072: Dana Kohlman - The First Question

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:00

   Welcome to the Good Christadelphian Talks podcast. I'm Levi. And I'm Chris. Thank you so much for joining us this week. On this podcast, we select one talk a week to help each one of us get the Bible in our daily news feed. We post at the start of each week for you to listen with a short intro beforehand to kind of set the stage for the talk you're about to hear. And now let's hear more about this week's talk. This class is by a brother, Dana Kallman, presented in 2014 at Victoria, BC, Canada.

2. 0:51

   They're spring fraternal, and it's a really good class. It's called The First Question. And that it comes from kind of his whole series is called Five Words. But this, the first question, is kind of interesting. He explains it right off the top after his opening story, that the first question when you're aiming to teach something is what do you want your audience to know? So how do we effectively communicate and teach what we believe to our children and to our friends? The class goes on to range and touch on multiple different subjects, kind of because he's getting into what is it that we want our children to know. But I really, really enjoyed the class.

3. 1:33

   It left me with a lot to think about. It does go a few different directions, which again was helpful for me because this is definitely a class that left me with a lot of thoughts and answered even some questions that I have been thinking about. So I found this class very enjoyable and easy, very easy to listen to. He has an excellent teaching style, as I think what I'm gathering from the class. I don't know, Brother Dana. He is in some sort of teaching profession, as you can hear in the references he makes in this class. So I hope it's beneficial to you. We thank you so much for listening and definitely appreciate all the help and suggestions that we get. Please email us or contact us through social channels on classes we should check out. It is an incredible help. And in the meantime, here is Dana Coleman on the first question. Good afternoon. Let's pretend we're all going to go on a trip together, that everyone in this room has decided that we're going to go on a little holiday.

4. 2:41

   And someone in this room has gone on to redtag.ca and found a place in Puerto Vallarta where we're all going to hang out for a week. The reason we got such a deal is there's a couple of, well, twists to this. The first twist is all of us have to route through Los Angeles. So we've all agreed in this room that we're going to take a holiday. The children and the seniors, we'd all like to hang out by the pool, walk on the beach, sip lovely refreshments, and broadly enjoy each other's company.

5. 3:19

   And we're going to do it for a week. But as I said, the reason we got such a deal on the trip is because we have to route through LA. So I don't know exactly where all you folks are from. I know most of us will probably fly out of Victoria. We're going to fly out of Calgary. Maybe some of you will fly out of Nanaimo. But the long and the short of it is we all have to route through LA and we all land in LA.

6. 3:41

   So we all agree to do this. We all start out in the various cities we come from and we fly and we get to LA. And over a two-hour span, we run into each other at the airport. We go, well, it's worked out. Great. We're shaking each other's hands and we're happy to see each other because we've got this plan. We're going to have a holiday together in Puerto Vallarta. It's great. So at the appointed time, we get on the plane to LA. Now we're all on the same plane. And we're flying down to Puerto Vallarta and the plane takes off on time. It lands 10 minutes early. We get off the plane. Almost immediately, our luggage is ready. And the moment we get the luggage, the fellows that are taking us from the hotel to, or sorry, from the airport to the hotel are right there. They're right there and they take our luggage. Some of us don't even have to touch our luggage. They go right to us. The luggage goes right on the bus and we get on the bus. And now we're on the same bus. And we're heading out towards the coast. It's only a few minutes and lo and behold, it's four o'clock in the afternoon.

7. 4:41

   We're in Puerto Vallarta. We're all looking at each other, kind of stunned, but we're here. And we're having this trip. This is great. We walk up to the front. We, the people take our bags off the bus. We don't even touch the bags still. They pile them all up for us. And we're all there happy.

8. 4:57

   We're just excited about the fact that we're in Puerto Vallarta. And the children are vibrating with excitement. And we get up to the front and we say, okay, well, we called ourselves the tidings group because we didn't want to tell ourselves Christodalkins because that's a hard word for people. We said, but the tidings group, we're here. Oh, senor, the tidings group. Yeah.

9. 5:18

   We're, um, we're not quite ready for you. Not quite ready for you. Um, your rooms aren't ready, but you know, you can use the resort, uh, go to the beach, go to the, go to the, um, pool and enjoy yourselves. And, and in a little while, your rooms will be ready and you'll be able to get your rooms.

10. 5:37

    So if you're a traveler, you know, this happens, well, pretty consistently. So some of us have been smart and we put our swimming trunks in our carry ons and we get changed and we go down to the pool and some of us are on the beach. And at five o'clock in the afternoon, we send brother Joel up and we say, brother Joel, do you think you could just go ask him, see if our rooms are ready?

11. 5:59

    Okay. So brother Joel goes up. He asks him, are our rooms ready? And they say, sorry, senor. Your rooms aren't ready. Okay. Now it's 530. Okay. It's 530. And in the tropics, the sun is a hand breaths away from the horizon. Okay. The sun's going down. It's 530. We're looking at each other going, this is nice, but it sure nice to be nice to have a shower and settle because the one thing you want to do when you're traveling is settled in your room. You know, you can't, can't do much until you settle in your room. It's approaching six o'clock. So we send brother Dave up there to bring some muscle to the situation. Okay. Brother Dave goes up and says, for the tidings group, remember us, are our rooms ready?

12. 6:45

    They say, no. So David says, well, we're here. Kids are here. The seniors are here. We're all tired. We'd love to have our rooms. They're not ready. David says, well, forget our rooms. Just give us other rooms that are ready. What do you think about that? They say, oh yeah, no problem. Here's some other rooms. They give us some other keys. We get the keys. We take our kids. We go to the rooms. They aren't quite the rooms we were looking for, but we got them. We're in. We're all settled in. And now it's pitch dark.

13. 7:23

    And we're okay with this. It's pitch dark. We're settled into our rooms. And about seven o'clock in the evening, we all trickle out and we meet in the lobby. All of us. We're all in the lobby together. And we're going, okay, that's good. Okay. Everything's okay. Great. We survived that. Let's go out and get some supper.

14. 7:36

    Hey, why don't we just have supper in the hotel? And one of the young people says, why would we trust these people with our supper if they couldn't get our rooms right?

15. 7:51

    Now, I heard this story more than one occasion, and it struck to me about how it is that the single thing a hotel does is provide a place for you to stay when you're away. The one thing, they do. They could have the best restaurant in the world, but the one thing they have to do is have a place for you to stay when you get off the plane. And they didn't do their one thing.

16. 8:20

    And having had an opportunity to make up for the one thing, it took Brother David to remind them. So it seems reasonable that if you don't do your one thing well, immediately, clearly, it follows that any number of other conclusions can be drawn, not the least of which you immediately lose trust. And so this series of classes is a bit of a stretch for me in that I don't know how this normally works for you, but broadly, when you do a study day, people phone you up and say, okay, could you do this study day? And you go, sure, yeah, because I've been studying this thing for the last two years, and I can do this thing. But this came from a conversation that Melissa and Mark and I had in my living room just in the summertime. And we were talking about the things we've learned about instruction over the years, and I said, sure, I'd love to come and just tell you a few of the things that I've learned. The only problem is I haven't been studying it for two years. I've been studying it for a few months now. And the study that I did over the two years had something to do with the nature of man. But it struck me how terribly linked instruction is and how counter it is oftentimes to our nature. So I will tell you this about instruction.

17. 9:37

    I'm not the world's foremost authority, but I've done it enough to know a couple of things. The first is, if you don't get your first question right, if you don't understand deeply and thoroughly your first question, you're done before you start. That is, if you don't know what it is you want your audience to know, you're done. That is crucial in understanding instructional practice.

18. 10:03

    It all emanates from the first question. So the first question is simple. What do I want my audience to know? All right? This question is so pivotal that it predicts almost certainly instructional failure. That is, if on the front end you can't tell what your audience wants to know, it's not impossible to get the instructional part right. All right? The flip is it's also a predictor of instructional success.

19. 10:48

    Because if you know your instruction, you know what your objective is, you're going to do okay. Now, the problem with this first question is, the problem with this first question is, that there are multiple, there are multiple tensions to it. I'm only going to talk about three. The first one is, that very first one, which is, it's a predictor of instructional success or failure. The second one is, and this we know, I think intuitively, and I've got the wrong slide here, and I'll get back to it in a second. The second one is, there is a balance that occurs in teaching that is a mixture of what you know and what you are.

20. 11:29

    And if what you are isn't right, you still won't be effective. That is, ultimately, as teachers, if you aren't decent, it transmits. And that will mar the likelihood of you having been successful in instruction.

21. 11:48

    Good teachers, we know, are calm, respectful, reasonable, fair, and just. On balance, we know that there have been some real mean people that have been effective teachers, but we know this. Long term, getting people to understand people or things thoroughly, you actually have to be a decent person. And people will perceive if you are not. Ultimately, teaching is about relationships. And if you can't sustain decency, respect, fairness, you won't have good relationships.

22. 12:32

    Philippians 2 verse 5 says, in your relationships with others, have the same attitude of that of Jesus Christ. And so we know much, as Christadelphians and as believers, about relationships, but we have to ask ourselves, was Jesus manipulative? Was Jesus controlling? Was Jesus reactionary? Jesus was none of these things. And so as we go into the instructional setting, if we do not have the mindset of Jesus, it's another predictor of not being effective in the instructional role.

23. 13:10

    The third tension is this. Now, I want to be clear about what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the notion of the first question. If you cannot say what it is you want your audience to know, then broadly instruction isn't going to be effective. I'm also drawing on three tensions that add to this. The first, I was talking about how that itself is a predictor of instructional failure.

24. 13:34

    The second thing is, it's the balance between teaching and being is very important. And the third one is even more complex. It's the difference between effective and objective learning. Right? That is, it's easy to teach someone what seven times nine is. I'm going to teach you that pretty quick. I'm going to teach you how to tell time in a couple of days.

25. 13:55

    But it is deeply more difficult to get people to appreciate and enjoy and come to have affection for complex ideas. And those are the effective outcomes. Objective? Seven times nine. Appreciate and understand the subtlety of Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That's a different thing. All right? So those are the three tensions that we bring to bear on instruction. And I think you're going to hear these themes throughout the weekend. But it is impossible to be effective instructionally unless you understand thoroughly your first question. What is it that I want my audience to know?

26. 14:42

    So it's fitting that we talk about this passage from Ezra 7.10. For Ezra had devoted himself to the study and the observance of the law of the Lord and to teaching its discrees and laws in Israel. This to me is the mission statement of all Christadelphia. It's actually our strength. And we have to ask ourselves, what is our one thing as brothers and sisters? Remember we talked about taking that trip and how the people at the hotel didn't do their one thing? Brothers and sisters, I'm asking you, what is our one thing? And to me, this is a pretty good summary of one of the pillars, I think, of our community. And I credit it with this, that it broadly, for all of our weaknesses, we are the people that at some point have asked, what are the requirements of the Lord?

27. 15:33

    And at every setting, we set down to reestablish what the requirements of our Lord are. Broadly, I think we can ask ourselves, we can remind ourselves that it is the thing necessary, that this mandate or this mission statement of Christadelphia is a perfect thing to remind ourselves about what's necessary and what our role is in the greater world. Broadly, what does the church know? What does greater Christianity teach? Right? This has been the thing that we've been talking about for decades in our community, that so much of Christianity doesn't know the rudimentary teachings of the Bible, or if they do, they know it in error. And it sounds like an arrogant statement, but broadly, I think if you're a Bible student, you become really conscious of the error of greater Christianity. And no ill will to greater Christianity. There are things that greater Christianity has missed. Cherry Lynn and I had the, I guess, the pleasure of observing a young lady go through preparing for baptism. And Cherry Lynn was taking this young sister through the preparing for baptism course, however that looked. And my job was to do the dishes. So oftentimes, I was doing the dishes, and I was watching Cherry Lynn and this girl talk and have these discussions, and I was stunned. The little girl was about 15 or 16 at the time, 17 at the time, and she was preparing for baptism. And I was stunned by the quality of what she knew. That is, she'd been someone who had attended Bible schools over the years. She had a well-marked Bible. She could have elaborate discussions about what the scripture had to say.

28. 17:16

    Elaborate discussions of what scripture had to say. And it was wonderful. It was wonderful to just be an audience of this. This girl didn't need any instruction from Cherry Lynn, though I'm sure it was helpful. We were stunned by the quality that our community had prepared this girl worth. And so I have considerable respect for our traditions and heritage along those lines. Brothers and sisters, we could focus and do a lot of good by just focusing on helping people have good marriages, and helping people make good moral decisions. And we could focus on charitable works or the problems of over-consumption. But getting people to know the Word of God will save all of us, including them. And they'll be able by then to do everything else. So I think this is a perfect mission statement for our community. But I asked, you know, what does the church transmit? How successful has greater Christianity being at transmitting messages of truth to the greater population?

29. 18:26

    Now, I don't know if you can see that at the back. That is from a billboard. And it says, Gen 13 verse 1. I believe that's what it says. But at the bottom, the byline is, praying won't help, doing will. And this is from a group that is paid to put this advertisement up. And it's a group of atheists, I believe. And their message is, you know, stop monkeying around with the flaky religion thing.

30. 18:53

    Get up and do something. But my question would be, is at what point did broader Christianity transmit that prayer was a replacement for doing? Do you see my point here, brothers and sisters? I think it's worthy of us to ask what our one thing is. It's a worthy question. It's a worthy question to ask what we're doing when we're teaching Scripture to other people. And I would say the broad pattern of things has been that the message transmitted on the whole has been not broadly a scriptural message. That at the end of the day, there are a great number of people who know a little bit about Christianity who would look at this and go, yeah, you know, all those Christians, they pray, they don't do much, right?

31. 19:38

    Here's another one. I think this is from a bus in England. Same group, not exactly the same group, but the same mindset. And the byline is, there's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life. Here again, embedded, is the message of greater Christianity. At some point, someone transmitted that Christianity is about being in fear and being worried. And it set this other community up to say, you know what, actually, that's not a really healthy message and you should probably just stop worrying.

32. 20:15

    Well, there's no part of us, those of us who know something about Scripture, that would argue that Scripture and learning about the teachings of Jesus is about being plagued with worry. So then, the problem of instruction is, it tends to occur whether you want it to or not. So you set down this road of trying to bring to light the teachings of the truth. And what I observe is that the moment you don't have your one thing clear in your mind, any number of conclusions can be drawn.

33. 20:56

    The other thing about this is, when you set down this path to be the instructor, to be the people in the community that know the things of God, we know this about dealing with people. We know exactly what you believe. Broad pattern of things, if I'm your neighbor, I know exactly what you believe. I don't want, I don't need to look at your statement of faith. I know exactly, if I am your co-worker, the type of person that you are. There is no hiding it. And so you're seeing those three tensions at work. One is, if you don't have a clear understanding what your first question is. Two is, if you do not balance the teaching and the being. And the third, the third is, uh, being able to, uh, transmit both objective learning and the more complex, uh, effective learning. You see the, the complex, uh, path that we're on.

34. 21:58

    So what struck me is, is, is, is kind of curious that I was thinking about this and in the past I'd done this other class. All right. And the other class, I had spent a lot of time looking at what, um, what the internet had to say about Christadelphians. Remember there's some lovely sites I was learning about Christadelphians and history of Christadelphians and I went on, um, um, what is the site that has Wikipedia on Christadelphians? Anyway, I went to all of these sites and went to all these blogs. I spent a long time over a few days looking at the various things that, uh, were said about Christadelphians and the things that, that, uh, um, were readily evident to the people that were observing Christadelphians.

35. 22:42

    I'm going to share this with you. All right. Broadly, ex-Christadelphians don't have a lot of really nice things to say. Broad pattern of things, ex-Christadelphians don't have a lot of nice things to say. Now, I want to be clear about what we're talking about. We're talking about instruction broadly. And we're talking about the importance of, if you don't have your one thing clear, any number of conclusions can be drawn. And I have to say, um, I know enough about working with people and I know enough about working in church that, uh, it doesn't matter what type of church you're from.

36. 23:26

    There's going to be a blog that, uh, isn't very positive. But I, I took apart the various, um, uh, various articles that were about what Christadelphians or what ex-Christadelphians had to say about our community. And, you know, there are huge degrees of antipathy. All right. There's some that, you know, use the word cult and I don't honestly know what they mean by that, but I kind of get where they're going. And then there's others that are people that have become atheists, right?

37. 23:51

    Come become atheists. And they're saying things like, you know, you Christadelphians, you should be atheists. Finally, I feel free, right? Um, there's people that talk about culture and tradition. They talk about how our community is bound up in culture and traditions. They talk about in families, hierarchy, power. They talk about poor examples. They talk about brothers and sisters being egotistical, egotistical. Can you imagine? Egotistical. People being put up on pedestals, right? They talk about, disturbingly, the vile acts of our various brethren, various sisters.

38. 24:36

    They talk about poor doctrine, the idea that there were no dinosaurs. Some of our community believe there are no dinosaurs and taking a delight in awful world events. They talk about really lame scriptural understanding, the notion of substitution. Jesus died instead of us.

39. 24:57

    Now, I want to classify all of those observations as being perceptions of others, right? They have these perceptions of our community. But what I noticed underlying a lot of this was, many of these people would be what I would call very peer-attached. In many cases, they were worried about fitting in and community approval. They talked about young people's gatherings where no one would get along with them and they spent the time crying their eyes out. And to me, this is a red flag for what I would call social-emotional development. These people, oftentimes, and not perfectly, but oftentimes, had trouble fitting in. And so it's quite an indictment of our little community.

40. 25:44

    And what I'm going to suggest to you is, and this is the troubling part, some people spent years, years, we're not talking eight weeks, they came and saw, we're talking 24 years, 18 years,

41. 26:01

    third generation. They know about our Bible classes. They know about the Sunday night lecture. They know about young people's gatherings. They know about the things that occur with the readings. They know all of our traditions. They know us inside and out. I spent all of this time learning about what Christadelphians believe and teach. And broadly, they didn't get the message. Like at some level, they didn't get the message. Whatever message they got, it wasn't presumably the one thing that we hope for them to get. Some spent years, brothers and sisters, listening and thinking and talking and interacting. They went away mad, offended, hurt otherwise. But broadly, not seeing the one thing that Jesus and the laws of God have to teach you or teach us. Here's Jeremiah 29 11. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future. Here's 2 Corinthians 6 verse 14. For we are the, excuse me, we are the temple of the living God. As God has said, I will be with them and walk among them and I will be their God and they will be my people. And you know, the sad thing here is we talked about the tension between objective understanding and effective understanding. And after years, some people didn't get the deep-seated understanding. And it's just sad. But if we do not have the one thing clear on our mind, it's a setup for any number of other conclusions. Do you remember in high school, many of us had to read, all quiet on the rest in front.

42. 27:50

    I read that every couple years. It's just a phenomenal, I think it's one of the seminal historical pieces of the first world war. And he talks about new recruits. He said the problem with new recruits is, well, they're new. You know, they're on the front line, they're in the trenches, and shells come in. And they, they panic.

43. 28:11

    They don't know if they should duck, if they should run to the left or should run to the right. He said new recruits, more often than not, they'd run right to where the shell was coming. Because they didn't understand the warble, and the whine, and the thud. They didn't understand how to interpret all of the bitterness that was coming towards them. And he said, you know, if we could just get them to the last two to three weeks. Once they were past two to three weeks, we could explain to them, okay, remember this one? Okay, this one is the wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. It's coming in. Now we know we have to duck and cover on this one. Okay, this one? No, stay here. Wait for it, wait for it. Now we can run.

44. 28:54

    And the men on the line would be able to teach the new recruits how to interpret these artillery shells and the various armaments that were coming at them. And it's like, if they just got through three weeks, they'd be okay on the front line. And it's like we're in this difficult thing, in a situation where, on one hand, we have the holy laws of God to teach, but we'll always get in the way. We'll always, at some level, transmit something other than the perfect laws of Jesus. And it's too bad that there wasn't a pill you could give people as they walked into this process and say, you know, you're gonna have to look or overlook our foibles for a while, and this pill will get you through about two or three weeks. You'll realize at the end of two weeks, two or three weeks, what the holy laws of God are. They're gonna change your life. And in the meantime, you're not going to be distracted by us. That would be a great thing. But it's not actually, sadly, what the situation is.

45. 29:51

    We're plagued, brothers and sisters, because we live in a time, and by biology, we are, every cell in our body reminds us that we are the center of the universe. And these people that spent all this time in our community looking over the shoulder, worrying about what that person was doing and how that person made them feel, they didn't get a chance to absorb what perfect laws, what perfect ideas, uh, scripture had to say.

46. 30:18

    And it's tough, brothers and sisters. That effective outcome and the one thing we are doing is getting people to shift from self-engrossment and egocentricity and concern of how one is perceived to mindfulness, to peace and contemplation, to reflection, to be truly changed in the attitude of our minds. It's not about others. We already know about all of that other stuff, brothers and sisters, but along the way, many of us have been able to, uh, confirm what the perfect laws of God dictate.

47. 30:56

    And this is a wicked irony. You look at our community. Wicked irony. There's no community, I don't think, that does everything possible to eliminate the peripherals. We don't do a lot of song and dance. We don't do a lot of music. We don't do a lot of big halls. We don't have issues broadly as a pattern about money.

48. 31:14

    We just don't do it. We don't want the clergy. We don't want the hierarchy. We don't want the, the, we want individual understanding. We tend to attract the middle only. We get a little bit panicky when people with real needs come in our community, because we, we just want them to learn what scripture has to say.

49. 31:31

    That's our desperate plea. So brothers and sisters, if we aren't successful at getting out the first message, any number of conclusions can be drawn. So it forced me to ask, you know, as brothers and sisters, what is our one thing? What is our

50. 32:02

    first question? And we explained that in instruction, it all comes down to this. You either know the first question deeply, or the likelihood you'll transmit something else is more or less guaranteed. And so as a father, I was asking myself, okay, what are, what is my notion? The first question. And what I've, what's great about being a Bible student and, and, and doing stuff, uh, studies as, as I go is, I'm struck by how much freedom scripture is insisting people experience moment by moment.

51. 32:40

    Moment. Moment. And I would say to you, brothers and sisters, you could articulate this in any number of ways. What I, what I, what I, the way I articulate is this, that broadly God wants us to be free. That the message of, of, of scripture is, is a message of freedom.

52. 32:59

    First Peter 2 16 says, live as people who are free. And the rest of it says, not an excuse to do, as, as an excuse to do evil. But he says, live as people who are free, moment by moment. Psalm 119 45, I think it's one of the best verses in scripture to remind us of the freedom we exist in moment by moment.

53. 33:22

    I walk at liberty because I seek your precepts. In Galatians 5 verse 1 it says, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm therefore, and do not submit to a yoke of slavery. Brothers and sisters, we, we don't have to be slaves. The message of scripture is, we don't have to live in anxiety, or fear, or distraction.

54. 33:49

    We don't have to have muddled thinking, or distorted values. We don't have to have guilt. We don't have to have shame. We don't have to have the doubt, or pettiness. We don't have to be comparative. We don't have to be competitive. Scripture has incredible things to teach. And that freedom, to me, is the one thing.

55. 34:12

    So then, I ask myself, okay. I understand that is the message of scripture. And for me, it comes down to, because I have children, okay, what now? I'm at this place where, what do I want my children to know? And so I was thinking about, okay, at the end of the day, what do I really want my children to know about what Christadelphians do, Christadelphians teach?

56. 34:38

    And at the end of the day, I'm convinced of this, that our children have to be Bible students. There's no getting around it. But fundamentally, they have to be Bible students. The second thing is, they have to grow to appreciate. Remember, we talked about the effective outcome. They actually have to appreciate the guidance of scripture.

57. 34:55

    And third, they have to have a real relationship with the word. So turning our children into Bible students is a tricky business, I'm sure. But I will give you this. What I really want my children to do is to be able to actually analyze scripture. That is, when we go through the readings, I can say, okay, here's a question.

58. 35:15

    What are some other parts of scripture that relate to this? And at the end of the day, if I can get them to do that, I think they're going to be in pretty good stead. The second part is kind of ironic. What I've observed about this is it's actually easier to teach scriptural analysis.

59. 35:30

    That is, to get your kids, your children into the vocabulary of scripture, it's easier to teach that than it is to sit down and actually do the readings. It's a wicked place we're in, that our lives are so frenetic and full that, you know, getting down, oh, we've got to get down to the readings and have energy to put into it.

60. 35:46

    It's easier to teach scriptural analysis than it is to get down and do the readings. The second part is guidance. At the end of the day, I really want my children to be able to come back to the rudimentary guidance of scripture. In Habakkuk 19, it says, Woe to him who says to wood, come to life, or to lifeless stone, wake up.

61. 36:08

    Can it give guidance? It is covered with gold and silver. There is no breath in it. And it was its first sort of sneaky reminder to me that scripture over and over reminds us that it is a guide. Proverbs 1 verse 3 tells us that scripture is for acquiring a disciplined and prudent life.

62. 36:27

    It's where the discerning get guidance. It provides discretion to the young. And it goes further and it says it will go better for those who reverence God, who are reverent before him. So at the end of the day, I know my children have to be Bible students. The second thing is they actually have to have an affection for the or be directed by the guidance of scripture.

63. 36:52

    I'm going to give you a couple examples. There is a verse that I remind myself of all the time. And it's one of those things that I wish I had learned 25 years ago, deeply, as much as I know now. It's from Psalm 119, 65. It says, Great peace have they that love thy law, for nothing can offend them.

64. 37:13

    Now in other versions it says cause them to stumble. But in this case, I want to focus on for nothing can offend them. And if you think about my life, and I think about your lives as well, about how often I've been offended. How much time I've wasted being offended. And it would be great for our children to know, you know, there is no profit in that.

65. 37:36

    There is no worth in it. You don't have to spend a moment of your life being offended by others. We become experts in the flesh, brothers and sisters, because we are conversant with what I think is a divinely perfect guide to the character of man. We become experts at understanding how other people are going to act.

66. 38:01

    And in that, because we know how other people are going to act, makes it really way easier to tolerate them. We know in advance, almost perfectly, that people are going to be self-engrossed. People are going to fly off the handle. People are going to act like nine-year-olds. We know that. Clear as a bell.

67. 38:18

    It's a perfect, easy scriptural study to do. We know how people are going to act. We are expert in that. So knowing that in advance, when you're going into a situation, that's a real gift. Great peace have they who love thy law, for nothing can offend them. It allows us to overlook a whole bunch of things.

68. 38:39

    So we're talking about guidance, brothers and sisters. And I'm saying, teaching our children to understand the role of being offense-free is a great thing. Stop being afraid. Dana, wouldn't you give us that verse again, 1-1965. 1-1965. Now, I've got to tell you, Brother Joel. It's 1-1965. Okay, I was just going to say, you see, you beat me to it.

69. 39:01

    I'm totally ADHD. So two-thirds of any of these verses, I've worked the numbers, I guarantee you. Okay, so we'll have to go with that.

70. 39:11

    Brothers and sisters, when we read from Exodus 2020, and I know this is actually right, it says, Fear not, the Lord has come to test you. All right? As soon as you say, okay, fear not, the Lord has come to test, you hear the words test, you go, ah, test. Who wants a test?

71. 39:27

    Test is stress. I don't need a test. But the word is, fear not, the Lord has come to prove you, which is to refine you. Okay? So when we go through our lives, we're dealing with these people, we're not taking offense, knowing full well that the people that are in front of us and the situations we're in are 100% there to refine us.

72. 39:48

    It's not a case of a test, oh, you failed, off with your head. Instead, it's a refinement where you say, look, you're going to have to come back to Scripture and learn something. And I think the reminder that that is at work in our lives is crucial.

73. 40:04

    Teaching our children to be free of offense-taking, perfect message from Scripture, and it's great guidance. If they can come back to that in their lives, that would be a great thing. The notion of saying no, this is Titus 2.11, and I'm pretty sure that one's correct. It says, for the grace teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age.

74. 40:30

    Brothers and sisters, there's all kinds of things bound up in that Scripture, but the thing that grabs me of light is the notion of saying no. Now, I know when I'm telling you about these things that many of you can relate to this. But I think we're in a really unique time, a time like no other.

75. 40:50

    And I know every time period people say, well, we're in a really unique time, we're in a time like no other. But I think in this time, it's really unique, and here's why. We're doing a whole bunch of things right now in our lives with our children and our communities and our culture that we have no idea how they're going to turn out.

76. 41:06

    And I'm going to just put one thing to you. I'm really struck by the degree of exposure children have to the evils of the Internet, all right? The exposure to screen time. And it seems that as new technologies come along, I don't think we have a mechanism in our society to ask, you know, is this really necessary?

77. 41:30

    You know, I know about Snapchat and Twitter and things like that, and I only know periphery because it's not something that grabs my interest. But I just put it to you gently. I've got no problem with the Internet. But as we download technology that's driven by people who are marketing technology to our children, we don't often have the ability to choose whether or not they're participating.

78. 41:55

    I guarantee you in their schools, they probably are. With their friends, they probably are. We don't actually know the effect that that's going to have on this generation. We have no idea of the long-term impact of all of the screen time, all of this exchange that is peer-to-peer. I'm going to talk about that later.

79. 42:16

    But it's broadly kids exchanging information with kids. And one thing that relates to this is Trin and I went to a presenter who was an expert. His sole job was to investigate Internet lures. And he told me about an experiment he did with his colleagues where over just a few minutes he created a profile of a 15-year-old boy.

80. 42:45

    And he put that profile, and I have to remind you, this man worked in the city where we're near, near Medicine Hat. We go there for groceries. So he worked in that city, and he created a profile for a 15-year-old boy. And he put it out there, and it was a 15-year-old boy looking for friends.

81. 43:01

    And he said, no kidding, in two minutes, he had fully adult men chasing down this 15-year-old icon that he created. And the point in all this is, he said, look, it wasn't some guy from, you know, Boston. It wasn't some guy from Russia. It was in the city of Medicine Hat. And the adult was saying to this 15-year-old boy, hey, let's get together at Tim Hortons, you know.

82. 43:27

    I mean, they were talking people that were, you know, eight kilometers apart. And in two minutes, the exposure that our children are, anyway, the exposure that our children get in this is fairly profound. We don't have a mechanism to make it so that our kids aren't vulnerable to this, all right? That it's so ubiquitous, and I'm shocked by that.

83. 43:56

    When we're in a situation when we don't have choices, it sets us up. And we can't say no when we don't have choices. And that's a really unique thing about the society. So that loss of ability simultaneous to self-censure, that is, we have the situation where all of this technology is coming to us.

84. 44:14

    We don't have so readily an ability to self-censure. Not to mention, not to mention, we're in an entitled generation. We're in a you-deserve-it generation. How often do we actually practice saying no, right? So I leave that with you. That notion of saying no is something that is lost. And it's something that is a plague of our generation.

85. 44:40

    And whether you're talking about food, whether you're talking about how much money you spent, whether or not you're using words in anger, whether or not you indulge, that ability to say no is a scriptural principle. And as I'm saying, this is the guidance of scripture that I'm hoping my children would get. For the grace teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age.

86. 45:13

    Conduct. Third thing, under the umbrella of guidance. Wouldn't it be great, brothers and sisters, if we remember this passage over the last, say, three months? Whatever else happens, conduct yourselves according to the gospel of Christ. Right? Philippians 1.27. Whatever else happens, conduct yourselves according to the gospel of Christ. And remember that parallel version, version, where we said...

87. 45:53

    Sorry, I moved this book here. All right, anyway. Whatever else happens, conduct yourselves according to the gospel of Christ. Think back over the last three months, and think about the situations you've been in where you haven't. Where you haven't thought appropriately and carefully about what you were going to say. Here's another one.

88. 46:13

    2 Timothy 4.5. Verse 5. And you, says, keep your head in all circumstances, endure hardship. We're talking about the message of conduct and how we interact with people around us. And you keep your head in all circumstances and endure hardship. Brothers and sisters, there's no better advice out there. Here's divinely inspired ideas to make it so that we're immensely conscious of how we interact with others.

89. 46:53

    And the last, under the guise of balance, is balance. Sorry, under the guise of guidance is balance. Do you remember the discussion when Israel was going into land, and there was a tribe and a half a tribe that wanted to stay on one side, and they went to Moses, and they said, you know, we really want to stay here.

90. 47:13

    Remember that exchange, right? And the exchange was essentially, Moses misread initially their motives. He said, no, you're not going to, you know, stay back here and hide. We're going in to take the land. You come with us, and you get out front, and you help us. And they were saying, no, no, no, no, no.

91. 47:29

    We want to do that. But all we're asking is that we get to keep our families here. We'll go on ahead of you, help you fight and clear the land, and then we'll come back to this land. Do you remember that exchange? Do you remember what I'm talking about? Okay, the classic line in that exchange is Moses comes around, and he says, okay, no, I understand what you're talking about.

92. 47:50

    Fine. He says to them in the most rational and practical way, and this is from Numbers 32, 24. He says, go ahead, build cities for your women and children and pens for your flocks, but do what you have promised. And it's a reminder to us that scripture isn't this big weight of narrowness and confinement.

93. 48:17

    It's a reminder that in the time of Moses, he was going, yeah, no, I understand this. By all means, have your life. Have your home and have your children and have your flocks and build your pens. Do what you need to do. But remember, do what you've promised. And that is a very balanced message from scripture.

94. 48:37

    It's not weight. It's not this yoke that makes our lives less. It's a yoke that makes our lives more. Go ahead, build cities for your women and children and pens for your flocks, but do what you have promised. Then there's another exchange, and I wonder if we can look this one up. It's in Mark 12, 28.

95. 49:07

    And you know this one because it's the one, it's a fairly unique presentation. If you remember, one of the teachers of the law came to Jesus and says, of all the commandments which are greatest. And Jesus says, okay, here are the two commandments that are greatest. And we know the two commandments that were the greatest.

96. 49:28

    Okay, so he says, the most important answer, Jesus, and this is in verse 29, is this. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this.

97. 49:42

    Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no command greater than these. Well said, teacher, the man replied. You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart and with all your understanding and with all your strength and to love your neighbor as yourself, and this is critical, is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.

98. 50:02

    Then Jesus saw that he had answered wisely and he said, you are not far from the kingdom of God. And from then on, no one dared him ask any more questions. My point about this is the balance. The gospel of Christ is not a forever evolving mystery. There are very specific things that we can live by and by all means do it.

99. 50:22

    So when Jesus says, you are not far from the kingdom of God, it's not unreasonable for any of us to be there. We seem to have this impression that the promises go out. God has a promise to redeem us. Maybe. Right? Maybe he'll redeem us. The message of God is not a maybe message.

100. 50:42

     Right? It's a promise. It's a covenant. It's an agreement. If you do these things, you will see your salvation. But those are four of eight I have here of messages of guidance that I'm praying that my children will receive. Now to go back, we're talking about the one thing, brothers and sisters. What is the one thing we do?

101. 51:05

     Certainly, we want everyone we meet to become Bible students. Second thing is we want them to see the real-time immediacy of Scripture's guidance. And lastly, they want to have a relationship with the word. Now, it's really simple what I'm saying here, but it's hard to transmit. That at the end of the day, we want our children to be deeply moved by what God has said.

102. 51:35

     And for the sake of expedience, I will introduce this by this. There is Hebrews 4.12, which says, the word of God is alive and active. Right? It's similar to 1 Thessalonians 2.13, which says, the word of God is at work in you who believe. Now, here's two very animated sensibilities from Scripture. The word of God is alive.

103. 52:01

     Sorry, the word of God is at work in you who believe. And the word of God is alive and active. And we want that degree of emotional connection with the people that we're teaching to, but also especially to our children. What's curious, and we know this intuitively, that is not the same quality of animation as 1 Peter 5.8, which says, Be alert and sober-minded.

104. 52:28

     Your enemy, the devil, prowls around looking for someone to devour. The active belligerence of the adversary that is within us is far more powerful, I would argue, than the word of God is alive and active. To a certain degree. That is, I would think that the more you knew the word of God, the less animated your adversary would be.

105. 52:50

     So I put that to you gently. What we're looking for is a deep-seated relationship where the word of God actually works in us to change us. Now you're going to hear these verses more than once this weekend, but I guide you to Jeremiah 7.21. And just the first part. Listen to this. Jeremiah 7.21.

106. 53:09

     Jeremiah 7.21 says, Go ahead, add your burnt offerings to the other sacrifices and eat the meat yourselves. Go ahead, add your burnt offerings to the other sacrifices and eat the meat yourselves. For when I brought your ancestors up out of Egypt and spoke to them, I did not just give them commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices, but I gave them this command, obey me and I will be with you, I will be your God and you will be my people.

107. 53:47

     So here we have this exchange that transmits God's exasperation with what is not going on in the relationship that God has intended. He's just saying, yeah, go ahead, add your meat to the other sacrifices, eat the meat yourselves. It doesn't matter. You haven't made the connection, that emotional connection that's so necessary. Here's another one, Ezekiel 16.63.

108. 54:09

     Ezekiel 16.63, it says, Then, when I make atonement for you and all you have done, you will remember and be ashamed and never again open your mouth because of your humiliation, declares the sovereign Lord. And this is a perfect example of the reciprocity that God is looking for in our relationships. That when God has said something, we respond.

109. 54:32

     And when we don't respond as he has asked, that we actually feel it. And that is really high order stuff. You don't teach that in a few minutes or less. It is complex to get the laws of God so important in children's and anyone's lives so that they have that emotional connection. connection.

110. 54:53

     So then, how do you create that close connection, that deep-seated connection with young people? Now, I'm speaking because, if you remember, I've torqued this question into my favor. That is, at the end of the day, I'm asking myself, what is it that I want my children to know? Right? That's that first question.

111. 55:21

     The one thing that we're going to do. And I've outlined to you the importance of the three tensions around that question. But I've said, okay, of the one thing that I want them to do, I definitely want them to be Bible students. I definitely want them to have an emotional interaction with Scripture.

112. 55:37

     And I definitely want them to have the guidance of Scripture, to appreciate the guidance of Scripture. So how do we get to this place where our children are readily able to see the values that we do? Well, remember I talked about my fear of that inability to say no about technology in our lives and how it just comes in.

113. 55:57

     It doesn't seem to have, we don't have the mechanisms to say no, keep the technology out. Almost all of that technology is peer-to-peer technology. That is, it's young people talking to young people. It's me texting my colleagues. But it would be someone who's 17 texting another 17-year-old. It doesn't necessarily follow that children are using technology to have better relationships, let's say, with their parents.

114. 56:23

     Maybe in some cases it does, but I don't think it necessarily follows. So what I'm saying is, how do we get young people to have the same emotional connection to the word? Well, it turns out that we know a lot about this because now we know a whole lot about peer attachment.

115. 56:41

     Along with technology, there are all kinds of things in our society we've agreed on are good things that actually get our kids away from us. You know? Homework. Right? Oftentimes it's, okay, there you go, go do the homework. Music lessons, hockey, their peers, peer technology, having friends over. All of that stuff relates to our children simply becoming attached to other children.

116. 57:11

     And my concern about that is, this is a pattern that replicates itself over and over again. And the more often children are attached to other peers, it will be the peers' opinions that matter. And that is a profound shift in a generation because I can remember my parents' generation. My mom was a genius about teaching my brother and I to stand on your own people.

117. 57:36

     She's really, really able to teach us how to get jobs, how to apply for jobs, how to fill out resumes. She'd walk us through how to make out a reference form. She's great about saying, there you go, get out there and be on your own. She's really good at that. And I just so admire her sensibility about that.

118. 57:54

     What we have paid for in that is so many children end up not attached to the values of their parents. And we carry that forward. And even our generation, we're so itching to get our kids successful in the world. We say, oh, okay, we've got to get you in soccer. And when that's done, we'll give you some woodworking lessons.

119. 58:15

     And then we'll get you a pilot's license. And virtually none of it has to do with us. So I'm concerned that peer attachment is something that is going to get in the way. Now, here is a book that Charlie and I have read. And we've seen this fellow speak. And it's not a Christadelphian work at all.

120. 58:35

     But he says a lot about why it is important for parents to matter more than their kids. Values are not going to be transmitted peer-to-peer. And every bit of technology likely is inclined to teach peer-to-peer communication. So this is what he says. This peer orientation undermines the family cohesion. It interferes with healthy development.

121. 58:59

     It fosters a hostile and sexualized youth culture. Children end up becoming overly conformist, desensitized, and alienated. Being cool matters more to them than anything else. At one time, we thought it was really important for kids to socialize with other kids. And I'm not saying it's not. But at an exclusion of everything else, I would say that's pretty important.

122. 59:21

     So in summary, we know that the crucial instructional principle is what is the one thing? And if you can't clearly articulate the one thing, you're going to send any number of messages. We talked about the complexity and the difference between outcomes, effective and objective. We talked about the teaching and being imperative. We talked about our mandate, how Ezra devoted himself to the studying, observance, and teaching of the law.

123. 59:53

     And we talked about how knowing well our first question is a perfect predictor of instructional success. So then we asked, okay, so then, what is our first question? And I would say to all of you with confidence that our first question is broadly, God wants us to be free. We don't have to live in fear.

124. 1:00:13

     We don't have to live in pettiness. We don't have to live our lives as the tail of the dog wagged. We can be free. And when we talk about this being transmitted to our children, we talked about the importance of building Bible students, our children understanding the role and guidance of Scripture in their lives, how to rid themselves of offense, how to say no, how to conduct themselves, the message of balance that is Scripture.

125. 1:00:44

     We talked about also having a real relationship with the Word of God. We talked about attachment theory here, which says our children will not adopt our values if they're deeply concerned about what their peers think. And ultimately, and this is to go right back to the beginning, we talked about how the Word makes it so that the actions of others matter less, that this is an incredible effective outcome.

126. 1:01:20

     There are people that spent years in our community, and they spent a whole lot of time looking at what other people were doing. And broadly, they missed the one thing. Everyone in here has to struggle with everyone in here. It's part of the package. And I know Scripture has tons to tell us about how to deal with one another as we make our way in our walk towards the kingdom.

127. 1:01:49

     And I read this passage lots of times, and I thought, God, this is such a Scriptural echo. I have to share it with you. All right? So to conclude, I'm going to read this for you.

128. 1:02:04

     In dealing with people, we have got to remind ourselves we're the flesh experts. We know the character that our neighbors are going to manifest. So here it is. People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway. If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies.

129. 1:02:32

     Succeed anyway. If you are honest and sincere, people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway. What you spend years creating others could destroy overnight. Create anyway. If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway. The good you do today will often be forgotten. Do good anyway. Give the best you have, and it will never be enough.

130. 1:02:58

     Give your best anyway. And the final analysis is between you and God. It was never between you and them. Anyway. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the Good Christ Adeloon Talks podcast. Please subscribe for new episodes and leave a review on Apple Podcasts or whichever service you are listening from to help people find the show when they search for it.

131. 1:03:27

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132. 1:03:50

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