Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
068 - Interview with Dr. Jay Knolls
70 Plays1 year ago
Do you ever feel exhausted spiritually? Like you're just worn out from the spiritual battles you fight every day? This episode is for you! Dr. Jay Knolls shares insights on how to handle spiritual exhaustion along with other insights on other subjects like parenting in the modern age, limiting our exposer to digital media, and connecting with our loved ones in a meaningful way.
Join Pastor Knolls and the Preacher Dad for Biblical insights and much needed encouragement.
Check out Dr. Knolls at WonderousWord.com!
For more head over to PreacherDad.com
Buy the book here: "When Flaming Arrows Fly"
Support Pregnancy Centers around the nation by going to Seven Weeks Coffee!
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Mission
00:00:11
Speaker
Hello everybody, welcome to the Preacher Dad podcast.
00:00:14
Speaker
My name is Jared and I am the Preacher Dad.
00:00:18
Speaker
I'm a husband to one, the father of eight, and I'm an expert in nothing, but I do know an expert.
00:00:25
Speaker
It's the Lord Jesus Christ and I am excited to tell you what he thinks.
00:00:30
Speaker
about everything from parenting to politics.
00:00:33
Speaker
Here on the Preacher Dad podcast, we are trying to equip and inspire Christians to be engaged in the culture war and to make a difference for the next generation.
00:00:44
Speaker
And we do that by searching for the biblical perspective on things.
00:00:48
Speaker
You can find out more about our ministry and the things that I do and say at PreacherDad.com.
00:00:53
Speaker
You can subscribe to the podcast there.
00:00:56
Speaker
You can get more information.
00:00:57
Speaker
You can give us your opinion.
00:00:59
Speaker
You can order pizza for Friday night.
00:01:01
Speaker
No, you can't do that.
00:01:03
Speaker
But you can find a lot of valuable information there.
00:01:06
Speaker
I encourage you to sign up for our newsletter, The Preacher Dad Post, and stay informed about the things that we're doing there.
Interview with Dr. Jay Knowles
00:01:16
Speaker
So I want to encourage you to stick around.
00:01:20
Speaker
Today we got a really great interview, Dr. Jay Knowles.
00:01:25
Speaker
joins us for an interview about his new book.
00:01:28
Speaker
And I am really excited to share that with you.
00:01:30
Speaker
But before we do that, I wanna first remind you that today's episode is brought to you by Cornerstone Fellowship.
00:01:37
Speaker
Cornerstone Fellowship is a small country church just a few miles north of Tubesboro, Georgia.
00:01:44
Speaker
And they would love to welcome you with open arms if you're in the area.
00:01:48
Speaker
So come on over and join us for some great worship and great fellowship
00:01:54
Speaker
And a decent preacher.
00:01:56
Speaker
I don't know if the preacher is so great, but everybody else is awesome at the church.
00:01:59
Speaker
So y'all come on and we'd love to have you.
00:02:04
Speaker
Okay, we'll be right back after this short message and we'll dive right in.
00:02:08
Speaker
Stay tuned.
00:02:11
Speaker
Hey parents, if you're looking for a fun and entertaining way to teach your children about character, then I've got the right podcast for you to check out.
00:02:19
Speaker
It's called Character Stories Podcast.
00:02:22
Speaker
On the Character Stories Podcast, we do voices of all shapes and sizes, and we have occasionally sound effects as well.
00:02:31
Speaker
And I would love for you to come and join us over there and hear a great story that has a great lesson and moral in it as well.
00:02:40
Speaker
So come on over and check out the Character Stories podcast today.
00:02:45
Speaker
All right, everybody, welcome back.
00:02:47
Speaker
And I am very pleased to welcome to the Preacher Dad podcast, Dr. Jay Knowles.
00:02:53
Speaker
He is a lead pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Wilmington, North Carolina.
00:02:58
Speaker
He's also the president of Wilmington Christian Academy.
00:03:03
Speaker
He's the founder and president of Wondrous Word Ministries, and he has just released a book called When Flaming Arrows Fly.
00:03:11
Speaker
It reached number one on the Amazon Hot New Releases chart.
00:03:16
Speaker
Pastor Jay enjoys reading, writing, preaching, teaching, weight training, and exploring the mountains of North Carolina.
00:03:24
Speaker
He's an avid Carolina Panther fan and Hurricanes fan.
00:03:27
Speaker
He roots for the Baltimore Orioles and the Philadelphia Phillies during baseball season.
00:03:32
Speaker
I think I can forgive you about that, Dr. Knowles.
00:03:35
Speaker
A lot of disappointment at the end of the baseball season there.
Strategies for Spiritual Strength
00:03:40
Speaker
Well, I'm very glad to have you here.
00:03:42
Speaker
Welcome.
00:03:42
Speaker
Welcome.
00:03:44
Speaker
Thanks for having me, Jared.
00:03:45
Speaker
I appreciate it.
00:03:46
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:03:47
Speaker
Well, I'm very, very glad to have you here.
00:03:49
Speaker
And I really enjoyed, I've started reading your book and I really enjoyed the things that you had to say and just the passion that clearly comes through in what you were writing.
00:04:04
Speaker
But tell the listeners a little bit about your book and what you were intending to do there.
00:04:11
Speaker
Yeah, sure.
00:04:12
Speaker
So I remember the morning that book started to take life in my heart.
00:04:17
Speaker
I go through a routine every morning.
00:04:19
Speaker
I listen to several different podcasts and read books and stuff.
00:04:22
Speaker
And I was listening to a particular podcast and the tenor of it was just about the cultural destruction that is happening right now and moral issues and all that.
00:04:33
Speaker
I literally looked at my ceiling and I said, Lord, I can't take this anymore.
00:04:37
Speaker
And I was in the middle of sermon series and I didn't know what to preach next.
00:04:41
Speaker
And the Lord, you know, kind of pressed upon my heart, preach on the armor of God.
00:04:45
Speaker
We need to talk about the armor of God.
00:04:48
Speaker
And so I did that and I preached the first sermon in that series.
00:04:51
Speaker
And our church is pretty conservative.
00:04:53
Speaker
They can be a little hesitant sometimes maybe to give feedback during a sermon or something.
00:04:59
Speaker
So I preached and I did the introduction and I got an ovation of clapping and applause.
00:05:04
Speaker
I've never gotten in my, I've been here for a long time.
00:05:08
Speaker
And I got home that day and my wife says, Jay, they applauded you.
00:05:13
Speaker
And around that time, like that series hit a nerve.
00:05:16
Speaker
It was undoubtedly on people's minds.
00:05:19
Speaker
And around that time, I won't tell you all this whole story, but I got connected with a publisher and they said, if you were to write a book right now, what would it be about?
00:05:27
Speaker
And I said, it would be about spiritual, spiritual exhaustion and how to stay strong in a spiritually exhausting world.
00:05:34
Speaker
And they were like,
00:05:35
Speaker
Let's, you know, let's do it.
00:05:36
Speaker
Let's get started on it.
00:05:37
Speaker
So that's kind of how the book became a reality.
00:05:40
Speaker
It's passionate because I was dealing with that just as a Pat, you know, this Jared, as a pastor, just overwhelmed with people's lives that are being torn apart today.
00:05:50
Speaker
And I'm afraid we've forgotten.
00:05:53
Speaker
There's a real enemy that we've got to be prepared for.
00:05:56
Speaker
And, uh, he's Satan's alive and well, he's, he's limited, he's limited, but he's alive and well.
00:06:02
Speaker
And I think we have, uh,
00:06:04
Speaker
we've been going through the motions for too long and people, what I see, people are spiritually tired.
00:06:09
Speaker
So that's why I wrote the book and that's who it's written to, Spiritually Exhausted Christians.
00:06:14
Speaker
Oh, there's such a need for that.
00:06:16
Speaker
I know that in my own life, I have experienced spiritual exhaustion.
00:06:21
Speaker
And I find more and more, it seems that living the Christian life is about hanging on and not giving up.
00:06:31
Speaker
And there's such a need for people to be encouraged and to continue to just, hey, stay in the fight, don't give up.
00:06:41
Speaker
And I'll tell you, just the first chapter that I read was so strong and just I was cheering in my heart.
00:06:50
Speaker
I was like, man, this is really solid stuff.
00:06:53
Speaker
And then I think you go into kind of some strategies for sort of fighting that battle.
00:06:59
Speaker
Can you expound on some of those strategies?
00:07:01
Speaker
Yeah, sure.
00:07:02
Speaker
So the way we designed the book is it's actually broken down into the seven strategies and
00:07:08
Speaker
my editor and i were trying to talk about a creative way to do it and the the fifth of those strategies is the armor of god so in that one we we kind of unpacked the whole armor of god idea um but let me just read a couple of them for you understand the nature of humanity in the world uh i think part of it is we have to understand the the problems as they are right
00:07:29
Speaker
We can't deny them.
00:07:30
Speaker
We can't run and hide.
00:07:31
Speaker
I feel like running and hiding sometimes, right?
00:07:33
Speaker
We can't do that.
00:07:34
Speaker
But we better understand what is happening in the culture.
00:07:38
Speaker
I see a lot of Christians falling into the ditch of embracing the culture wholeheartedly with no discernment at all and just doing that which is right in their own eyes.
00:07:48
Speaker
Or they're running from the culture and they're hiding from it.
00:07:52
Speaker
They want no part of it.
00:07:54
Speaker
And I think both those approaches are wrong.
00:07:56
Speaker
So we kind of talk about that.
00:07:57
Speaker
And then we talk about God's strength and dressing for battle, being ready for the fight.
00:08:01
Speaker
As I mentioned, put on the armor of God, pray without ceasing, and then staying within the body of Christ.
00:08:07
Speaker
So those were the seven strategies that we developed and came up with.
00:08:10
Speaker
And they're all from Ephesians.
Parenting and Cultural Engagement Advice
00:08:12
Speaker
It's an exegetical kind of work through that text.
00:08:16
Speaker
And so it's not...
00:08:18
Speaker
I hope, I pray these aren't something we just created and I wrote out of my own mind.
00:08:23
Speaker
They really flow through the Ephesians passage where the armor of God is found.
00:08:27
Speaker
So that was the background for it.
00:08:30
Speaker
And a neat strategy too.
00:08:32
Speaker
I tried very hard to be practical.
00:08:34
Speaker
I don't want it to be an exegetical book that tells you Greek words or tells you even something about the syntax of Greek or something like that and leaves you with, ah, that's cool.
00:08:45
Speaker
I want to leave with what are you going to do about it?
00:08:49
Speaker
Because I don't know.
00:08:50
Speaker
I feel like Christians are just so...
00:08:54
Speaker
disengaged or defeated to where they don't know what to do.
00:08:58
Speaker
And it's not hard.
00:09:00
Speaker
It's hard in the sense, emotionally, it's hard, but the steps that Christ has called us to follow, they're not hard, but we've made them maybe more complicated than they need to be.
00:09:10
Speaker
So this book hopefully puts some action steps into people's lives.
00:09:14
Speaker
This is what you can do, how you can live this.
00:09:16
Speaker
Oh, that's great.
00:09:17
Speaker
That's so important that we not just be theoretical and theological, but that we're also practical and applicable to our real, people's real everyday lives, you know, and the book is very readable.
00:09:32
Speaker
I found it to be very easy to read.
00:09:34
Speaker
It just kind of drew me in.
00:09:35
Speaker
I wanted to read the next paragraph because it kept on, you know, sucking me down further.
00:09:40
Speaker
So that was really, really fun to read.
00:09:42
Speaker
So yeah.
00:09:43
Speaker
You know, I think that I liked what you were saying there about we make it harder than it needs to be.
00:09:52
Speaker
Because I think part of that is because Christians today, at least in America, they don't understand how impactful their lifestyle is.
00:10:04
Speaker
And that, you know, Satan has really come against the family in such a moment.
00:10:11
Speaker
such a very clear way to the point that, you know,
00:10:17
Speaker
just the fact that we have a difference between mom and dad, that we have different gender roles between mother and father.
00:10:24
Speaker
Oh, we can't have that.
00:10:25
Speaker
And they attack almost everything about the family.
00:10:28
Speaker
So when a Christian family is just simply loving each other and teaching their children godly things, they are making such an impact upon the society and the culture that they don't recognize or understand.
00:10:42
Speaker
So we get bogged down.
00:10:43
Speaker
We think we're not doing anything.
00:10:44
Speaker
Well, no, just, you know,
00:10:46
Speaker
Teaching your kids to love Jesus is so much more powerful than we realize.
00:10:52
Speaker
But I wonder if you could talk a little bit to, you know, parenting in the society in which we live and how we can make a difference for the next generation.
00:11:02
Speaker
Part of the reason that this podcast exists is to inspire and equip people to make a difference for the next generation for Christ.
00:11:12
Speaker
So I wonder if you could speak to that issue any further.
00:11:14
Speaker
Sure, I would love to.
00:11:16
Speaker
A couple of maybe background pieces.
00:11:18
Speaker
So I have three kids for us.
00:11:20
Speaker
We have a 21-year-old who just got engaged to be married, a daughter who's in college.
00:11:25
Speaker
And then we have my youngest son is a freshman in high school.
00:11:29
Speaker
So we've been parenting for a little while.
00:11:31
Speaker
Our Christian school has over 1,100 students in it.
00:11:34
Speaker
So it's a very large Christian school.
00:11:37
Speaker
We deal a lot with parents, parenting issues and all that stuff in our ministry.
00:11:41
Speaker
You don't have to be in the elementary school.
00:11:43
Speaker
You don't have to be a Christian to come.
00:11:45
Speaker
So it's really open to anybody.
00:11:46
Speaker
So there's an evangelistic aspect to it as well.
00:11:48
Speaker
I say all that to say, Jared, right now, I mentioned this in the book a little bit, too.
00:11:53
Speaker
And that was written a year or so ago.
00:11:56
Speaker
I can't tell you how many families right now, as I'm talking to you, that I know that are in dire straits, they're hanging by a thread.
00:12:06
Speaker
Moms and dads that are being pulled apart from
00:12:09
Speaker
all kinds of temptation to pursue another person in the marriage or a substance problem or something like that, that there is so much pressure on parents.
00:12:20
Speaker
And I love what you said.
00:12:21
Speaker
The first thing a parent can do, the best thing a parent can do is love their spouse, right?
00:12:26
Speaker
We love God with all of our heart, mind, and soul, but we're supposed to love our neighbors, ourself, our closest neighbors is our spouse, our family, right?
00:12:33
Speaker
Our husband or wife.
00:12:35
Speaker
Now we're called to love them.
00:12:37
Speaker
And that alone will stand out in the culture.
00:12:40
Speaker
I tell our church all the time, you know, sometimes as Christians, we come up with some applications of scripture, which we're right to do.
00:12:48
Speaker
But just obeying the simplicity of the commandments of God makes us weird.
00:12:52
Speaker
It makes us stand out.
00:12:54
Speaker
People don't understand.
00:12:55
Speaker
We don't have to work to be weirder.
00:12:57
Speaker
Just be obedient.
00:12:59
Speaker
Just love your wife and love your husband and cherish each other.
00:13:04
Speaker
But to the parenting issue, as I think about parenting, I think some of the same things I said a minute ago about Christians apply to parents.
00:13:12
Speaker
Either they don't know what to do.
00:13:15
Speaker
So take a topic like the transgender issue, which I don't know about what you're experiencing, but we are seeing people come to our school because the public school is just pressing that agenda very aggressively.
00:13:31
Speaker
And parents, even some nominal, maybe even non-Christians are saying, I don't want any part of that.
00:13:37
Speaker
Mm hmm.
00:13:37
Speaker
But we have parents that are afraid to talk about that.
00:13:40
Speaker
They're afraid to address it with them.
00:13:42
Speaker
You know, how do they approach a topic like sexual purity or a topic like the transgender issue?
00:13:49
Speaker
How do they approach it?
00:13:51
Speaker
Well, the worst way to approach it is to not say anything.
00:13:55
Speaker
And I think sometimes we get afraid, well, I'm not an expert.
00:13:58
Speaker
I don't know all the details about it.
00:14:01
Speaker
And some parents are just so afraid to speak to their kids about some of these issues.
00:14:07
Speaker
I think that keeps...
00:14:08
Speaker
parents sometimes unsure and unsettled how to do it.
00:14:13
Speaker
So that's one concern I have is don't be afraid to take on the topics of the day.
00:14:18
Speaker
Don't be afraid to do that.
00:14:21
Speaker
But number two is remember that children, foolishness is bound in the heart of a child.
00:14:27
Speaker
Children don't know what's best.
00:14:30
Speaker
I know as parents, we tried very hard, not perfectly, but we tried to instill boundaries within our home, things that our kids were not permitted to do.
00:14:41
Speaker
Things like no screens on the second floor of our house.
00:14:43
Speaker
They couldn't have a computer in the room.
00:14:44
Speaker
They couldn't have a television in the room.
00:14:46
Speaker
They didn't have open access to the Internet.
00:14:48
Speaker
Those things were monitored, locked down.
00:14:51
Speaker
And some people might say, well, that's that's overprotective or whatever.
00:14:55
Speaker
My response is,
00:14:57
Speaker
Kids are foolish and they are going to make foolish decisions.
00:15:00
Speaker
We don't want to give them free reign in some of these areas.
00:15:04
Speaker
So that's just an example of the second principle being parents have to set boundaries.
00:15:09
Speaker
Don't be afraid to be the person that says, no, you can't do that.
00:15:14
Speaker
And let them be upset.
00:15:15
Speaker
That's okay.
00:15:17
Speaker
You don't hand the keys to the car to the five-year-old.
00:15:19
Speaker
No, please don't.
00:15:21
Speaker
No, that's foolish.
00:15:23
Speaker
They don't know what they're doing.
00:15:25
Speaker
You're setting them up for failure.
00:15:27
Speaker
You're setting them up to be hurt.
00:15:29
Speaker
If you say, here you go, five-year-old, go take the car to the grocery store for me.
00:15:34
Speaker
You got to set a boundary.
00:15:37
Speaker
My family is the same way.
00:15:38
Speaker
I've set a lot of boundaries for my kids.
00:15:40
Speaker
I mean –
00:15:42
Speaker
God forgive me, there are certain Disney movies that they are never going to watch.
00:15:46
Speaker
I mean, I'm sorry, just because it says Disney doesn't make it okay to see.
00:15:50
Speaker
Yeah, that's right.
00:15:51
Speaker
But you're absolutely right.
00:15:52
Speaker
We have to set some boundaries and we can't be afraid to do that.
00:15:56
Speaker
I think a lot of, just like you're saying, a lot of parents are afraid to do what's right for their kids.
00:16:04
Speaker
because sometimes we want to be their friend rather than their parent.
00:16:09
Speaker
And one of the great things about, I can see this now with my son, especially he's moved out of the house, he's on his own.
00:16:16
Speaker
Um,
00:16:18
Speaker
he calls me for advice and we can be friends.
00:16:21
Speaker
We can talk like you and I are talking, right?
00:16:23
Speaker
It's not, I'm still his father, but that shift came from I'm your father and these are the boundaries to now respecting me as his dad to where he doesn't honor every boundary that I gave him as a kid.
00:16:37
Speaker
He doesn't have to, but I see the choices he's making and you look at him and say, he got it.
00:16:43
Speaker
He was listening.
00:16:44
Speaker
He didn't like it at the time.
00:16:45
Speaker
He pushed back on him.
00:16:47
Speaker
And don't be surprised when they do, but man, you got to stand your ground lovingly, lovingly, not as a dictator, not abrasively, not harshly, but just lovingly say, we're not going to do that.
00:16:59
Speaker
Disney movie, whatever the issue is, we are going to stand by that and be willing to have right conflict with your children that can be resolved in a godly way and make you closer with each other.
00:17:12
Speaker
We can't be afraid of that.
00:17:14
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:17:16
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:17:16
Speaker
Well, I just really appreciate your perspective on that, Dr. Knowles.
00:17:19
Speaker
It's really, really solid and just such an important thing that we all need right now.
00:17:25
Speaker
We all need encouragement, don't we?
00:17:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:28
Speaker
There's a Christian leader.
00:17:36
Speaker
Truett Cathy was the founder of Chick-fil-A.
00:17:40
Speaker
He used to say, how can you tell if someone needs encouragement?
00:17:46
Speaker
Well, if they're breathing.
00:17:47
Speaker
They're breathing.
00:17:48
Speaker
They're breathing.
00:17:49
Speaker
You know they need it.
00:17:50
Speaker
So he was always a very encouraging person.
Encouragement and Maintaining Boundaries
00:17:53
Speaker
But, you know, Dr. Knowles, the world, you do a good job of laying out for us the craziness of the world which we're living, the oppression of evil and the onslaught of sinfulness that is just everywhere.
00:18:10
Speaker
And it makes it hard to live in the world in which we are.
00:18:14
Speaker
So I think you're right on that we need to have eyes wide open about the way things really are in the world.
00:18:22
Speaker
But what kind of advice would you give to a Christian?
00:18:26
Speaker
Maybe they have children.
00:18:27
Speaker
Maybe they don't.
00:18:28
Speaker
There are some single people that listen to this podcast.
00:18:32
Speaker
What sort of counsel can you give other than go buy my book?
00:18:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:39
Speaker
What sort of advice would you give to Christians out there that are just looking to survive those flaming arrows, trying to endure the culture and to make a difference?
00:18:50
Speaker
What would you say to them?
00:18:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:52
Speaker
Number one, be involved in the daily life of your children.
00:18:56
Speaker
Know what they're doing.
00:18:58
Speaker
Know who they're with.
00:18:59
Speaker
Know what they're doing.
00:19:00
Speaker
watching the best you can know watch the friends that they have um number two we already talked about boundaries i mean i would set those um but i also would say making your own heart right as a parent because sometimes we get so focused on our kids that we forget our marriage
00:19:17
Speaker
And we forget to invest in our relationship with them.
00:19:20
Speaker
So making sure that we are engaged with our spouses and make sure our marriage is strong, then spending time individually with our with our kids and finding out what is what is going on with them.
00:19:33
Speaker
And just listen, don't
00:19:36
Speaker
Don't always run to a correction, right?
00:19:38
Speaker
With some, oh, they say something that I don't quite agree with.
00:19:41
Speaker
Don't just lash out in a way to fix it.
00:19:44
Speaker
Hey, tell me about that.
00:19:45
Speaker
Why did you say that?
00:19:47
Speaker
Where did you get that?
00:19:49
Speaker
Talk to me about that.
00:19:50
Speaker
Rather than shutting down conversation.
00:19:52
Speaker
Because I think as parents, we are so quick to close off our kids rather than just listening to what they're going through and the hardships that they are facing.
00:20:04
Speaker
It's a different world today because I grew up in the 80s, 70s and 80s.
00:20:08
Speaker
So I'm a lot older.
00:20:10
Speaker
But today it seems like with the social media, which is my soapbox, by the way, social media and the Internet that we have just let them run free there.
00:20:20
Speaker
And they've been exposed to things they they don't understand.
00:20:23
Speaker
They're not supposed to understand their children.
00:20:26
Speaker
So as parents, don't.
00:20:28
Speaker
It's hard to not hit, you know, you saw what or you heard what, just let them tell you and then correct them and teach them.
00:20:36
Speaker
This is what this is what scripture says.
00:20:39
Speaker
Here's another one for you that I was going to get to later, but I think I'll throw it in now.
00:20:44
Speaker
One of my biggest concerns about parenting right now is people are letting kids make decisions for their home that kids should not be making.
00:20:54
Speaker
So I see it in our Christian school.
00:20:56
Speaker
We'll have a kid coming up through a school one year and the next year they're going, what happened to them?
00:21:01
Speaker
Oh, they wanted to go to a different school and the parents said it's their decision to make.
00:21:06
Speaker
they're in the fifth grade or whatever.
00:21:07
Speaker
Like that is not, that is not their decision.
00:21:11
Speaker
I'm all about sports, but the idea that so many families are pulled away from church and from just having family time because they are running after the dream of professional sports or whatever, this team and that team, and they're running around.
00:21:28
Speaker
Again, the child shouldn't be setting the agenda for what the family is doing.
00:21:33
Speaker
As our kids got older, we let them have a say in certain areas of life, but they didn't have veto power.
00:21:39
Speaker
They didn't determine where we were going to go to church.
00:21:42
Speaker
They didn't determine some of those things.
00:21:43
Speaker
That was our decision.
00:21:44
Speaker
So I do think as a parent too, when the flaming arrows are flying, it sounds like this, but mom, all my friends are going there.
00:21:52
Speaker
I want to do it.
00:21:52
Speaker
How come I can't do that?
00:21:54
Speaker
You know, and that wears you down over, over time because you're, you're tired of being the bad guy, but we have to make sure that we are standing, standing our ground.
00:22:04
Speaker
Then the other thing I would add too is understanding the realities of how, if, if, if the devil could get a foothold in the life of a child,
00:22:14
Speaker
at a young age, how easily they could be drawn away into bigger things that could lead them to destructive times in their life.
00:22:25
Speaker
I see this sometimes, a parent will come in and the kid is, I don't know, six, seven years old and they're out of control, they're rebellious, there's no discipline, they're never told no, and the family will throw their hands up and say, oh, it's so cute.
00:22:37
Speaker
And I always ask them this, add 10 years to that behavior.
00:22:41
Speaker
And tell me if it's going to be cute anymore when they have a car.
00:22:45
Speaker
Is that going to be cute when they have a vehicle and they can go do whatever they want and you don't know where they are?
00:22:52
Speaker
Deal with it now.
00:22:53
Speaker
Teach them, correct them lovingly, and bring them on the nurture admission of the Lord.
00:22:58
Speaker
So that's exhausting.
00:23:01
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:23:02
Speaker
It is exhausting.
00:23:04
Speaker
That's exhausting.
00:23:05
Speaker
Which is why we need encouragement, like, you know, connection to other believers and mentorship and discipleship.
00:23:11
Speaker
All those things are really key.
Engaging with Culture Effectively
00:23:13
Speaker
But yeah, you're totally right.
00:23:15
Speaker
Have you seen a lot of
00:23:19
Speaker
Christians disengaging from the culture.
00:23:22
Speaker
Have you seen that happen a lot in your ministry where a Christian is not connected to or engaged in the culture war in the way that they need to be?
00:23:35
Speaker
I think there's an age breakdown to that to some degree.
00:23:41
Speaker
And empirical evidence.
00:23:43
Speaker
I can't take you to a survey and prove this.
00:23:45
Speaker
Yeah, no, I'm interested though.
00:23:47
Speaker
So that people say 50, my age, 50, you're early 50s and up, increasingly have a temptation to throw their hands up and say, I'm done.
00:23:58
Speaker
I'm just going to sit in my cocoon.
00:24:00
Speaker
I'm not going to engage in my neighbors.
00:24:02
Speaker
I'm just going to go to work, do my job, live and let live.
00:24:05
Speaker
I'm not going to get involved.
00:24:08
Speaker
That's where I see the danger of people withdrawing from culture, at least in my little world, is people that the world has radically changed in the last 10 years, let alone the last 20, 30, 40 years.
00:24:22
Speaker
It's a very, very different place.
00:24:25
Speaker
And I think the exhaustion of just trying to even keep up, we were joking before we started today about technology.
00:24:31
Speaker
It's funny how quickly technology gets away from you.
00:24:35
Speaker
And this world is a digital world.
00:24:37
Speaker
It's a very connected world.
00:24:39
Speaker
And for some reason, we disengage from the culture when not wanting to be involved in something online or something that has to do with technology because we don't understand it.
00:24:50
Speaker
That pulls us away from being able to have a conversation with a kid.
00:24:56
Speaker
or a young person, a young married person, because we're so far removed from the culture.
00:25:00
Speaker
We don't even understand what they're talking about.
00:25:04
Speaker
And by the way, people, more empirical evidence, people in their 50s that are now having marital problems, they are having difficulties.
00:25:13
Speaker
If we withdraw from the culture, we, the mature in the faith should be the ones engaging them.
00:25:19
Speaker
But if we're not engaged with people that live next to us or whatever, we are...
00:25:24
Speaker
we're going to lose the, you know, we're going to lose the opportunity.
00:25:28
Speaker
Here is the other thing.
00:25:28
Speaker
And I have a person in mind, I won't name them and I won't give a lot of detail because should that person come across and hear this, but, um, I know a person who is, if you were to see her, you would think, um,
00:25:43
Speaker
She's very tattooed.
00:25:45
Speaker
She has various colors of hair from time to time.
00:25:49
Speaker
She uses very colorful language.
00:25:52
Speaker
And I'll leave it at that.
00:25:54
Speaker
But I know her a little bit.
00:25:56
Speaker
And she told me once, she's a business owner.
00:26:00
Speaker
And she said, there's people that will not hire her because of how she looks.
00:26:04
Speaker
because of her tattoos and whatever.
00:26:07
Speaker
And I often wonder that sometimes as a church, do we see somebody like that and think, man, I'm not talking to them.
00:26:15
Speaker
They look scary.
00:26:17
Speaker
They look like somebody that would rob a bank or they look like a terrible, I'm not even gonna get, that's our culture.
00:26:24
Speaker
Like it or not, that is the culture in which we live, that we can't run from that.
00:26:29
Speaker
You have to engage.
00:26:31
Speaker
This lady, she's a kind, gracious woman.
00:26:34
Speaker
To look at her, I'm afraid a lot of Christians would say,
00:26:39
Speaker
I want no part of that.
00:26:40
Speaker
And then that's where we can, if we're not careful, become very judgmental over somebody like that.
00:26:45
Speaker
When she's a lost, as far as I can see, she knows nothing about Christ, nothing.
00:26:50
Speaker
So if I, as a pastor say, I'm going to disengage with her and the culture, I'm missing an opportunity to speak in her heart and life.
00:26:58
Speaker
So your question was, do I see people disengaged?
00:27:01
Speaker
I see older people, I think are more inclined to that.
00:27:03
Speaker
The younger people I fear are going the opposite direction.
00:27:07
Speaker
They're just embracing everything.
00:27:10
Speaker
And there's no line, there's no delineation between what is right and wrong.
00:27:19
Speaker
That's my fear with the younger crowd.
00:27:23
Speaker
Okay.
00:27:24
Speaker
Well, thank you so much, Dr. Knowles.
00:27:26
Speaker
That's just really, really helpful information.
00:27:32
Speaker
And I just get inspired talking to you and I'm looking forward to getting into more of your material.
00:27:39
Speaker
I understand your website is wondrousword.com?
00:27:42
Speaker
Yep, wondrousword.com.
00:27:43
Speaker
So I put out a...
00:27:49
Speaker
a blog post each month.
00:27:51
Speaker
In 2024, I'm going to be starting a weekly devotional that I'll be sending out.
00:27:54
Speaker
So they can visit our website and take a look at it, sign up for our newsletter, and we'll send that out.
00:28:00
Speaker
It's right on the website, right on the homepage.
00:28:01
Speaker
Fantastic.
00:28:02
Speaker
And where can people purchase When Flaming Arrows Fly?
00:28:06
Speaker
Where can they find the copy of the book?
00:28:08
Speaker
So right now it's exclusively on Amazon.
00:28:10
Speaker
So the digital copy is right now, I think it's $6.99 right now.
00:28:15
Speaker
And then the paperback, I'm not 14 something, I think on Amazon, but then go on Amazon and purchase it there.
00:28:22
Speaker
If they can leave a review, if I could encourage people to write a review, if you read it and
00:28:29
Speaker
Would be so inclined to just tell me what you think on honest review and just tell me so I can make my next book better and keep improving what we're doing.
00:28:37
Speaker
Outstanding.
00:28:39
Speaker
Outstanding.
00:28:39
Speaker
Well, I have aspirations to write a book myself.
00:28:44
Speaker
So, you know, maybe one day you can give me a few pointers on how to write better.
00:28:50
Speaker
I sure appreciate you coming to be on the podcast today.
00:28:53
Speaker
And I know people are going to love checking you out.
00:28:56
Speaker
So I encourage everybody to do that and go buy the book and check out Dr. Noel's ministry.
00:29:03
Speaker
And if you're in Wilmington, North Carolina, go over to Grace Baptist Church and check him out in person.
00:29:08
Speaker
I'm sure he's better live than he is on the podcast.
00:29:13
Speaker
I hope so.
00:29:14
Speaker
Although that would be a long stretch.
00:29:16
Speaker
It'd be hard to get better than you've been.
00:29:17
Speaker
So thank you so much for being here, Dr. Knowles.
00:29:20
Speaker
And we look forward to having you again sometime soon.
00:29:22
Speaker
I pray so.
00:29:22
Speaker
Thank you, Jared.
00:29:23
Speaker
I appreciate it.
00:29:24
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:29:25
Speaker
I'm Jared.
00:29:25
Speaker
I'm the preacher dad, and I'll be right back.
00:29:30
Speaker
Hi, my name is Jared and I am the preacher dad.
00:29:33
Speaker
I'm a husband to one, father to eight, brother to nine, and the son of two.
00:29:38
Speaker
And that doesn't even count the in-laws.
Closing Thoughts and Resources
00:29:41
Speaker
I'm a bivocational pastor and an up-and-coming writer, a decent storyteller, and I'm the host of the Preacher Dad podcast.
00:29:48
Speaker
On said podcast, we discuss the biblical perspective on everything from parenting to politics, and we sometimes even have time for a dad joke or two.
00:29:57
Speaker
We want to inspire you to engage in the culture war as a biblical thinker and then hopefully to equip you with some tools to help you fight.
00:30:06
Speaker
No, not fight each other, but fight the evil of our time and our culture and in our homes.
00:30:13
Speaker
We may have a guest or two and a sermon or five with the side of humor and smiles to help the medicine go down.
00:30:19
Speaker
Come and join me on the Preacher Dad podcast.
00:30:22
Speaker
Even moms are welcome.
00:30:23
Speaker
And kids too.
00:30:25
Speaker
Hey, why not invite grandma and grandpa?
00:30:27
Speaker
Just make a whole family evening out of listening to the Preacher Dad podcast.
00:30:31
Speaker
I look forward to seeing you all there.
00:30:33
Speaker
God bless you.
00:30:38
Speaker
Well, that's all the time we have today for the Preacher Dad Podcast.
00:30:41
Speaker
I want to thank Dr. Knowles for joining me today.
00:30:45
Speaker
I hope that all of you will take the time to really consider the things that he was sharing with us.
00:30:50
Speaker
They are so valuable, worthwhile, some just wonderful insights for us.
00:30:55
Speaker
You know, spiritual exhaustion is a real issue that I know a lot of us are facing.
00:31:03
Speaker
And we just need to hang in there, folks.
00:31:05
Speaker
We just need to encourage one another and stick it out.
00:31:09
Speaker
And I just appreciate so much.
00:31:11
Speaker
the message and the passion that Dr. Knowles brings to that issue.
00:31:14
Speaker
So I encourage you to check out his book and his website and come back and listen again next time to the Preacher Dad podcast.
00:31:22
Speaker
I hope that you'll check us out at PreacherDad.com and I hope that you will hang on tight to your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and just know that he still sits upon the throne.
00:31:34
Speaker
He still sees us.
00:31:36
Speaker
He hears us.
00:31:37
Speaker
He loves us.
00:31:39
Speaker
And he is good.
00:31:41
Speaker
Don't ever forget.
00:31:42
Speaker
Hang on tight.
00:31:43
Speaker
Things are not over.
00:31:44
Speaker
Jesus wins in the end.
00:31:45
Speaker
I read the end of the book.
00:31:47
Speaker
He wins.
00:31:47
Speaker
Sorry.
00:31:48
Speaker
Spoiler alert.
00:31:49
Speaker
Jesus wins.
00:31:50
Speaker
You guys have a great day.
00:31:52
Speaker
God bless you.
00:31:53
Speaker
Thank you so much.