Transcript
Dan Sanchez: Welcome back to the Grove Hill Church Podcast. I'm Dan Sanchez, and I'm joined by Ridley Barron again for another stop through a bit of numbers in Deuteronomy this week. And there's always, man, the New Testament's just so loaded with fun stories and little nooks and crannies to dig into. So I have quite a few things to ask you today, Ridley, starting with snakes.
Dan Sanchez: Man, snakes. You had that snake story. I'm like, man, we got to talk about snakes. It's just too good.
Ridley: yeah
Dan Sanchez: I think people have like a visceral reaction to snakes, too. It's one of those things in life where you're like, you're either kind of curious about it and have a weird fascination with snakes or you hate snakes. Where do you stand? Are you are you on the hateer hate or like I can handle them. Give me a corn snake. It's fine.
Ridley: Although I've made progress over the years, I'm definitely on the hate side. you know If I never see another snake, I'll be okay with my life.
Dan Sanchez: So I've, I've seen a bunch of snakes. I'm a, I'm a hiker. I like backpacking. I've seen some snakes, seen some rattlesnakes, but generally the thing that, you know, you think I like to trail run too.
Ridley: Yeah, yeah.
Dan Sanchez: So the thing you get afraid of is like, if you jump over the other side of the log, it's waiting there for you.
Ridley: Right. right
Dan Sanchez: And the thing that's always brought me comfort about snakes is, uh, they're, they're slow. You know what saying? Like I can run faster than they can, but, but,
Ridley: Right.
Dan Sanchez: But then have you ever seen a snake run?
Ridley: I
Ridley: have not.
Dan Sanchez: Cause I know this sounds crazy, but I was in a different country in the Republic of Georgia, because we thought it would be awesome to climb up a hill in the middle of nowhere in Georgia.
Ridley: Yes.
Ridley: huh.
Ridley: Yeah.
Dan Sanchez: And this is, if you had, and if you don't know where Georgia is, it's kind of like just North or yeah, i think it's just North of Armenia. It's kind of in that region that forgotten kind of caucus region.
Ridley: haven
Dan Sanchez: and We were climbing up to do an interview. I'm like, well, if we're going to go do an interview with a student that's living over here for Bethany Global University, let's do it on top of mountain. That's epic. Let's go film up there.
Ridley: yeah
Dan Sanchez: And not only do we run into lightning problems up there, but on the way up there, we're like cross. There's no trail. We're just hiking up. I saw a snake and it was I don't know what to call it, but it was like sidewinding itself faster or about as fast as I could run.
Ridley: Wow.
Dan Sanchez: And I never forgot because I was like, oh my gosh, the one thing I assumed about snakes is that they're always slow and I can always outrun it. No, some snakes are fast and they can run about as fast as you can, even without feet.
Ridley: Yes. Yes. There are some that are very fast. Fortunately, I've never encountered any of them. But yeah, they're yeah.
Dan Sanchez: here So snakes are kind of a scary thing.
Ridley: I said I've gotten a little bit better over the years.
Dan Sanchez: And I think,
Ridley: Like a couple times I've had to defend myself or my children against a snake or whatever. I've learned to to deal with it. But man, it's just Don't care much for him.
Dan Sanchez: And looking at the story, it made me think, I'm like, Christians, I think, have a different perspective of snakes than they do as in the Jewish culture a little bit.
Dan Sanchez: Because we obviously have the the book of Revelation, which makes a hard connection with the serpent in the garden to Satan.
Ridley: Yes. Yes.
Dan Sanchez: where without that, you, you kind of don't, it's, you have even, even Satan in general, and if you just look at the old Testament is, is kind of a different figure than what you get in the new Testament.
Ridley: Right.
Ridley: Right.
Dan Sanchez: So I wanted to understand like a little bit more of the symbolism of snakes and where else we see snakes in the Bible. And is that something to think about as we see snakes in other places?
Ridley: Yeah.
Dan Sanchez: Is that always a picture of evil? Or are there other things that we we be should be on the lookout when we see snakes later on?
Ridley: Well, out I would say, first of all, I think it's interesting. You make that, that comment about the old versus the new Testament Christians versus Jews, because it isn't until the,
Ridley: book of Revelation that the serpent is actually identified as being Satan. we We, you know, assume that connection. Satan really is not talked about in the Old Testament with the exception of the book of Job, where he, of course, appears to be the accuser of Job and and tormentor of Job.
Dan Sanchez: Yeah.
Ridley: As far as snakes are concerned, I think we overextend when we try to make Satan the picture of evil in all situations. I mean, the story we talked about this past week where God used his serpent as a sign of healing for people.
Ridley: That was an interesting case. Satan obviously could take credit for it, but the truth is that God used the snake to be the punishment for those people.
Ridley: We might see it as a sign of evil. I would argue that God would have called it a sign of discipline. which is something entirely different. So in that instance, i I personally would not put the snake in the evil category. I would say it was a tool used by God to correct his people when they had gotten out of line.
Ridley: There are other places, Very few actually were satan i mean where snakes are actually referenced in Scripture, and not all of them, again, have connections with with but Satan.
Ridley: Moses, when his staff turned into a snake, there's no indication there that there was any connection at all. I think it's just something we try to, you know, one of those things where it kind of becomes a stereotype.
Ridley: Yeah.
Dan Sanchez: I do remember Ray Vanderlaan, who's kind of a Jewish studies Christian guy, talking about the symbolic the symbol of snake being on the Jewish mind as like crushing sin in some kind.
Ridley: Yeah.
Ridley: yeah
Dan Sanchez: Because in the their the serpent and Genesis, God says, I believe it's the woman will crush your head.
Ridley: Yep.
Dan Sanchez: Right?
Ridley: The seed of woman.
Dan Sanchez: There's like a, it's, we'll crush your head. Right.
Ridley: yep
Dan Sanchez: So there's like this prophecy that like your head's going to get crushed. So every time like a Jewish person sees a snake getting crushed or a head specifically getting crushed, you like there is a guy in Judges that gets his head smashed.
Dan Sanchez: I think David gets his head smashed. and that's every time it's kind of like a throwback to like the evil one getting his head smashed. So that's why when I see this snake up on the pole, I'm like, is that like sin up on the cross?
Dan Sanchez: Is that what we're kind of picturing here?
Ridley: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I, I don't know. I, again, there's probably a lot of cultural things connected to it too. The Mideast is obviously a place there's a heavy prevalence of snakes, which carry with them obviously bad, bad connotations just on a physical level.
Ridley: So maybe that's part of the reason why we connect and in those regards. But, You know, that there are things that I'm equally afraid of, snake like tarantulas. I'm not a big fan of tarantulas either.
Ridley: So i I could easily associate Satan with tarantulas, you know. Real easy thing for me to do.
Dan Sanchez: Now a snake is just a snake.
Ridley: Yep.
Dan Sanchez: But it is an interesting picture they set up for us in the Old Testament.
Ridley: Yeah. You know, there's a lot of scholars that argue that even the serpent in the garden was not the snake that we're familiar with, that it might have been actually something that walked. Well, obviously it did walk because that was one of the punishments that it would crawl on his belly the rest of his life.
Ridley: So this this serpent was probably something different than what we're used to seeing.
Dan Sanchez: Well, can't wait to find out when we get to see the full movie someday.
Ridley: Yeah.
Dan Sanchez: Yeah.
Ridley: Yeah, exactly.
Dan Sanchez: What actually happened? Oh, man, if only. There's a passage in Deuteronomy that to me is clarifying, yet it just it just begs more questions.
Ridley: Okay.
Dan Sanchez: So I'm going to read it real quick, and then I want to ask you about it.
Ridley: okay
Dan Sanchez: And this is Deuteronomy 15, 7 through And says, if anyone is poor among your fellow israelites in any of the towns at a land of the lord your god is giving you do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward them rather be open-handed and freely lend them whatever they need be careful not to harbor this wicked thought the seventh year the seventh year of canceling debts is is near so that you do not show ill will toward the the needy among your fellow israelites and give give them nothing
Dan Sanchez: Then may they may then appeal to the Lord against you and you will be found guilty of sin. Give generously to them and do not withhold grudge. Do not.
Dan Sanchez: Give generously to them and do so with a without a grudging grudging heart.
Ridley: Uh-huh.
Dan Sanchez: And I read that and I'm like, OK, great. But there's always this but in my mind. And I'm like, to me, I like hypothetical situations.
Ridley: Uh-huh.
Dan Sanchez: right ah ah you I've had people call me out on them as kind of like, well, they don't call out fake situations. But for me, a hypothetical situation is really important because it finds the boundary and the extent to where an idea goes.
Dan Sanchez: You're like, how far does this go? And there's certainly some deals you just want to you don't want to even try to know where the line is. You want to run as far as possible from it. But in this case, I'm like, there's always those situations where the needy person is is it needy, but at the same time, they're needy because they keep making dumb choices.
Dan Sanchez: You know what I'm saying?
Ridley: Yeah.
Dan Sanchez: like some like Like the homeless situation. You have people with substance abuse, and you're like, man, I really want to give to them, but they're not going to use it very well. Do I give them food? Okay, but like... how much do you give before you're enabling something bad?
Dan Sanchez: Cause I felt like in our, especially in this country and outside of country is a whole different thing.
Ridley: Exactly.
Dan Sanchez: But in this country, there's so many ways to get a, a hand up, a leg up, a a foothold that it's, it's really, you really have to be doing very little or be making a series of bad choices to really be down on your luck for a long period of time.
Dan Sanchez: So then how do we handle giving and being generous, but also being, i don't know, wise and discerning and truly helpful and not just enabling?
Ridley: Yeah.
Ridley: Right. I think that this is one of those areas where having discernment and Doing it on a case by case basis is really, really important. Obviously, the overarching rule is that God wants us to have a generous nature like he has a generous nature. God is a giving God and that's what he loves to do.
Ridley: He loves to bless his children. He loves to bless his creation. So he asked us that the closer we become like him to be just like him in that regard. At the same time, you have to balance that with instructions were given later, even in the New Testament says that a man should be responsible for taking care of his family and that a man who does not want to work and take care of his family is worse than any other sinner or as bad as any other sinner.
Ridley: And so to your point, to continually support somebody who's not willing to try to do what he can to take care of himself is contrary to that law. So that's why I think you have to get in these situations where you have to be a little more intentional about getting below the surface to understand things, to just simply go up to the intersection on the interstate and hand out money every time and feel like you have an obligation to do that.
Ridley: I think sometimes we do that more for our own purposes than we do to actually bless the person there. It keeps us from feeling guilty because we drove by and looked the other way. I think that what we have to do in order to really truly be true to the spirit of this command from God is that we have to take care of care of the people who are in our sphere of influence and make sure that those are provided for.
Ridley: It doesn't mean that we shouldn't. when we can have an opportunity to bless a stranger take an opportunity because the bible says that when we do that sometimes we're entertaining angels right but i do think that god says start it start at home and and i don't think he means within our physical houses think he's saying start with the sphere of influence of where i put you the your workplace your church your school your communities the people you know that you can take care of who are in desperate situations because they're
Dan Sanchez: yeah There's another passage.
Ridley: you are more inclined to know whether or not you are giving somebody a hand up or giving them a hand out. And there's a difference between the two.
Dan Sanchez: In Deuteronomy that talks a lot about keeping reminders around, you know, and write these laws on your door frame and wear these knots on your clothes as a reminder, lots of reminders.
Ridley: Yes.
Dan Sanchez: And I kind of, part of me kind of likes that. Hence, hence my own house. Like you walk around my house and you'll, you'll find some Bible verses on the walls, you know, some, some Hobby Lobby frames up on the wall with some very familiar scripture, or maybe just some nice phrase.
Ridley: and Yep.
Dan Sanchez: I know I have a few in my room because Amy likes those things and I'm like, you know, good. Yeah. I like the, every once in a while you're like, oh yeah, huh.
Ridley: Yep.
Dan Sanchez: That's a good reminder. It reminds me of this this time when I, like the one and only time, it has to happen to everybody at least once, where you get sucked up into a MLM company. Has it ever happened to you?
Ridley: huh Yep.
Dan Sanchez: is it Have you done it?
Ridley: Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
Dan Sanchez: yeah.
Ridley: Yeah.
Dan Sanchez: so za Everybody's done it least once, right?
Ridley: Yeah.
Dan Sanchez: oh Hopefully only once. But there was this company. it was mine Mine was Monavie, which was this like juice thing. And i remember this tape. They had a lot of tapes. My gosh, they're they're trying to educate you and get you to drink drink the juice literally and figuratively.
Ridley: yeah
Dan Sanchez: Yeah. they had this one tape that really, this the little story stuck in my mind. They're like, well, if you're not succeeding, how, how hard are you really trying? If the Monabee police pulled you over,
Dan Sanchez: Would there be enough evidence in your car to convict you? You know, like, would you have some bottles banging around the trunk and some empty ones?
Ridley: Yeah.
Dan Sanchez: Would you have some juice stains on your clothes?
Ridley: Right.
Dan Sanchez: Would you have some tracks in your CD player? You know, and it's funny they said that because they're like, they're trying to get you into this mode of like all in.
Ridley: Right.
Dan Sanchez: But what as soon as I read it, I'm like, man, like, I don't know if I want to be all into this, but is that something I want to be, has been said about me when it comes to Christianity, when it comes to my faith?
Ridley: Yeah. Yeah.
Dan Sanchez: it makes you think of this passage in Deuteronomy where it's like, you know you know when you run into a practicing religious Jew because a lot of things about them are different, the way they behave, but certainly the way they dress.
Ridley: Yep.
Dan Sanchez: you go I mean, you go over to Israel and they all have different, there's multiple sects of Jews and they all have different dressing codes, but it's pretty obvious, especially if like at least wearing yeah the kippah on their head, right, that they're Jewish.
Ridley: ye
Dan Sanchez: It's an outward sign. And I find that those things can be helpful, but to what degree? And as we should, christian as Christians, should we remove outward things so that people can be more attracted to us by the inward things? Or are the outward things kind of helpful?
Dan Sanchez: And to what degree? Is the Hobby Lobby sign okay, and maybe the bumper sticker is going too far, or the loud Christian t-shirt? Where do you draw the line?
Ridley: Oh, that that's a hard one because I think with the Jewish people, they miss the spirit of that command in Deuteronomy 6 and the Shema where it says, you know, hero Israel, the Lord our God is one. And, you know, take these journeys with your children where you walk down the road and you have these conversations with them. I think what God was talking about is immerse your life in my word.
Ridley: Let it become a part of you, ingest it so that it's in your your spirit and in your mind at all times so that the reaction of your life to events in your life is straight from my word.
Ridley: You know, it it is a biblical response to the circumstances of life. Instead, I think many Christians approach it from the outside in approach and go, well, if I put a bumper sticker on my car and wear the T-shirt and have the baseball cap and all the signs in my you know my room,
Ridley: if that if i do all that then maybe somehow that will change the inward being and god says no i really actually want you to start from the inside and work your way out when we do it in my mind when we do it out of order and we try to change the outside without doing anything to inside it leads to the greatest form of hypocrisy which is what turns the world off Because the world world sees, the world recognizes that what's on the inside isn't matching up with our outside.
Ridley: You can wear Jesus t-shirts all day long, but if you're just screaming cuss words at people in traffic, then people have an idea.
Dan Sanchez: Thank you.
Ridley: There's theres some anger issues there. So, yeah, I mean, i I don't think there's anything wrong with those outward expressions.
Ridley: as long as you know that the inward part's been taken care of first, that you really truly have submitted yourself to his commands. You know, Jesus said, the way that they'll know that you love me is because you keep my commands.
Ridley: And so he didn't say, you know, you have a t-shirt and a bumper sticker for every occasion, that you have some kind of outward display to make sure everybody knows that you're with a different team than they are.
Ridley: i think the part where God says that you'll be in this world, but not of it, Again, wasn't talking about the the external physical appearance of us. I think he was saying your heart and your emotions, your spirit, your will, all those things are going to be different than the world around you naturally because you immerse yourself in my commands.
Dan Sanchez: You know, after thinking about it and wrestling with it, I kind of came to this point where I was like, huh, i think I think I really like the ones where it's like around my house or they're like they're little reminders for me.
Ridley: Mm-hmm.
Dan Sanchez: They're pretty much just for me. Like they're in my bedroom. They're in my living room.
Ridley: Mm-hmm.
Dan Sanchez: Maybe I got something in my car or I put little reminders in different places. Maybe things only, you know, I know some people have some tattoos where normally you wouldn't see it because they're not even for conversation starters.
Ridley: Mm-hmm.
Ridley: Okay.
Dan Sanchez: They're like, every time they see it, it's a reminder, you know? And that for me, i can't say this for everybody. For me, I'm like, i don't know if I like the outward ones where it's like bumper sticker t-shirts. I i don't know why, but I have a few Christian hoodies. I'm like, uh,
Dan Sanchez: I don't know if I could go there.
Ridley: Yeah, yeah.
Dan Sanchez: i don't know if it's really that effective as a conversation starter, but maybe it is.
Ridley: Right. I will tell you that they do for me, anyway they do serve as sometimes as a reminder.
Dan Sanchez: Yeah.
Ridley: Hey, if you're going to put this on and go out in public, you better be very careful how you act today because the world's going to associate you with the cause of Jesus Christ. And so for me, it does have a good effect as far as accountability is concerned to sometimes.
Ridley: But I try not to go overkill. I don't try to be in people's faces about it. I do hope that sometimes a T-shirt or something is a conversation starter so we can have a gospel conversation with somebody.
Ridley: But for me, i think the measure of success at the end of the day is not going to be how many people notice my Jesus cap. It's going to be how many people notice Jesus in my heart and the way I treat them.
Dan Sanchez: One of the things I learned when I went to Israel is how literally the Jews take the command to keep scripture on their mind, on their heart.
Ridley: Yes. Yep.
Dan Sanchez: there If you haven't seen pictures of this, Google it. but I know you've seen it, Ridley, but like if you're listening to this, Google this. But like they actually have these little boxes.
Ridley: Yep.
Dan Sanchez: And I mean, like they've been doing this for thousands of years. But these little tiny boxes about like maybe an inch and a half by an inch and a half by an inch and a half.
Ridley: Right.
Ridley: Hmm.
Dan Sanchez: and they scroll up little tiny scrolls of scripture and they put it in the box and they lock the box and they literally have these leather cords that tie it around their head. So they literally have a big old box sticking off the top of their head.
Ridley: Hmm.
Ridley: Yeah.
Dan Sanchez: They put another one, they wrap it around their arms. So they have a box on their arms because that's how they took the scripture. Literally keep it on your minds and your hearts.
Ridley: Yeah. yeah They call them, they call them phylacteries and they'll even put them, like you said, very literally on the doorframe of their house.
Dan Sanchez: So they tied it to their left shoulder. Yeah. Yeah.
Ridley: They'll nail these doors in there and as you watch it a very Orthodox Jew, every time they walk in or out of that door, they'll touch that box. And I mean, talk about, religious ritual that really has no meaning. i don't know what, I don't know if they think that rubbing it somehow is going to cause God to notice them more it's going to get into their body. I don't know.
Ridley: But.
Dan Sanchez: Well, I mean, I think they're trying to be obedient, but it is a funny thing because even with all the rules around the rules, they still have all their workarounds.
Ridley: Yes.
Ridley: Yes.
Dan Sanchez: You what saying? Like they can't work on Shabbat.
Ridley: Wait
Dan Sanchez: So, but, but that doesn't mean they can't get a Gentile to work on their half for Shabbat.
Ridley: Right. Exactly.
Dan Sanchez: You know what I'm saying? They do it all the time because my my brother and sister-in-law lived over there.
Ridley: Exactly.
Dan Sanchez: And they might come over to your house. They won't ring the doorbell. So they'll they'll kind of like keep their door open. and And when you come outside, they'll be like, oh, I wish my oven were on. And they'll be like, do you want me to turn your oven on? i I couldn't complain.
Dan Sanchez: You know what I'm saying?
Ridley: it's funny.
Dan Sanchez: No. You know what I'm saying? you know So it's like like, you're clearly not sticking to the heart of the thing.
Ridley: it this one
Dan Sanchez: But you're following the rule very, very strictly and still not breaking it somehow. So it's a very interesting thing.
Ridley: Well, and you know, they, they really are not very much different in us than we do the same kind of thing as Christians, even with our workarounds around certain things like, you know, when God tells us to tie their certain amount of our income, and when he is he talking about net or gross?
Dan Sanchez: Yeah.
Ridley: You know, we're starting to work around and does that mean and can I count my red cross donation because it's to a nonprofit and and like, it can't be to a red cross and,
Dan Sanchez: Yeah. Yeah.
Ridley: organization because Red Cross didn't exist when God gave the command.
Dan Sanchez: yeah
Ridley: you know You start thinking about all of these different ways that people try to get around it. Well, I know we're not supposed to be together, but we're not really having sex before marriage. We're just living together. And you know just like a good Jew or a good Catholic or a good Muslim, we all find our ways to work around the things that we just don't want to be a part of.
Dan Sanchez: The last thing I want to talk about is this idea that I came in contact with recently from a group group of friends. Again, I have this text thread ongoing and I'm i'm the only like non-MDEV person in this group.
Ridley: yeah
Dan Sanchez: So I'm the layman usually asking funny questions in there. But this idea came up of like, maybe we should like, and I think they're not they're not making this up. They're getting this from other theologians out there.
Ridley: Right.
Dan Sanchez: that the idea of studying Jewish tradition, kind of like I've been bringing up here a lot on the show, is is kind of lesser than that we really should be able to just interpret the text with the text.
Ridley: Yeah.
Ridley: yeah
Dan Sanchez: And to bring in to study study the scripture through an anthropological route or a historical route, like we study other history, it would be the incorrect approach to scripture. Yeah.
Dan Sanchez: which is kind of a new idea for me because I always thought that getting context, doing good contextualization by understanding the history and the period and what they thought back then was good Bible homework.
Dan Sanchez: How do you feel about that topic? Do you think it's a blend or do you kind of lean one way or the other?
Ridley: um'm I'm kind of where you were just expressing, Dan. I think one of the things that has changed my reading of the Bible in recent years is a better understanding of the context of the time it was written.
Ridley: Understanding what they knew, what they didn't know, the culture that they were reading this in and the events, the stuff that was going on at that time.
Ridley: Historically, In the church. I mean, it's just, to me, it's impossible to read it accurately without understanding the the recipients of the letters of the New Testament and the history of the people of the Old Testament.
Ridley: So I think you have to read it contextually. And and if you don't, you run the risk of imposing a Western mindset on the Bible that makes much of our reading incorrect.
Dan Sanchez: And that was my thinking too. The debate that came from the other side is like, well, but we have solo scriptura, which is this like the Bible as the rule of all things for our faith, right?
Ridley: hu
Dan Sanchez: The Bible is the final authority, which I was kind of like, cool. But if you start getting a room with a Catholic on solo scriptura, they're like, yes, but yeah can you interpret everything from the word alone?
Dan Sanchez: And I'm like, uh, no, because obviously there's there's a lot of different denominations who interpret this Bible differently.
Ridley: kind
Ridley: Yes.
Dan Sanchez: So is there one way to interpret the whole Bible only through the Bible? And you're kind of like, well, no. And then you you end up on a quick slippery slope back to orthodoxy. And and the Catholics start gaining ground on their argument really fast.
Ridley: yeah
Dan Sanchez: which is why some of my friends are like, nah, we don't need to pull so much from Jewish, Jewish root stuff because we should be able to explain it all from the Bible. Anyway, I'm getting kind of nerdy at the end of this podcast here, but.
Ridley: i Again, I kind of agree with you. I worry that if you if you try to interpret Scripture just by Scripture, pulling it out of the context of when it was written, when it was read, when it was received, I think you run the risk of imposing your mindset on the Bible rather than allowing the Bible to change your mindset.
Dan Sanchez: Well, that's good. I'm glad we're in agreement. I'll continue bringing some Jewish things from time to time because I just find it so helpful.
Ridley: but Okay, you said you sound like we're almost done, but I don't have a sailor question today.
Ridley: Does sailor I have a question?
Dan Sanchez: You know, it's funny, i because we we didn't do a Bible study in the life group, we kind of had more of just like a game night.
Ridley: No. Yeah.
Dan Sanchez: So I didn't get to say this question. But I was prepared with a different sailor question, which she asked me when she was, I think, three, probably maybe early four years old.
Ridley: Okay. Okay.
Dan Sanchez: And this was like, this is when I knew I was in trouble. But she asked me, and now I will ask you, how do you know God is the good guy and the devil is the bad guy?
Dan Sanchez: What if it's the other way around?
Ridley: Wow. Man.
Dan Sanchez: So there's an original, Selah says.
Ridley: And she was four when she asked this question.
Dan Sanchez: Three or four.
Ridley: Wow.
Ridley: You know, that's a really hard question to answer. My my gut is to say
Ridley: Human intellect would tell us which is a right way and a wrong way to respond because we know the good from the bad.
Ridley: But the reason we know the good from the bad is because of God. So it's kind of like a cyclical kind of questioning and answering kind of thing. But that's the only thing I can really tell you that the when when we read scripture, even people who are lost read scripture, recognize that things like love your neighbor as yourself is a good thing.
Ridley: And since that comes from God, then it can't be evil. So God himself can't be evil. you You start chasing all kinds of tangents to this question because if God could ever be evil, then he can't be God.
Ridley: If Satan could ever do good, could he really be the ultimate expression of evil? Man, we are nerding out at the end of this.
Ridley: Way to go, Selah.
Dan Sanchez: There you that it it took me a while to answer this, but I finally did arrive at a conclusion.
Ridley: if
Dan Sanchez: It's funny because I'm like, other people have asked that, but I've never heard a three-year-old or four-year-old ask that.
Ridley: Yeah.
Dan Sanchez: But I kind of came to the conclusion. This is how I explained to her when she was four. I was like, well, but's let's let's for fun say you that maybe there are two sides and the evil good thing is subjective, right?
Ridley: Yeah.
Dan Sanchez: You know, to one is evil and the other is good and the other one's good and the other one's evil, whatever. Each side's things are good and cause the other one evil. Great. Which side do you want to be on? Do you want to be on the one that is about life or do you like the side that likes death?
Ridley: yeah
Dan Sanchez: Do you like the side that likes hate, that likes secrets, that likes lying? Because I don't want to be on that side.
Ridley: Right.
Dan Sanchez: like So I'm going to pick this side and I'm going to go with this definition again because the other side does not look so great.
Ridley: Yeah, and that's a good answer. That's a good answer for your daughter because I feel like yeah it puts it on a fourth grader's level, and I think that's a level that all of us can understand.
Dan Sanchez: It's kind of the pragmatic responses.
Ridley: it you know Do you want to be a part of the team that does these things, or do you want to be a part of the team that does these things?
Dan Sanchez: help And I know a lot of people, I've heard of many people reading the Bible saying like, i don't want to be on team God. They're anti, you know, homosexuality. They're anti trans. They're anti all the things that they stand for.
Dan Sanchez: And I'm like, yeah, then you probably don't want to be on this team. I pray that your mind changes someday.
Ridley: man
Dan Sanchez: So that's why it is. they They love chaos and they want to stay on that side. Well, Ridley, thank you for joining me again today. Thank you for another Sayla Says, and i'll join he I'll see you again next week.
