Joshua Keith Craft

0:52 Awesome. Um, yeah, dude. I was looking at the cut on your wrist there. Was that that's obviously from strike force. Yeah. How was it? I saw videos of you laughing. I was like, I love Josh. Guys are on stage like hulking out like Jesus is driving his elbow through like 17 bricks and you're just like smiling like Yeah, bro. Having the greatest time. It was good. My arms feel arms. I didn't break my wrist. I broke my wrist last year. Yeah, I know. I remember that. So, no broken bones. That's a win. Yeah. We we um everyone's like, "Man, I don't know. Like, are those bricks real for for real?" I'm like, "Man, they're for real." My arms hurt and I was bleeding a little bit. That was just from one break. I didn't really do that much this year. Yeah, I had a good time. I just got to support everybody else. We had You had Tyler in some great dudes up there that were so excited to be a part of it. But I'm feeling good, man. Good, man. And you you did like what was your most like for those that have no idea what we're talking about every year. You you and your dad used to go around all over the country doing like power team stuff like breaking bricks.

1:46 People love to make fun of it now, which is um which is nice. Like guys like John Crist and all them. I really appreciate that. I don't even know who that is. Now, you know who John Crist is? He's he's a Christian comedian. He's not a really Christian comedian. He's a comedian, but he's also a Christian. But uh a lot of guys will make fun of So like the Power Team guys that you know there was this whole era of church in the 80s and 90s where guys would bend steel bars and break bricks and rip phone books. Yeah. Dude, do all these and and the goal behind that was to do these events that really lead people to Christ. And um it's like Christian WWE. It's 100%. It's hard. I mean, it's it's hard and a lot of that stuff is like pretty pretty challenging from like a feats perspective and you have to be pretty strong, but it's a it's just a show, man, to and I and I think, you know what's so interesting is there's this there's always been this like segment of the Christian population, so to say, that doesn't value any of that. They don't think that you should draw a crowd, right? Like they don't think that that should happen. and they think just preach the word, just talk about um just and I'll say it the way I hear it a lot of times, just be as boring as possible and the right people will come, right?

2:59 Like don't worry about making it attractive. Don't worry about making it culturally relevant. Just, you know, just preach through the book of Leviticus and you know, the right people will be in the room. Uh I always think, man, you know, what can we do to get people to come to church that wouldn't normally come to church? Yeah. you know, because the goal is to get them to be a part of doing life together in a church community. So anyway, uh I I have a lot of thoughts on that because I'm I've grown up on both sides of the right both sides of the equation. But yeah, we did Strike Force this past week and feeling good, man. People got saved and praise the Lord. Broke some handcuffs and there you go. That's good. Yeah. I I think what's what's interesting about that? So like cuz I I I I find that thought process a little tempting if I'm being honest cuz I'm like, "Yeah, man. let's just keep it to the word and you can get to that place and and I think from a good-hearted place you're like no I don't want to do anything that's not like honoring to God. So once again they say the road to hell is paved with good intentions like and I'm not saying you're going to hell if you think that way. What I am saying though is it's very rare that people are like this is wrong and I don't care. It exists but what's a lot more common like the people that disagree with you on whatever topic they think that what that the reason they disagree with you is because they're doing a good thing and that you're doing a bad thing. Now here's the thing. So both people, like when people fight wars, is either side going like, "Hey, we're the bad guys."

4:18 No. Like when the Nazis were doing their thing in in World War II, they weren't going like, "Hey, we're, you know, we're the bad guys here, but you know, too late." It was like, "These people have a way of life that's threatening ours and blah blah blah, and this is, you know, they whatever they believed." So, so when you understand that, I go, "Okay, so let's just throw that whole argument aside for a second and just think if you don't, like here's the question. If the church is not culturally relevant, who is?" Well, a bunch of people who have no idea about God, who who are not trying to push people to do good and virtuous things. And this is what's called social media influencers, right? Like, dude, and and it's it's like you can you can get somebody out there to tell you how to do anything and they're selling you this product and they're showing you. I mean, you know, I look at our podcast. I look at the other podcasts I do with Garrett and like I've had this thought with myself. I'm like, man, if we want to accelerate growth, like if you and I wanted to accelerate growth on this podcast, you know, it would be great. We would talk about really hot button topics. We talk about co like we've mentioned some things that are going on in the country but it's not been the focus. We talk about things that are going to get people to it that have strongly divided opinions and we throw it out there because what's it going to do on social media? Everyone's going to have a reaction to it and that's what you want or maybe we get somebody that that somebody on here that's well-known and we'd you know we we debate with them but you and I would just start talking about all the things that are going to get that are going to get people to have a visceral like I I am for this or against this reaction. And that's how you would do it and you would just put reels out like that. You'd have reaction videos. You would talk about why this person's wrong, blah blah blah. Use other people's big name, whoever, and talk about why they're wrong. And you know what? You would get clicks and you would grow. But I don't necessarily know that you would be actually doing anything that's actually serving the people that you're, you know, that are following you. And I never want to be somebody that does something solely to get eyeballs. Like, I want to be able to stand up and say like, "Look, I I wanted to serve whoever watched this or whoever listened to it the best as possible."

6:08 And and because people don't always recognize what's good for them, I find that that's a slow growth trajectory. Yeah. I think that so CS Lewis said wickedness wickedness when you examine it is is the pursuit of some good in the wrong way. Oh man. Socrates said no man does wrong willingly. Right. Good. So we all think that we're doing the right thing. Yeah. And that's the scary thing. I think that's the scary thing for me is um I don't I I I have convictions like I have I'm I'm making decisions for certain reasons but I think that those things are good and what happens when you I always use Ricky Bobby man I always you know the there's a scene and and and now now it's kind of a probably the people that are listening to this are probably our age but maybe you know younger younger people now don't know the uh don't know anything didn't leap to the next generation I don't I don't think so. And um we don't hang out with a lot of Gen Z people tonight.

7:01 No. So, there's a scene in this movie. So, there's a scene in this movie where this kid's dad is leaving and he says, "Remember, if you ain't first, you're last." And it's a race car movie about a NASCAR driver. So, he lives his whole life with this philosophy of if I'm not first, I'm last. If I'm not in first place, I'm a loser. And he gets you get to this certain part in the movie where he reconnects with his dad and he's talking to his dad about that and he's like, "I lived my whole life by this philosophy." And he's like, "I said it when I was drunk. It didn't make any sense. Ricky, I was high. Yeah. Why would you say why would you think that that's a good idea? And so we have all these, you know, the scary thing is we have all these good ideas. We just don't we don't um always know where they come from or if they really have any if they really have any fruit. And there's also the balance, I think, of why are we doing why are we doing anything that we're doing? Yeah. Yeah, but you know the the idea of like in the ancient world the idea of a sophist. So in in the citystate of Athens, Athens was a pure democracy and so it was whoever got the most votes on anything won. and rhetoric which was the art of persuasive speaking was was one of the top is probably the top skill that a person could learn as it related to becoming a powerful person in that society. So you would go if you had the means you would go do everything you could to learn how to be a persuasive speaker and persuade people of your opinions. Right? So a sophist was a uh a person it comes from wisdom. So the word sophist comes from comes from wisdom. Philosophy is uh philosophia which means the love of wisdom. So a sophist was a person who was seen as wise.

8:43 Right? And what they would would primarily do is they would train people in the art of persuasion because what sophists believe was that it didn't really matter what was true. What mattered is what we could convince people was true. So everything is neutral and everything is relative and the the the ultimate virtue or the ultimate thing we should pursue is power. So if we what we should do is try to do our best to cultivate the ability to persuade as many people as possible that way we can get what we want. And it had nothing to do with any kind of ethical ethical behavior, ethical, you know, virtuous living. It was just more more about well I can convince someone of whatever whatever I need to convince them of that needs to be true.

9:35 So they were they were saying we could do it. They never asked should we do it. No. Well I mean I think that that's that's where the you have the rise of philosophy like the rise of Socrates comes about as a result of these people because what Socrates wanted was what was actually true what was actually right. what was what was actually good not what what can we convince people of but what's actually the right way to live and the right way to approach things which doesn't like that level of that way of thinking I think the danger or the the yeah I guess the danger of thinking that way and wanting truth and wanting right and wanting good and wanting things that are always virtuous is you run counter to culture and you're not actually a very popular person right so Socrates wasn't wasn't very popular throughout his life the the city state of Athens ended up sentencing him to death for corrupting young people because they were convinced that that was what was happening. Uh you look at all throughout history, I mean all throughout the Roman Empire and even the Greeks, they would exile philosophers for what they taught and for what they pursued. Jesus was killed when Jesus goes to Pilate and he says what? He says, "Who are you? What are you here to do?" He says, "I'm here to testify to the truth." M so there's a there's a when you go man I really want the real thing and I really want what's true and I really want things that are always good and always right you are intentionally running contrary to culture and in a lot of ways pursuing pursuing truth gets you on on the wrong side of a lot of people and even powerful people.

11:11 So we live in a world though that and that that that dynamic has always been the case right. So, so now the modern-day sophist is an Instagram influencer. It's a Yeah, it's it's so man, as you were I just kind of did a flash in my mind to John 3 when Jesus talks about, you know, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life. And then he talks about, you know, the son did not come in to condemn the world. And then, but then he goes, here's the verdict. Uh light came into the darkness, but the darkness didn't want the light. Yeah. And and that's like, man, for somebody that believes that, you know, if if you have mercy and compassion for people and you want them to transform and to know what it is to like really live the abundant life that Jesus has, that's a really hard thought to think that there's people out there like, "Dude, I don't I don't care if it's true. I don't want it."

12:05 Yeah. But they wouldn't say that. No, they wouldn't say it like that. But they say is um something along the lines of, "That's just too much work. I I shouldn't have to do that much work. I shouldn't that it shouldn't be like that. Like that's not So, you know, I I was I was uh I was looking at all these different I ended up on this website. I was looking up I I saw this ad for this AI. Everything's AI now, right? So, I saw this ad for this AI uh bike, like a like a workout bike for your house. And so on this ad, it's there's a new study that these people have done that you can do a five-minute HIIT workout on this bike and it's the same cardio effect of two hours of cardio in five minutes. How how now? How are they quantifying that? Exactly. But people that's what people want to hear. People want to hear, okay, I get it, man. There's a price to pay, but like it's not that hard, right?

13:04 No, it's not that hard. It's five minutes of your day. Yeah, that's not that's not really pro. I mean, maybe it's true. It's not. Right. I'm just going to say, but if it is five minutes, if it is five minutes of working out, it's probably the hardest five minutes you've ever had. Right. Right. So, it's five minutes of an all-out sprint or something. This is going to be somebody Yeah. who's like, if you get like if you get in zone five or zone four for five minutes, it's the same as if you you know what it would take you to doing two, we just get there faster because then it releases this cortisol. And if you notice, like most of these conversations are around a similar vibe to, hey, it doesn't have to be that hard. No, that's exactly right. So like you there's there's, you know, in my personal kind of like social media algorithm, there's always uh Christian thinkers, right? So there's always someone who comes up that will say something like, you know, you don't really have to give to a church. You don't really have to tithe. You don't have to be a part of a church. You can like serve God all on your own.

13:59 Great. Now, that's completely antithetical to biblical thinking. Um, if you understand the context of scripture, if you understand what scripture says, but a person will watch that and what what'll it do? It'll align with what they want to hear. Exactly. And then they'll just go, "Okay, well, that's something I wanted to hear. Therefore, that's probably right because it it uh it serves me to hear that and it makes me happy." And you could find all there's all different kinds of uh information and this is what I find so fascinating like there's studies. So as as many studies are as there are that say that you should not vaccinate your kids there's as many studies that say you should. Yeah. There's there's a there's a justification that's been well researched and studied from every side of whatever argument Yeah.

14:51 that there is. And so people decide which side of the issue they come down on. That's really the the decision that they're making and which one which which answer to the to the question that they want. Yeah. And the the dynamic to me of that is what we're not doing a lot of times and what we're not actually capable of doing in situations like this like when we look at people on the internet or whatever is measuring their fruit in their own life. Yeah. So Jesus said you'll know them by their fruit, right? That's what he talked about. He said you'll know people by their fruit. You won't know them by all this other stuff. We talked about that a little bit ago. But that's the thing we should be measuring as to whether or not we should do something is what what the what the outcome is that that produces over a long period of time in someone's life.

15:42 Yeah. Well, I I what I think is so interesting, so I'm really into psychology as you know. So there's an understanding that your brain is not wired to tell you what's true. Your brain is wired to reinforce what you believe, right? And if you know anything about the reticular activation system or the RAS, as I heard Dr. Robbie call it, and I was like, "Wow, that must be what real like real psychologists call it is the RAS." But if you know anything about this reticular activation system, it's, you know, modern day people like Tony Robbins would call it survival software where it was really useful. You know, if you believe back in the day whenever you're just out and you got to survive, this reticular activation system looks for whatever you tell it is important. So like this is really useful if you need water, food, shelter. Great. Nowadays, you know, the the standard for the barrier for us to like whether we're going to survive or not. It's survival is assumed now. It's like it's tragic when somebody doesn't survive in our society. So we flipped that completely on the head, but we still have this reticular activation system. So what do you what do you believe is good? Well, I believe it's good that you uh have a certain stance on an issue. And so now everywhere you look, like that's what is wired to be reinforced is like, see, it shows you're right. The the example people always use for how your RAS actually works is like, you know, you start thinking about buying this car and suddenly you noticed the car everywhere.

16:55 Well, it's not like, you know, you wanted a Toyota Prius and then suddenly 10,000 of them sold that day and all drove around you. They were always there. You just weren't looking for them. And so, like, when you start realizing that, it's like, oh man. So, you have to become the type of person that can watch the watcher, aka you have to be able to monitor and have awareness of your own thoughts and where where these things are leading you. To me, that's a mark of maturity. I don't I don't know. Um I'm trying to think like how that begins to be developed in you. I I personally think that like a awareness meditation is really valuable for that, but I don't know that everybody I don't I don't have like the five-step process to to become a you know to watch the watcher, but it's it's you know from a brain standpoint. It's uh kind of dangerous, right? Cuz like you're basically wired just go like this is what I want to see, so this is what I'm going to see. I think that the dynamic is that truth truth is objective, right? Truth is uh always true. Truth is a very objective thing that exists but it is always subjectively applied.

17:52 Okay. So what I mean by that is there's truth and then there's our interpretations of truth. Right? Our inter our interpretations of truth are always subjective. Right? They're never objective. Like you never have so we have this perfect vision of what justice looks like or we have this perfect vision of what love looks like. We say, "Okay, this is what we we just we the past couple episodes we talked about loving your neighbor and oh, I I in my mind I can see what the Bible says when it says love your neighbor, love the Samaritan, on and on. How do I apply that in my life?" That's where it becomes very difficult is the subjective nature of the application of truth. Right. Right. And so the navigation of that I think is really difficult because life is life is way more gray area than it is black and white.

18:43 Right? And there's not really an easy way to navigate that except for navigating it. I think that one of the things that equips us to do that is I heard a I had a humanities professor in college that said it's the mark of an educated mind to entertain a thought without accepting it. Right? That's not uh people quote Aristotle. Aristotle didn't actually say that. So I don't know who said it, but my humanities professor said it first the first time that I heard it. So uh I think it was George Bernard Shaw. I can't remember. I don't have like notes right in front of me right now, but said that the the mark of a first rate intellect is to be able to hold two competing ideas in your mind at the same time. M so I think one of the one of the things is learning how to embrace the challenge of wrestling with stuff you don't naturally agree with and holding it in your mind the whole time.

19:34 I think what people tend to do is they hear stuff they don't like. They hear stuff they disagree with. They hear stuff that makes them uncomfortable, whatever, and they just outright reject it and they refuse. So if I'm if I'm looking at So let me let me just kind of draw this line better. If I understand the reality that truth is objective, but it's always subjectively applied, then what I can always know about myself is I'm not always that objective. Right? So, if I know that I'm not always that objective, then I'm willing to hear someone else's perspective and go, that might be more objective than my than my Yeah, maybe they're right perspective. I should listen. They they might be they might not be right, but they might be more right than me. And I'm willing to hear that and wrestle with it and question it. Yeah. Not not reject it. Like what a lot of people do is they know the truth for I think for all of us is we're not quite sure about why we believe certain things that we believe.

20:34 Correct. Yeah. Truth always so truth always stands up to questions. Subjective beliefs don't. So to go back to Socrates and the sophist, he would frustrate them so much because he would ask them questions and he would ask them questions. Uh there's a he he called himself the gadfly of Athens and a gadfly was a is just a stinging fly that would sting horses, right? So um he would bother people with how many questions he would ask to where he would make them feel confused about their own beliefs. And there's debate over whether or not Socrates did this on purpose. But beliefs don't always stand up to questions, but truth does. So, so the challenge I think that a lot of people have is they don't really know why they, like you're saying with awareness, they don't really know why they believe what they believe, and then their beliefs get questioned. Yeah. and then they go on the defensive to do everything that they can to validate the belief when really once our beliefs are you know Socrates talked about this he said once once my beliefs are revealed as being false then I'm the one that's served by that because I can go choose a more true belief right if you actually want to if you believe that there is truth and you want to grow now so what's so what's so interesting is I think you said earlier on this podcast this one that we're recording about how there's people out there who will tell you like, hey, you can live on your own. You don't need to go to church and all that sort of stuff.

21:57 To me, this is like, first of all, that's just not biblical. But to me, from a practical standpoint, this is why you absolutely have to have people around you and be in like the three things I always say for somebody that's following after Jesus. You need to read your Bible, you need to pray, and you need to get into fellowship with other believers. Like those three things to me, Yeah. Why would you say those things are important? They're they're non-negotiable in my because cuz for for the unbeliever thing, here's what I'll say. for the I mean for being with other people and I you know I talk to a lot of people through what I do and and so we get a lot of different questions and I'm always like hey who are you running with because we talked on the last podcast and I I said that I believe that the breakdown of our society and all the problems that we face boils down to the family. How this I believe in God's design should work is that the people who challenge your natural defaults of I want to do everything for me I want to be comfortable. I want to have things my way should be your parents. And they should be the ones that from a young age have a vision for developing you and stewarding you the way that that God to be who God's made you to be and will challenge you and tell you when you're wrong on things. And here's here's why it works. Because you know that they love you and have your best interest in mind. And they're demonstrating that they do difficult things themselves. I'm very much a work in progress with my kids. I've got a 13-year-old, a 10-year-old, and a six-year-old. But I'm seeing this play out with my 13-year-old. I can tell her difficult things. And because she sees dad like do stuff all the time that I don't want to do and I explain to her and I tell her, "Hey, here's why we're doing it." And then when I say things to her, I go, "Hey, this is you. Just so you know, you can always bank on this. I will always have your best interest in mind." And she's watched me walk this out when it's been something that I don't want to do.

23:32 Like I do not want to do this, but based on principle and the fact that you want to do this, we're going to do it because I want to show you like I I want to be a blessing to you. I want to love you. So if you have that like I like to believe I'm giving my kids the greatest start in life that they can and there's going to be a lot that they're that's required of them because they you know to whom much required to whom much is given much is required my kids and I tell them this all the time like this isn't for you like you understand God's going to God's got great plans for you so this is what goes on in my household now I'm not patting my and that's because of what you believe about family right yeah but it's God's design yeah so then the qu Yeah. So then the question is why do you believe that about family? Because I go like this. Look, I Well, the first thing you said is it's God's design . That's exactly what I mean. All through all through scripture. Yeah. So the truth is the truth of the So you have to have So I'll just stop you there because I want to show people this.

24:24 So there's premises that we all have. We've we've said presuppositions before like on the podcast. I like to say presuppositions. It sounds more intelligent. Yes. It's very British. Thank you. Um wait a minute. the there's there's beliefs that we all have and we all make decisions according to those beliefs, right? So, one of your core beliefs is the importance of a family, right? So, then the question is where'd you get that belief from? Right? So, like everyone on this podcast has a belief. You have you have a belief about whatever. Where did you get that from? So, okay. Well, you got that belief in your mind from God's word, which is your standard of truth. That's not everybody's standard of truth, but that's yours and my standard of truth. Yeah. like my anything that I read, write, believe, try to say, I'm going to try my best to align that with what I know to be true. Same.

25:15 And what I know to be true is what's written in God's word. Right? Most people, right, don't have that level of security in a belief system if they're honest with themselves. They just have a certain belief. So they go, so on the opposite end of the spectrum, right, they have a belief, well, you don't need people. Like, I don't need people. Where does that belief come from? For a lot of people, that belief comes from, well, I've been hurt a lot. Yeah. And I've had the wrong people in my life, and all people are, you know, you end up going, well, all people are wrong, right? Or like, I didn't have a good dad growing up. So, you know what? So, this is like, so this is where I think we can develop like grace and mercy towards people who have wrong beliefs. like to go back to, you know, no one does wrong willingly. So, a person who grew up and never had a dad, you'll hear people talk about this. You don't, you know what, fathers aren't that big of a deal.

26:10 You'll hear people say that because that was their experience. Yeah. And so now instead of so for that person instead of seeing the maybe the truth, which is the truth biblically, again, that's what we believe. So seeing the truth of a father is really important and you didn't have one. So that probably caused you some issues. You've now thrown out the whole idea of objective truth of the importance of fatherhood and the importance of a father and you've now tried to construct a society where fathers don't matter which is very much uh many people on the left politically that's their belief system now. Yeah. Is well we don't need dads despite the fact there's so many statistics that contradict. There's overwhelming evidence. Um there is cultural evidence about the importance of fathers and the importance of families throughout history. There's religious evidence not just in the span of Christianity but all throughout uh major world religions of the importance of of fathers on and on I could go. But a person can throw all that out because they have a belief and then they they just find information that aligns with their belief. And that's the dangerous thing. So the dangerous thing for all of us and this has always been true for history to me. You can justify any belief. You can find justification, right? The question is is that justification rooted in truth or is that justification rooted in well this is how I this is something that I want to be true because you're talking about that from the perspective of your family, right? that you play the role you play because of how important you see the the role of a father being and because of that you're producing a certain kind of fruit.

27:57 Yeah. I don't I don't mean to like just totally cut you off. No, I'm glad you did. But I want but I want to draw that distinction. Yeah. Because when you like life is you know Søren Kierkegaard said life isn't a problem to be solved. It's a reality to experience. And what that means to me is this isn't about having right answers all the time. This is about constantly looking at what you believe to be true and going, how well am I aligning my intentions and my actions with what I believe and how good am I how good am I at doing that? And that requires, like you're saying, a lot of awareness. Yeah. It requires a lot of mindfulness. It requires the understanding of, you know, what we can control and what we can't control. Uh it requires, you know, as a Christian, like if you're saying those three things, right? It's like read your Bible, go to church. Yeah. And pray. And pray. Yeah. Um why why would you say those three things are so important to you?

28:50 To me personally. Yeah. Well, are so important to anybody really? I mean I think just from an understanding of scripture like I look at how the temple was set up and like when you so the temple is such an interesting place, right? Because you had the outer court, you had the inner court and then you had the holy of holies, right? And the outer court just to get in there you had to be ceremonially clean which there's there's a whole bunch of stuff. So what happens in the outer courts fellowship, right? It's where you're with other believers. When you read all these things in the New Testament, like they met, that's where they were meeting was at the synagogue, which was like their local expression of this. Or if they went to the temple, like you had to be ceremonial clean, which to me is like in modern times that would be saying like, "Hey, I am going to go ahead and subscribe to the same values just to kind of get into this place." It's not the same thing because there was a lot more to it, but I'm not we're not here to break that down. Then when you get into like the the inner the the inner court, right? This is where the the priest would go and this is where sacrifice happened. And like you got three things. You've got the bread of the presence, you've got the incense, and you've got the flame, right? You've got the the the candle. To me, those things all represent different things.

29:55 Like the bread of the presence to me is like Jesus. He's the bread of life. So, you need Jesus just to get in there. The the incense is prayer because it's constantly going up. So, like they would keep the incense burning. And then the flame to me is is it's the Holy Spirit. It's the light of like of like being able to see. And so like I go, how are you going to see and know God without the word? How are you going to have the presence aka like the the actual incense if you're not praying? And and you know, if you're not getting a time to worship Jesus and to truly like fellowship with him to me, you're just kind of hanging out in the outer courts. Yeah. Because you and all of this stems from your a lot of your life experience. Yeah. Well, that and that's it backs it up because it's developed Yeah. And it's developed core convictions. It really has. Right. And um so so for all of us there's all this stuff you know that we're always hearing like I saw a thing recently I think I sent it to you Garrett I can't remember but I saw a thing recently sent each other a lot of stuff.

30:52 Yeah I know but where this guy was talking his name's Frank Turk he's a very smart he's he knows a lot more than me about the Bible and one of the things he said was that the church is not for new people. So the church is not for new people. The church is for Christians that are being developed. And is that a right or wrong thing? I think I think maybe that's just a perspective. So the thing we always have to admit to me is, you know, I have a perspective. I have a belief. I have convictions and those have been developed from somewhere. But you guys can hear Nick talk and know how important that stuff is to him because of the level of depth he's gone to, you've gone to to cultivate that stuff. Most people don't have that conviction about anything in their life until they feel like that way of life is threatened. Right. Right. This is when people start getting, you know, last episode we talked about the people talking about the sanctity of marriage and all that. People don't feel convicted about the sanctity of marriage until they feel like it's threatened, right? And then they go, "Oh, well, now we should talk about like people aren't concerned about um you know, you think about Charlie Kirk. It's like and and his and his death." Like so many people came to our church, come to Mighty Men, have came be a part of have gone to church now because oh, Charlie Kirk, like the whole Charlie Kirk thing awakened me.

32:13 Yeah. Right. So, where were you before on all this stuff? Where were you before on all these different beliefs and approaches to life? And where were you before about the makeup of society and all? Well, I didn't think it was under threat. Well, and what you're uncovering here, and this is where this this is so like I I hate this, but it is one it is 100% true. The vast majority of people are are only motivated by pain. Yeah. So, like if you could put them into uh like and there's it's interesting. I think we talked about the shows like The Good Place and these other I think you talked about another show movie or show I can't remember what it was where they remove all the difficulty and it just becomes easy. And then what happens is people lose purpose and so then they still end up in a really miserable place. But what what motivates people the vast majority of people are motivated by pain. If it doesn't hurt, you just don't pay attention to it. Well, and that's that's where even talking about awareness when when I learn that about myself. I don't have to be motivated by that, right?

33:08 I don't have I don't have that doesn't have to become my motivation. But for most like the way my dad's always said it is most people don't change until they hurt enough they have to learn enough they want to receive enough they're able to. Yeah. So such a good quote. So people go through life and they won't usually change. The majority of people won't change unless it's painful enough. Yeah. Um by then you're experiencing significant you know I always I always go to thinking about health and things like that. Like if a person eats so poorly their whole life, you know, I'm 38 and if I maybe maybe if I would have eaten really horrible my whole life, I'd be having a heart attack now. But I still think the the the effects of me that that'll be seen in my 60s, right? How my diet's been my whole life, right? That'll really that's a this compound effect. So this is this is the reality for most of us is we don't change until we hurt enough we have to.

34:06 But the problem is by the time we're hurting enough we have to change. There's been so many bad consequences and we've experienced so much pain that you can't go back and fix it, right? You just have to try to manage the pain basically and live through that. Well then learn enough they they want to change, right? So I can go learn. I can get coaching. I can get developed. I can and this is the problem to me like in the modern church. The problem to me in the modern church is not that the church is or isn't for new people. It's that Christians do not read the Bible. That's that's the number one problem that is facing Christianity today is we we are biblically illiterate, right? And we don't value it. We just, you know, church has become I was talking to a friend of ours recently. Um we were talking to them about I was talking to them about their small group. They have a small group that's got like a hundred people in it and people are coming to hear them speak. And I just said, you know, the problem with that is that you have to get people maturing and people hearing you speak doesn't mature them.

35:07 So, so we live in this culture, and I'm just talking like for a second about Christian culture and church culture where most people are just fans of stuff. They they like the preaching. They like the worship. That's why they come. That's why they're a part of it. But that really is the sum total of their spiritual development is just what they hear from a platform. And then the third thing is receive enough they're able to. So to me that's the Holy Spirit. That's being able to be convicted which comes back to what I'm learning. So if I if if I am not and this is me describing my own personal sense of convictions. If I'm not taking the word of God and I'm and reading it and applying it to my life, I'm not going to live a good life. I shouldn't expect that. Right? I shouldn't expect just to believe in God, to call myself a Christian, to have some kind of like God awareness and think of myself as a good person and think that that's going to lead to like a good long-term result. But the challenge of that is, and this is sophism, this is all this different stuff is the number one thing that Jesus told us we should look at is fruit. And the number one thing we should try to produce in our own life is fruit. Which means I have to in my own if I look at my personal like my way of living, I have to the things that I do and the ways that I live, I should be deeply convicted about those things. Like I should be so intentional about how I am with my kids.

36:38 I should be so intentional about how I am with my wife. I should be so intentional about my approach to community or prayer or the Bible or whatever because I'm doing everything I can to align my actions in accordance with what I with what I believe to be true. Yeah. And most people the discipline of that and the consistency of that when you live in a culture that says, "Hey, that's you know that's you're actually it's actually not as hard as you think it is." It's way harder. Like people go, "It's not as hard as you think it is. It's it can actually be way easier." It's actually way harder than you think it should be. Yeah. You You have to because you know what it requires, man? It requires time and intentionality. You have to take time. Like I had this thing that's happened since we've started this podcast and I think it's just the culmination of a lot of things where I've wanted to like really deeply consider what I believe because I want to have more conviction. And the only way you have conviction and like this is from our friend Garrett. Like there's some things Garrett is so convicted about because like you know there'll be things like about violence or weapons or whatever like things that other people are like oh yeah but because he's like he's a former Navy Seal and he's literally had to like his life has depended on what he believes about violence, weapons, whatever it may be.

37:50 That's a way different level of conviction that he has. Why? Because he's tested it. And so like to me I I have wanted to develop these things. So I'm asking a lot of questions about like you know things. What should a man be? What do I believe about friendship? Like what is the actual role of family? What's the actual role of a man and woman in a marriage? Like and to take the second question and the second question is does does do these beliefs align with truth? Right? These beliefs align with things that are true, right? You know, and most people don't ever ask the first question, right? Like they don't ever really want to sit and examine their beliefs. So they definitely don't ask the second question, which is is this actually true? Yeah. Well, and I've already identified the Bible as truth. So, when I'm doing these things, I'm not because I don't think there's like what you believe and what you do, like anybody that goes like, well, the, you know, I think you do what you believe. It doesn't matter. You can say a bunch of stuff, but like your actions, what you do is actually what you believe. I don't put I don't go like, okay, and now we need to really act on it. If you actually believe it, you're going to act on it. I I think it's just inherent. I think what's hard for people is to is to admit to ourselves that we don't actually believe the stuff that we think that we say we do. And that that's a real sobering, very humbling thought process because you know what? One of the greatest fears in all of humanity that everybody has is inadequacy. And so to have to look yourself in the mirror and be like, "Hey, guess what? You're not who you say you are. You're not actually the person that uh believes all this stuff the way you say you do."

39:13 That's a real like foundational shattering conversation to have with yourself. And I truly I just don't know that people can, you know, we have such an avoidance of pain. But but going back to the whole thing, you have to be willing to sit with these things and wrestle with them. Well, how long is that going to take? I don't know. Like there's some things that I've wrestled with my life in my life for months and even years. And I'm not saying that to pat myself on the back. It's just like I couldn't let go of these things. And I don't know what to put that down to, man. Like I would I wish I could give people some insight. I don't want to say like it's special to me cuz it's not. No. I think I love I love what uh I always quote Mark Twain. It ain't what you know for sure that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so. Yeah. I am going to in my life I'm going to make the best decision I can in the moment based on the information that I have and I'm not ever going to have full and complete and perfect information but I do need to make sure that I have as much information as possible to make the decision including the information I disagree with.

40:09 Yeah. And so it's great go hear a bunch of stuff. We should go live hear and listen to a bunch of stuff we agree with. we should also maybe spend the same amount of time listening to a bunch of stuff we don't we don't agree with because the truth is probably somewhere in the middle, you know, and and understanding your convictions. Uh I think I think understanding the convictions that we have comes down to a lot of times our life experiences and what we've seen and what we've and what we've what's affected us negatively and what's affected us positively. Uh but at the same time being willing to always check those things, being willing to always look at those things and go okay does this align and the biggest question I think is does this align with truth? Yeah. And if you're going to ask that question okay so sophists don't ask that question.

41:00 Right. Yeah. A person on on TikTok or on Instagram or whatever who's just throws out an opinion says, "Hey, here's how this works. Here's how life works. Here's how." They're not they're not really checking that. They're just they're just giving that out there. Whenever you or maybe they have checked it, maybe they do know, but you should have you and I should have a standard for truth. So doesn't have to be the Bible. Could be anything. Like for a lot of people, they use their experiences as standard for truth. And the only the only problem with that is life is like reality. The only thing that's bigger than reality is perception. And so your your your perception on your memor is not as good as you think it is. perception is not really always fully accurate. So there has to be some kind of objective standard that that we measure things according to things that are always true, always right and always good and how well do our beliefs and therefore our actions align with that stuff. So question for everybody, what's your standard for truth?

42:00 Yeah. And if you have an answer, how then the second question is how well do you know that standard? Right? So Christians will say, well, I use the Bible as my standard for truth. Right? I've quoted this before. You quote on every podcast. Yeah. Say it, you know, because it's worth repeating. 96% of Christians don't have a biblical worldview. So 96% of Christians would say 100% of Christians would say, "Well, I use the Bible as my standard for truth." 96% of them don't even know what it says, right? So you can't say that I have this criteria for truth while also being ignorant of what the criteria actually says. Mhm. So, it's like, well, you know, it's it's like me saying, I you know, I I think the Declaration of Independence is the best founding document that's ever been written in the history of the world. I don't know anything about it. I've never seen it. I've never read it, but I think it's really great. I've heard I've heard great things about it. This is the same kind of approach that people have.

42:56 Yeah, I've heard this. I've heard this I've heard this to be true. I heard this preacher say this one time. I heard this person say this one time. I heard this person say this on and I just decided to buy into it. I just decided to believe in it. You know, the thing that I always challenge people to do is in the Bible there's in the book of Acts there these people called the Bereans. They questioned everything that Paul said and they they said, "Look, show us where that is in the scriptures." They searched the scriptures and they said, "Show us where that is in the scriptures because it's my responsibility to make sure that whatever I choose to believe and therefore act on because like you're saying, every action that we take is based on something that we believe. It's my job to make sure that my beliefs are rooted in some kind of conviction. It's based in truth or something. But for most people, they never get to that point. I don't even know if it's as much about the avoidance of pain as it is not I think there's probably a better way to say this, but it's really like a desire for a lack of maturity.

43:56 Yeah. So, you know, it's it's well, a desire for lack of maturity. It's a person not wanting to be mature. Yeah. I I want to go back. I mean, I hear what you're saying. I I think that one of the things that I am constantly reminding myself of is that God's far more gracious and merciful than I even think he is. Yeah. And so what that means practically is that God works in imperfection. And you talked about like how people want to follow somebody. And I think like, you know, Paul writing to the Corinthians, I follow Paul. I follow Apollos. I follow, you know, so it's a very natural thing. But if you look at what did Paul say? Follow me as I follow Christ. And so like I think that there there's something in us. You know, people followed Moses. People people were attracted to Jesus not because of any spiritual anything spiritual because you know he called him out on it. He said, "You guys are here because I fed you." Right? But they were still attracted to him. Do we know that all those people went away and lived the life of sin and never came to know never came to repentance? We don't. And so I always go like, "Okay, it's definitely imperfect, but if you're a leader, which you are, I you confessed it recently on one of our episodes that you're a church leader, which I'm glad we have on we have on on tape to use an old school term." And like if you're a leader aka you have influence, you need to understand like I I hope that you take that seriously because from a very imperfect place there are some people just like man I love when Josh preaches now and and your responsibility then is to direct them towards Christ understanding full well that the Holy Spirit is the one that brings people to conviction that causes things to grow. And so like I think it places a greater responsibility on leaders to understand that they bear the weight of other people's souls and and not to begrudge the people for that but to go like okay like this is part of my responsibility. I'm like yeah I don't want them to be drawn to me. I don't think it's right but it is well and that's a huge challenge. I mean I think that's the challenge of uh of life. I mean, that's the, you know, we we talked last episode about divorce and, you know, a lot of a lot of the bad decisions that we make are rooted in the belief that our decisions only affect us, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah.

45:52 Right. So, you know, I mean, truthfully, whatever the bad decision would be, it's me thinking that I'm only going to affect me and that my bad decisions don't affect other people. And so people go they have a they have a it's just I I don't know how to really say it at this point. I'm gonna figure out a way to say it in my life. But there is a challenge that comes with maturity. And that's conviction and learning. And it's not about becoming an intellectual, but a person has to have clarity. Yeah. On why they believe what they believe and how well that aligns with truth. If you're going to be a good husband, a good uh wife, a a good father, a good mother, if you're going to be a good manager at your job, you have to understand. So, like you you quoted that a second ago. Hebrews 13:17 says, "Obey your leaders and and submit to them for they keep watch over your souls."

46:49 Right? So, a lot of people like to quote that and say, "Well, you know, you sub submit to authority, submit to your leader." But the weight is really on the leader because if you are in a leadership position, which you're a leader of yourself, but also everything you do affects other people. So pretty much everybody's a leader in some regard. If you have children, you're a leader. If you're a spouse, you're a leader. If you're a friend, you're a leader. I mean, if you exist, Yeah. you have influence. Leadership is just influence. Yeah. And that's what John Maxwell says. But if you are if you exist on this planet, you as a human being, you have influence with somebody. And um if you take that seriously, you'll consider how your actions affect other people. Yeah. And you'll want to decide you'll want to make you'll want to act in accordance with things that are always right, always good, and always true to make sure that you mitigate the negative aspects of your personality or who you are or what you don't know. The problem is like you're saying a lot of people they don't see themselves in they don't see themselves playing that role. They think their decisions just affect them.

47:53 They make whatever decisions they want. They live life however they want and they don't realize the catastrophic effects downline of that thought process that's not aligned with truth. And the reason why it's not aligned with truth most the time for me in in my perspective is because people just don't go verify it. Yeah. So, so sophist will just say whatever. And these people that were sophists, they're they're, you know, they're not they don't have malicious intent. These people that are on Instagram saying things that are wrong or not true or whatever, they're not like maliciously out here trying to take advantage of people. I mean, I'm sure there is. There's probably some, but I yeah, by and large, I don't think that they're going like, "Hey, let's let's twist these people." Ignorance just perpetuates ignorance. So, like a person's ignorant, they teach someone their ignorant beliefs, and then we just continue to teach those down the line. So when what I should do is if I want to be if I want to the responsibility that I have is to care for people's souls and we'll probably talk about that on the next episode. But if I want to do that well, what I should do is make sure that everything that I believe is is in alignment with as as much truth as possible.

49:05 Because like we've been talking about on this episode, every action is based in a belief. Yeah. So if you believe if you have a false belief, you're going to you're going to make a decision or you're going to do an action that's not going to bear good fruit over the long period of time. The only problem is you're not going to see that until way later. And so the only the only way to to make sure that you're making a good decision is not based on how you feel. It's looking at your beliefs and going how well aligned are these with truth. And the the closer they are to objective truth, the better the outcome of the decision is probably going to be in the long term. Thank you for listening to The Dialog. Make sure to like, share, and subscribe. And also, if you think someone else would enjoy this, please send it to them. If you want to get in touch or learn more about me, what I think, speak, and write, you can go to joshuacraft.com.

49:59 Or you can also follow Nick and I on Instagram. Our handles are in the show notes. We'll see you next time.