... having a, you know, like, like we, we need, yes, we need to not have a victim mentality.
00:34:04
Shane
We need to know we we can achieve things everything, but not through thinking, well, if I just learn more, if I, you know, I, but you know, kind of going back to what Tony was talking about, behavior modification versus transformation.
00:34:19
Shane
And, and I think one of the problems in our culture is we get so focused on self and let's face it. i mean we think we're pretty hot stuff in our culture. I mean,
00:34:28
Danny Price
Yeah.
00:34:29
Shane
um we, you know, I know there are people that suffer with, you know, struggle with self-image and all blah, blah, blah. But part of the reason for that is because we have this feeling like we're supposed to feel great all the time. We're supposed to have everything go our way all the time. And,
00:34:45
Shane
So I just think we've got to be really careful to not focus on self. you know um the more The more we focus on self, the further away from focusing on God we get. Because you know Jesus flat out taught us that we we are we are called to deny ourself. We want to reduce ourself and increase him. And the more we increase him, the um the more we will overcome. And so I just think...
00:35:15
Shane
You know, we just be careful of that. You know, look, like I said it in a sermon, look look at what you're reading. Look at what you're watching. Look at what you're listening to. Is it is it trying to get you to focus more on on what God, who God is and how dependence on him will change your life?
00:35:34
Shane
Or is it trying to get you more focused on, you know, you have the answers and all you, and God will kind of help you achieve those answers. So,
00:35:43
Danny Price
Yeah.
00:35:44
Shane
You know, just be careful.
00:35:45
Danny Price
No, i would I would totally agree. And like that idea of like manifesting or like i look at you look you look yourself in the mirror and you go you can do this today or you, whatever.
00:35:53
Shane
Yeah. Yeah.
00:35:54
Danny Price
The idea...
00:35:54
Shane
Speaking things into existence, all that kind of, you know.
00:35:56
Danny Price
it Yeah. And I would add too, just to be careful of chasing experiences and experiential Christianity.
00:36:01
Shane
Yeah.
00:36:08
Shane
Yeah.
00:36:08
Danny Price
um Man, God's revealed his word to us and we have... We don't need to seek into ourselves to find out who God truly is. Like we we can see who God truly is. There's parts of God we're never going to understand because he's God and he's not worth worshiping if we can fully understand him, ah I believe.
00:36:27
Danny Price
But you're not going to, I just got to be careful how I say this. i just want to be clear.
00:36:33
Danny Price
I personally don't see anywhere in scripture where you going further into yourself is going to reveal more about God that you can't already see from scripture. And if it already is in scripture anyways, and you're and you're just revealing more of got who God is through experiential meditation or any of this stuff, you could have just gone to scripture in the to begin with to learn who about who God is. So...
00:36:56
Danny Price
When it comes to Christianity and when it comes to this whole idea of experiences, I think we just have to be very, very cautious of...
00:37:04
Shane
Thank you.
00:37:05
Danny Price
hey, like it's okay. like it's It's great to worship. It's great to pray. It's great to meditate on God's word. All this stuff has, there's a lot of truth to a lot of this, but we we have to be careful when we start crossing that line of just going off of what we have with with God's word and going into, well, maybe there's something that we don't really know about God. Maybe there's something that he wants to reveal to just me and it's secret and nobody else will know.
00:37:26
Danny Price
And i' ah I'm gonna get this this special revelation from God. And i'm so I'm gonna go further and again, further into myself to find it. I think we have to be really careful. It's not,
The Seeker-Friendly Movement
00:37:35
Danny Price
I wouldn't say that's quite the same as Gnosticism, but there's, there's overlap.
00:37:38
Danny Price
So anything else you want to add to that before we move on, Shane?
00:37:39
Shane
yeah yeah that's that's pretty good
00:37:44
Danny Price
Um, yeah again, if you have more questions about that, reach out to Shane, reach out to me. Um, again, I have podcasts and resources and books. If you're curious, um, secret friendly movement, what is the secret friendly movement? What was it? Is it still here? Is it still alive? Is it kind of dead now? what do you think?
00:38:01
Shane
um Well, the Seeker Friendly Movement was basically a movement that kind of started in, I would say, the late 70s, but really didn't get um a lot of feet be underneath it until the 80s, mid-80s.
00:38:17
Shane
And um the idea was if we were a post-Feeder, church culture. We were a post-Christian culture. We were no longer ah a culture where everybody was raised in church.
00:38:33
Danny Price
Why what was that?
00:38:33
Shane
um
00:38:34
Danny Price
Is that the sexual revolution in the 70s or what?
00:38:35
Shane
Yeah, hold the whole Vietnam War, sexual revolution, all that, you know, it led to everybody questioning the the establishment. And the church kind of was part of the establishment. It wasn't connected to the government, but it was definitely one of the establishments of the American culture.
00:38:53
Shane
So, um So it, you know, it kind of um struggled. And ah You know, the Jesus movement started in the late 70s and all these kind of things happened.
00:39:06
Shane
And ah people started to realize we were just we were losing people. um You know, the church was shrinking and in pretty big numbers and it wasn't relating in any way, shape or form to younger people.
00:39:16
Danny Price
Hmm.
00:39:22
Shane
It wasn't answering questions. It wasn't um it kind of had a well, you just believe because you believe mentality. um You know, if you. were one of the young people who had not really been raised in the church.
00:39:37
Shane
And you tried to come back, you know, in your mid 20s or late 20s. There language that you didn't even understand. There were traditions and things that it's like, well, why we do this?
00:39:48
Shane
I don't know. one's explaining to me. I don't even know what I'm supposed to do. um You know, churches were very comfortable with how they were.
00:39:52
Danny Price
Yeah. Yeah.
00:39:56
Shane
And they didn't think about, well, what does this look like to the person who who's never been here? um And it was the first time in America we really had to think about that, you know, from a big standard. So.
00:40:10
Shane
um So the seeker movement started and, you know, so I i think the roots of the seeker movement were great. I think there's lots of benefit to it. um But, um and some of the the big names in that would have been Bill Hybels and Rick Warren and um and chuck even Chuck Smith, who started Calvary Chapel.
00:40:31
Danny Price
Yep. Yep. Yeah.
00:40:33
Shane
But then what happened is it started to get a little too far on the focus on me. um and And like, hey, if we want to reach these people, they're thinking about themselves.
00:40:44
Shane
They care about themselves. So we need to help see that having God in their life will help them in the here and now. and um and And they'll kind of come along, you know.
00:40:55
Shane
um And I got saved right in the middle of that. um yeah I got saved.
00:41:00
Danny Price
I think a lot of people a lot of people did in that in your generation. like
00:41:03
Shane
things
00:41:03
Danny Price
Most people did, yeah.
00:41:05
Shane
Yeah. So. And I've even shared this a little bit. I didn't have a lot of church experience. You know, when I and when I gave my life to Christ, I kind of grew up around this one church that maybe I'd gone to maybe 30 or 40 church services before, you know, after the age of like eight.
00:41:26
Shane
Yeah.
00:41:27
Danny Price
Mm-hmm.
00:41:29
Shane
Other than that, I just kind of went to youth group, you know, and youth group was mostly about fun. And there was like a 10 minute, 15 minute talk. um You know, they had a Bible study. I would go and not listen very often, um you know.
00:41:40
Danny Price
Yeah, right.
00:41:40
Shane
um But the so I didn't have a lot of experience in anything. And then I got saved and I got I started going to um i started going to Bible college year and a half after i i got saved.
00:41:54
Shane
And, um, and then I believe kind of too quickly moved into ministry. Um, so my own, yeah, I believe it was too quick when I look back.
00:42:01
Danny Price
Really? Huh. Interesting. Interesting.
00:42:05
Shane
Yeah. I would have counseled someone with the experience I had to go in.
00:42:09
Danny Price
What was your turnaround like in terms of like years? Just remind me. So you you you were saved when?
00:42:13
Shane
I was, I got,
00:42:14
Danny Price
And then when did you kind of get into like full-time ministry?
00:42:17
Shane
I got saved, um, when I was 19. Um, and, and I was in full-time ministry when I was 22. Um,
00:42:25
Danny Price
Oh, wow. so take three So like three years.
00:42:27
Shane
Yeah.
00:42:27
Danny Price
But you did have a little background, like you said, a little bit. So you knew some things, but it wasn't... You weren't like ah like an atheist and then a Christian, but you still feel like you weren't set up well.
00:42:35
Shane
No, I always believed in God. I'd always believed in God. I had a ah good, ah you know, but, um but it was more just, hi I only understood and knew one.
00:42:47
Shane
I didn't learn the theologies, right Because I went to this one school where they pretty much, yeah, you had one class where you learn the difference between Wesleyan and Armenian and reform and, you know, and then another class where you learn church history.
00:42:57
Danny Price
Okay, yeah.
00:43:01
Shane
But, you know, I mean, it was not a lot, you know, and I'm not a student. You know, a lot of pastors, um they, you know, you're more of a student than I am. You love, you know, you enjoy studying.
00:43:12
Danny Price
think the word you're looking for is nerd, but yeah.
00:43:12
Shane
Um, yeah
00:43:15
Danny Price
okay
00:43:17
Shane
So I more got into ministry. I wanted to see people know Jesus and I just, yeah, I have an evangelistic heart.
00:43:23
Danny Price
You have an evangelistic heart, yeah.
00:43:27
Shane
So, so I got kind of pulled into that mentality and, um, You know, and yeah, I've seen a lot of people come know Jesus. And thankfully, a lot of those people I know, like, you know, a lot of the guys in my ministry um that I came to Christ in my ministry, they're like super involved.
00:43:46
Shane
I know, you know, I've got a few better pastors now and all that.
00:43:47
Danny Price
Yeah.
00:43:49
Shane
But, you know, there are also some that I'm like, I don't know, you know, what happened. and and i And I definitely didn't teach them probably as much about about who God is in their life.
00:44:02
Shane
as I would now. And um so, so yeah, just the movement became a little bit more about kind of what I was talking about.
00:44:04
Danny Price
Interesting. OK.
00:44:10
Shane
Some of these dangers of Gnosticism, you know, it it became a little bit more about, Hey, here's your life, you know, and if you add Jesus to it, your life will be but a little bit better, you know, and, i'm and, and no, none of them would have said that.
00:44:22
Danny Price
Sure.
00:44:25
Shane
And I don't think here, the difference between like health and wealth um preachers and seeker movement preachers,
00:44:32
Danny Price
Ah.
00:44:33
Shane
I truly believe, i mean, I think some of the health and wealth guys are some of the worst people on God's earth. I really do.
00:44:41
Danny Price
Yeah.
00:44:42
Shane
i mean I think some of them, you know, are, know, wolves in sheep clothing, but not all of them, but some of them.
00:44:47
Danny Price
Yeah.
00:44:50
Shane
um
00:44:50
Danny Price
Yeah.
00:44:51
Shane
But with the seeker movement, I don't think any of them have, I don't think any of them have evil intentions. I think they have, kind of like me, they have evangelical hearts, they have evangelist hearts, and they don't have enough depth in their theology.
00:45:07
Shane
And, you know, that's, so that's where I've kind of been convicted of over the last, you know, 10 years that I had to grow in my depth of theology.
00:45:14
Danny Price
Sure.
00:45:16
Shane
So...
00:45:17
Danny Price
Right. Yeah. I would add to that too.
00:45:19
Shane
yeah
00:45:20
Danny Price
There's a difference between... I'm trying to figure out how to how to frame this this right. There's a difference between having a really wide front door and a really wide back door versus just a really wide front door, but a narrow back door. I think... And I guess what I mean by that, in in case you're confused what I'm saying, I'm saying some churches are geared to get as many people in as possible because it's seeker-friendly, but then there's no discipleship and there's no...
00:45:44
Danny Price
There's no content that is worth, you know, he says after you kind of get the message of ah you're a good person, essentially, and you're trying to do your best and you, you can, you can live your best life now and it's fine.
00:45:46
Shane
Yeah.
00:45:54
Danny Price
Like you just need
Creating an Inviting Church Environment
00:45:55
Danny Price
to hustle a little bit more and like God's God loves you no matter what. And which is all there's truth to some of this stuff. But again, it's not the full truth. And so there's a big backdoor. So people leave after a while and they cycle in and they cycle out versus, hey, we have a very wide call. All may come. We we want people, and I think Mountain view does a good job with this. We have a very a very wide front door. We want people to come from all backgrounds, from all walks of life. If you have tattoos, it's okay to come to Mountain View.
00:46:20
Danny Price
um But then again, a narrow backdoor, meaning we don't we don't want high turnover. We don't want people to come in, get a little bit of filling, and then get out and not come back and not be part of the body. We want people to be part of the body. We want to grow the body. So...
00:46:35
Danny Price
There's nothing wrong, I don't believe, with creating a welcoming, invi inviting space. And I think, Shane, you would agree with that. It would just be more if that's the end-all be-all is the welcoming, inviting space. And we're just making things nice for the newcomer, just for the sake of being nice for the newcomer, and not for the sake of getting them further into the word, further into the gospel, and learning more about Jesus. um
00:46:55
Shane
Yeah, absolutely. that's That's a great way of saying it. um You know, um yeah, there's nothing. I mean, if you look at Mountain View, like said, yeah, we're, you know, we have a cafe.
00:47:06
Shane
We have comfortable seats. um You know, we have a nice facility.
00:47:10
Danny Price
Yeah. Yeah.
00:47:11
Shane
There's nothing wrong with doing things that are going to cat gather people. But we also want to make sure they're getting they need to grow. Yeah.
00:47:21
Danny Price
And again, that being the, again, making things comfortable does not mean, and you hear a lot of people say what you win them with is what you win them to, which is which is true.
00:47:21
Shane
um
00:47:28
Shane
Yeah.
00:47:30
Danny Price
And I think there's a good element of that where it's like, yeah, that that makes sense. But again, we're not winning people to comfy seats or to the cafe. We're winning people to Christ through through good through good teaching in the body of believers and the truth of the gospel.
00:47:42
Danny Price
We're not winning people to... good worship or comfy seats, even though that that's, that does happen at Mountain View. We have good worship and we have comfy seats and we have a cafe and we have good children's ministry, but that's not like, there's a different, and it's just a different emphasis.
00:47:55
Danny Price
And I think some people will see churches doing things like what Mountain View does, like the comfy seats and we don't have, um,
00:48:03
Shane
Yeah.
00:48:04
Danny Price
You know, we don't force everyone to, I guess there's nothing wrong with it, but like stand and rise and kneel and a lot of the stuff that people would think of more high church things. Nothing. There's anything wrong with those, but because we don't do those, some people might say, well, you guys don't take your faith seriously enough because you're not doing those things. And I would, I would want to have a conversation with that person because there is a lot of critiques of not being as uncomfortable and as pious as possible with your worship to God. And if it's not that way, then it's not true worship. and you're, you're a secret friendly movement. if you're not doing those things, does that make sense? Yeah.
00:48:33
Shane
Oh, yeah, we would definitely get classified we would definitely get classified as a seeker-friendly church.
00:48:33
Danny Price
i've I've heard of that. I've heard that. Yeah.
00:48:38
Shane
um And by by many. not Not definitely by... There's some seeker-friendly churches that would say, no, but probably not. You should do this and this. But a lot of churches would i classify as that um because of those things. But I look at and I think... I look at the message.
00:48:58
Shane
You know, to me, that's what... that's what's influencing what people are getting out of And, you know, and, and here's the thing. I mean, I'm never going to be a John MacArthur, a Votie Bachman um in my preaching.
00:49:09
Danny Price
No, no.
00:49:11
Shane
You know, the guys I listened to are more like Matt Chandler and Josh Howerton and um you know, guys like that.
00:49:17
Danny Price
Craig Rochelle.
00:49:18
Shane
yeah crickhelle So, you know, but I definitely, i guess what I would say is I would challenge anyone that,
00:49:18
Danny Price
Yeah.
00:49:29
Shane
you I don't know how someone could come to Mountain View for three months and not be challenged in their walk at the gospel.
00:49:39
Danny Price
Yeah.
00:49:39
Shane
You know, they're...
00:49:39
Danny Price
And learn more. Yeah, learn more about Jesus. Yeah.
00:49:41
Shane
and more And learn more about Jesus and and and really and and actually be able to say, oh, yeah, I i have a better understanding of God's word. and you know There's not just this, you know here's two verses and nine quotes from ah you know different authors that aren't even Christians. you know it's not our our so Our preaching isn't like that. you know um so you know and And or our teaching in our classes and that kind of thing. So our teaching, you know when we have other classes, they're they're very focused on God's word and growing in his word.
00:50:11
Shane
so
00:50:12
Danny Price
Yeah, I think that's a good point. Again, we want to have unity with other believers and just because different churches do things differently. ah There's a lot of this stuff that's just so secondary. It's not core doctrine. it's there's not I don't believe there's a right or wrong.
00:50:27
Danny Price
um I believe there's, again, different different aspects of things we're going disagree on, but that's that's okay because we all agree on the core of the gospel and core doctrine. um I have one more question, but we kind of covered, we kind of covered a little bit.
00:50:41
Shane
I was just gonna looking at it, I kind of feel like we've gone over it a little bit.
00:50:44
Danny Price
We kind of covered it. It had to do with like living your best life now and just why that's not, not, not always the case. Just
Mountain View's Midweek Program
00:50:49
Danny Price
with the secret friendly movement and with, With that, so I think we can end the the episode. um A couple things just for the church, just reminders. Midweek starts today.
00:51:00
Shane
Yes.
00:51:00
Danny Price
Shane, I'm a dum-dum. I don't know anything. I'm a i'm brand new Mountain View person. What is midweek? Is it is it a cult? Are we going to put robes on and sing and chant? What are we doing?
00:51:10
Shane
Yep. Yep. No, it's um yeah what, what, the way I look at it is it's a, it's a taste of community. um So, you know, we, we want everyone at Mountain View to understand that if, man, if all you're doing is coming on Sunday morning, you're you're not getting the community you need to really grow and to be encouraged, you know?
00:51:20
Danny Price
Okay.
00:51:26
Danny Price
Yeah.
00:51:33
Shane
yeah, um You know, but also going to someone's home and being involved in a community group for the long haul is is a big step for people who have never done this. So, you know, we have community groups. We we definitely, that's our long-term goal. We want everyone to be in a community group.
00:51:52
Shane
But kind of as a step towards that, were we're doing these in the fall and spring, these eight-week groups, um to help people develop kind of community and learn in circles.
00:52:07
Shane
Cause you actually learn more in circles than you do in rows and you actually enjoy it more.
00:52:11
Danny Price
Right.
00:52:13
Shane
um So when you're, um when you come to church, you're going to hear stuff, but what we're doing is we're good.
00:52:13
Danny Price
Right.
00:52:19
Shane
Then we're in Wednesday, we're going to chew on that together. So
00:52:24
Danny Price
What does that look like? Like, what are we doing exactly?
00:52:26
Shane
ah we're going to have about 10 minutes of worship. And then as families, so the people have kids, they can bring their kids, kids can worship with them and everything. Then the kids are going be dismissed to their program.
00:52:39
Shane
um And then we're going to have about a five to seven minute kind of devotional teaching on a couple of key points from the sermon. And then we're going to break up into groups.
00:52:50
Shane
and we We're going to women's groups and men's groups, um you know, to kind of be able to dig a little deeper um in in God's word with ah other women or other men in the church.
00:52:58
Danny Price
Yep.
00:53:02
Shane
So um that's what it looks like.
00:53:03
Danny Price
Cool. that's but That's perfect. Awesome. And it's eight weeks long starts tonight, which is Wednesday. It's the 28th of January.
00:53:09
Shane
Yep.
00:53:10
Danny Price
If you're listening to this.
00:53:11
Shane
If you can't come tonight, you can't come tonight, that's okay.
00:53:11
Danny Price
Yeah.
00:53:14
Shane
Come next week. Doesn't matter if you're
00:53:16
Danny Price
Yeah, it's not, I mean, I would say it builds in the sense your community builds, but it's not like you missed, it's not like you missed a syllabus day and at college and now you're screwed for the rest of the semester.
00:53:23
Shane
Yeah.
00:53:25
Danny Price
um
00:53:25
Shane
Yep.
00:53:25
Danny Price
please Please still come. And then again, it's not, this isn't just a kid's program. So if you're thinking this is like midweek VBS or something or youth group, no, this is for everybody. So bring the whole family.
00:53:37
Shane
Yep.
00:53:37
Danny Price
There is, there is a, I guess you could say childcare. It's a little different than childcare because they're even doing stuff.
00:53:41
Shane
Yeah, it's a program. The kids will have their own program.
00:53:43
Danny Price
Yeah. It's a program.
00:53:44
Shane
So...
00:53:44
Danny Price
Yeah. You're not just, it's not just for the adults and the kids get, get babysat and then watch VeggieTales on the TV. um Not that there's anything wrong with VeggieTales. I love VeggieTales. um
00:53:55
Shane
Don't diss the veggies.
00:53:55
Danny Price
Awesome. Yeah. And then just a little bit of ah just direction for the podcast, just to give you guys a heads up. Me and Shane were just
Future Podcast Topics and Listener Engagement
00:54:03
Danny Price
talking about this before we have to just so you guys know, there's two questions or two like topics that we have podcasts coming out on. So, so Chris, I know you asked a question to us a while back and Dan as well. um We are working on that. Do not fear.
00:54:17
Danny Price
um there's just those questions you asked are not simple questions and we don't want to screw it up because i mean we want to handle this well. So we have some topics coming out, some cool podcasts that are going separate from just our weekly recaps.
00:54:26
Shane
Thank you.
00:54:30
Danny Price
We're trying to figure out a good time to do that um because we're trying to keep this sermon you know recap continuous continuous and not throw it off. So we don't want to like take breaks from doing that and do these other topics.
00:54:41
Danny Price
And I don't really want to become a topical podcast to begin with only just because I feel like um i I really enjoy, I think what we're doing is really beneficial for the sermons. So if you do have questions, again, keep them coming. I did only got one question. we only got one question from this last sermon. So again, just reminder for you guys, don't feel weird. Again, if don't feel weird. If you put a question in last week, do another one this week. it isn't that's It's fine. You don't have to just time it.
00:55:06
Danny Price
Like you're not going to dominate the conversation or anything. We're not worried about that. um Keep them coming. But yeah, we have more stuff coming out. It's exciting. Really appreciate you guys listening. um Pass this to your friends, all that stuff. Hopefully this is beneficial as we're going through Colossians. I'm a little bit more of Shane's heart and what he went through with the message and some questions. I hope this is a, again, I'm hoping this is a beneficial for you guys and this is fun.
00:55:29
Danny Price
um
00:55:30
Shane
Yeah.
00:55:30
Danny Price
Like I, like I always say, me and Shane have so much fun doing this, even though we go way too long. So originally this was supposed to be like a 30 minute podcast.
00:55:34
Shane
yeah
00:55:36
Danny Price
And then we realized that's not going to happen. You put two people that really enjoy to talk together talking about things that they enjoy talking about.
00:55:42
Shane
Yeah. our disheves no
00:55:44
Danny Price
It was kind of destined to be a mistake. to keep it want them I want to get him on.
00:55:47
Shane
It's funny because I know David keeps, you know David wants to be on this and I'm like, there's no way all three of us can be on it because the
00:55:56
Danny Price
um i I think one of these next one of these next episodes, I think the one the episode I was talking to you about the the topics, I think he'd be, or like that definitions, I think he'd be good for that. That was little preview.
00:56:04
Shane
Oh, yeah, that would be fun.
00:56:05
Danny Price
Yeah.
00:56:05
Shane
He would be a good one. That would be a good one to put him in.
00:56:07
Danny Price
Yeah. Yeah.
00:56:08
Shane
Yeah.
00:56:08
Danny Price
There's so many people I want to bring on the podcast that I'm just trying to find a good way. Cause I don't want to just bring you on just to have you on. I want to bring you on talking about something that you enjoy talking about you're, you're good at.
00:56:18
Shane
Yeah. All
00:56:18
Danny Price
So anyways, love y'all. Have a great week. We'll see you guys on midweek tonight. If not next week and then on Sunday. So bye-bye.
00:56:25
Shane
right. See you.