Reformed Brotherhood | Reformed Theology and Brotherly Love

Епизоде

• The Ten Virgins Parable: Preparedness Is Not Perfection 01.06.2026 1ч 1мин

  In this profound exploration of Matthew 25:1-13, Tony Arsenal and Jesse Schwamb unpack the parable of the ten virgins, revealing it as far more than a simple warning about preparedness. Moving beyond dispensational "rapture ready" interpretations, they demonstrate how this parable addresses the spiritual condition required for entrance into God's consummated kingdom. The discussion centers on the critical distinction between outward religious profession and genuine possession of the Holy Spirit's grace. With pastoral sensitivity and theological depth, the hosts examine the meaning of the oil, the significance of the midnight cry, and the urgency of both evangelism and personal examination. This episode challenges listeners to consider whether they possess not just the lamp of profession, but the oil of saving grace that alone sustains faith through the waiting period before Christ's return. Key Takeaways The oil represents saving grace, not perfect obedience - The critical distinction in the parable is not between those who stayed awake versus those who slept (all ten virgins fell asleep), but between those who possessed oil and those who didn't. The oil symbolizes the indwelling, regenerating, sanctifying presence of the Holy Spirit—the grace that comes through effectual calling and genuine conversion. This parable warns against mere outward profession - All ten virgins carried lamps and waited for the bridegroom, representing outward religious activity and profession. The difference lay in the interior spiritual reality—whether that profession was accompanied by the transforming grace of the Holy Spirit or remained empty formalism. The "midnight cry" represents both personal death and Christ's return - Historically, Reformed expositors understood the midnight cry as either the actual cry of Christ's angels at His return or the voice of God in individual death. Each person's death functions as their personal midnight that irrevocably fixes their eternal state. Readiness is not about sinless perfection but possession of grace - The parable is not teaching a fearful "rapture ready" theology where Christians must be perfectly sinless when Christ returns. Rather, it teaches that readiness consists in possessing saving grace through faith in Christ, which sustains believers even when they "sleep" (fall into sin or spiritual drowsiness). There is urgency in the gospel call - The parable emphasizes that the opportunity for salvation has a deadline—"you know neither the day nor the hour." This creates urgency both for unbelievers to trust Christ and for believers to share the gospel, since no one knows when their personal "midnight" will arrive. Calvin's insight: you "buy" oil by receiving it freely through faith - Though the parable speaks of "buying" oil, Calvin notes this doesn't imply paying a price. Just as Isaiah invites people to buy wine and milk without money, we obtain the oil of grace not through merit or payment, but by receiving through faith what Christ freely offers. Key Concepts The Oil as Symbol of the Holy Spirit's Grace The oil in this parable has been consistently interpreted throughout church history as representing the grace of the Holy Spirit—specifically the indwelling, regenerating, and sanctifying presence that comes through genuine conversion. This interpretation aligns with Old Testament symbolism where anointing oil signified the Spirit's presence (as in "not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit"). The crucial distinction Jesus makes is not about external religious activity (both groups had lamps and waited), but about internal spiritual reality. Just as a lamp cannot burn without oil, religious profession without the Spirit's grace has no sustaining power. This oil cannot be shared or borrowed; it must be personally possessed. The parable thus exposes the deadly danger of assuming that outward Christian activities—church attendance, biblical knowledge, moral behavior—constitute genuine Christianity when the transforming work of the Spirit is absent. All the Virgins Slept: Grace Overcomes Human Weakness One of the most important details often overlooked is that both the wise and foolish virgins fell asleep while waiting for the bridegroom. This demolishes any interpretation suggesting the parable is about maintaining perfect spiritual vigilance or sinless living. The wise virgins' readiness was not based on their superior wakefulness or moral stamina—they fell asleep just like the foolish ones. Their preparedness came from having secured the oil beforehand. This has profound theological implications: our salvation and readiness for Christ's return does not depend on our ability to maintain perfect spiritual alertness or sinless perfection. Even when believers "sleep"—when they fall into sin, experience spiritual dullness, or fail in vigilance—they remain prepared because they possess the oil of the Spirit's grace. The parable thus provides comfort alongside its warning: those who have truly received Christ need not live in constant fear that a moment of weakness will disqualify them when He returns. The Midnight Cry and Personal Eschatology The midnight cry in verse 6 functions on multiple levels theologically. Universally, it points to Christ's unexpected second coming at the end of history. But Reformed interpreters have also recognized its application to individual eschatology—each person's death serves as their personal "midnight cry" that ends all opportunity for preparation. This dual meaning creates urgency both for evangelism and self-examination. The parable warns that whether Christ returns globally or death comes individually, that moment will arrive unexpectedly ("at midnight," the hour of deepest sleep) and irrevocably fix one's eternal state. Once the door is shut, no amount of pleading ("Lord, Lord, open to us") can change one's condition. This underscores a biblical truth often denied in contemporary theology: there is no post-mortem opportunity for salvation, no remedial path after death. The time for obtaining oil is now, in this life, before the cry sounds. Memorable Quotes Every man's death to him is the coming of Christ. That's when our state is irrevocably fixed. And so there's an urgency here—an urgency of evangelism and self-examination because the midnight cry may come at any moment. The difference between the wise and the foolish virgins is not that one of them stays awake and one of them falls asleep. The difference between the wise and the foolish is that the ones that are wise are prepared for when the bridegroom comes, even though they fell asleep. The only way to be prepared for the end is to turn to Jesus. It's not about whether or not you've turned to Jesus and have become perfectly sinless. None of us are like that. It's about trusting Jesus. Full Episode Transcript Welcome to episode 494 of The Reformed Brotherhood. I'm Jesse.  [00:01:10] Tony Arsenal: And I'm Tony. And this is the podcast with ears to hear. Hey brother.  [00:01:15] Jesse Schwamb: Hey brother. Looks like you and I need to get a midnight oil check. That's if you know, you know, that's what's coming up on this episode, and we're headed to Matthew 25 to do that oil check. We're still firmly in all of these beautiful parables that Jesus tells us, and this one goes by various names. You might know it as the parable of the 10 virgins, or if you're Petra. That classic Christian rock group who produced a song called Midnight Oil, which is absolutely a banger that that should be like the the theme song of this episode. If you haven't heard that song, go check out Midnight Oil by Petra and then come back and listen to us. Like, I wish we had the rights to that. We could just drop it in right here. But we're not that cool and we're not gonna edit that. So I'm gonna leave it up to you to craft your own version of this podcast with that great backing track. Have you heard that song?  [00:02:09] Tony Arsenal: I actually haven't. I, I came, uh, came into Christianity sort of at the tail end of Petra's Big Influence. So I know, I knew who Petra is. I've listened to a few of their songs, but they weren't mainstream by any sort, sort of, uh, stretch of the imagination when I was listening to Christian music. So  [00:02:28] Jesse Schwamb: this one's so good. It's so good. And it's right on point for our conversation today. So we're gonna get into all that stuff. The oil check, the midnight nature of it, the 10 virgins. What does it all mean? Of course, Tony and me, we have for you what I believe to be the definitive exegetical and hermeneutical reflection on the parable. So that's what you've come to expect from us and we're happy to deliver, but before we deliver on that, we got all the things we have to deliver to you, and that is affirming with or denying against something that's that point of course in the podcast or our conversation where we choose something they firm with that we think is. Undervalued, something we might recommend or conversely to deny against something that maybe is a little bit too overvalued or just not that great. So Tony, as is our customer, I say to you, sir, what are you doing? Are you affirming with something or are you denying against something?  [00:03:16] Denial Memory Blank [00:03:16] Tony Arsenal: I'm denying something. This is like denial. Ception is what's going on here. So, uh, first of all, thank you, Jesse for, uh, pitch hitting a solo episode at like, literally the last minute, last week. Um, I think we normally record at seven 30 on the Lord's Day, and I think I texted Jesse like 6 45 and was like, I just don't have it in the tank today. Can you do something? And he just hopped behind the mic. So that's a bonus affirmation there. But, uh, Jesse and I were, we're having a little bit of a pregame, uh, today, very much, you know, like five minutes of how you doing and are you ready to go? And, uh, I realized I, I had a really great affirmation last week, all ready to rock. I remember being super excited about it. I remember, uh, when I decided, or when we decided you were gonna do a solo episode thinking, I gotta make sure I remember this for next week. Right? And it has totally left my brain. It's gone. And, uh, it's, it's the worst feeling in the world when that happens. And I remember reading at some point, like, there's a biochemical reason why this happens and why it feels so weird. Like, it, it feels like you should be able to just dive into your mind and like search around enough and find it. And that's just not actually how your, how like your memory works. It's not, um. I think we think of memory as though it's like a big filing cabinet and you can just, like, you can just flip through the CAD catalog like long enough and find it. That's not how it works. Um, it's kind of like more organic network kind of stuff. But yeah, the, the, it's gone. It's just gone and I hate that feeling and it's gone. And that's what I'm denying is that feeling and losing your mind and feeling like you don't remember anything.  [00:04:56] Jesse Schwamb: I'm totally with you because incidentally, as we talked, we discovered we both had that experience because I had something too. And it's not just that, well, you know, we try to set aside or do a little prep on the affirmations and denials because you know, we come across something great in life, or again, the opposite. And you think, I gotta remember this because I wanna talk about this with Tony. And the worst part of that is like twofold. One, it never is great to forget something that you had or you knew you knew at one time, but it's all the less satisfying when it was something that you're super excited about and you're like, this is gonna be great. And it's that thing that you've completely forgotten that's like double the worst. So I'm, I'm totally with you in this denial. [00:05:35] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, it's, it's a really frustrating, terrible feeling. And there's not much you can do about it. And the, the secondary denial to that is it always comes back to you in the worst possible part of whatever conversation you're having. It's like you hem and hover it and you think about it and you, and I'm doing it right now. You, you sit here and you, you continue to try to talk thingy. It's gonna come, it's gonna come. Yes. It's gonna get here.  [00:05:59] Jesse Schwamb: Yep.  [00:06:00] Tony Arsenal: And then just when you finally have resigned yourself and, and the conversation moves on, that's when it comes back around. So I don't know if that's gonna happen or not, Jesse. If it does, I will try my best to ignore it, but I probably won't be able to. So No, I think you probably should get moving. So whatever it was the amazing affirmation, I don't remember. It can come back to us.  [00:06:16] Jesse Schwamb: It can come back. Yeah. I'm hoping that it does. And when it does, you guys just tell us you got, just let it, let it rip. Like even if we're like right in the middle of some deep, heavy, robust, thick theology, I just wanna be like. I, I can't even imagine what your affirmation was. It must have been like something pretty, pretty good.  [00:06:33] Tony Arsenal: I don't know. I don't know. I, I'm sure it was something interesting. I don't even, I'm  [00:06:37] Jesse Schwamb: trying to draw it out of you now.  [00:06:38] Tony Arsenal: Course. I can't even like, think of the ballpark of what part of like, what, what the category even was. It's just totally, it's totally gone. Like it never happened. Yep. It's, it's totally, totally gone. So I keep on saying, and you would think with all of my talk of like note taking apps and how important it's to keep a journal and all the stuff we've talked about that I would finally get around to like just jotting down in Apple Notes what my affirmations are and I just never do it. So. Yeah,  [00:07:05] Jesse Schwamb: I have every intention, but then I think, well, this is the record of them and I'll have it available to me when it comes time. The talk that's, and sometimes it just goes away. Has it happened yet? I'm still trying to draw it out of you by talking.  [00:07:15] Tony Arsenal: No, I'm just gonna give up. It's just gone. It's gone. That's just gone.  [00:07:19] Jesse Schwamb: That's, that's fair enough. Maybe. What do you  [00:07:21] Tony Arsenal: got for us, Jesse?  [00:07:22] Prayer and Anointing [00:07:22] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, I was gonna say, maybe I can just help push it along, as it were by my own. So I'm also affirming with something, lemme just read a couple verses from James chapter five. Is anyone Among You Sick? Then he must call for the elders of the church and there to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will save the one who's sick and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, they'll be forgiven him. I had really just the profound opportunity and privilege today to participate in this because. My wife at the end of this week, uh, which will be a week past when this is, this airs, is about to go undergo that serious surgery, which she spoke about in an episode, I don't know, maybe several weeks ago. And, uh, my pastor asked if it would, if he'd like us and the elders, um, to come and to pray over my wife. And they did so after our service today. And it was just a really incredible thing. Even I'm still processing it. I don't really know. Like the words to say with what I can bring forward is just like words of gratitude and gratefulness for this kind of living out of the scriptures. What I can say is that the way in which he brought this forward and the elders prayed was just so incredibly loving and genteel and spirit-filled. And I think which is a manifestation of, of God's love for us in this moment as we prepare for this great thing to give us peace, peace, and to increase our faith and to do so by just following what the scriptures say here. So my affirmation is maybe twofold. One, it's for this particular experience, it's certainly for pastors, for elders who make it their objective to care for their flock and to do so under the rubric and the instruction of the scriptures. So I'm grateful, and if you have those kind of pastors and elders in your life, I hope that you'll be grateful to them for them as well, and that you might express that gratefulness. So this was a really incredible and, and lovely thing, and, uh, fills us with a kind of hope and encouragement. And if anything else was a reminder of the feel, there's something different going to experience like this armed fully with the promises of God and asking that he would be glorified, that our testimonies would be strong, and that of course, that he would bring healing through it. So I'm ever so grateful and affirming what this passage and this passage put into practice.  [00:09:51] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And if you are listening to this, when, uh, when it comes out or shortly after, probably not even shortly after, probably for a couple weeks after or months after, um, uh, Jesse's wife Jen did talk about the surgery and the condition she's been suffering under. So, uh, she's part of the Reformed Brotherhood family. She is, uh, just as important to the show, uh, as Jesse and I are in terms of the support that our wives give us and, and the space that we need to do this. So please do pray for Jen. Um, she'll be recovering when you hear this, if it's anywhere near the time that this comes out. Uh, it's a fairly large surgery with a, a, a moderately long recovery time. So please, uh, please do pray for her, uh, and, and make sure that you're lifting her up. Um, we are trusting the Lord for good things, uh, for her. Yes. And uh, we're confident that he, his will will be done 'cause it always is. But yeah, definitely pray for her. [00:10:42] Jesse Schwamb: Yes. Thank you for saying that, Tony. I appreciate that as her husband and. We are encouraged that we've said this before, but this is where our theology matters, isn't it? It's in the times where we come before the Lord in faith and in full trust, because one, there's nowhere else to go. He has the words of life for us. He is our life, but also because. In his son, this beautiful gift of salvation whereby his son is the suffering servant. So he's well acquainted with all of this kind of thing. And so stands with us in every conceivable way to be both so incredibly transcendent and above the nonsense and the noise of our world with full power and sovereignty over all things. And at the same time, to be fully eminent. To be literally with us in all the ways. In all the things. And again, well acquainted with our condition, including the grief and the suffering, the anxiety, the all of this, which we experience as part and parcel of what it means to be human, who is like our God in this way. And so we do sense his great and uncommon care for us, and it would be dishonest of me even in the midst of these difficult and challenging things to say that he doesn't care for us. He has good and he loves us, and he's making a way, even though that way be hired. So we're sensing even from, I think, following that time of prayer, that whether we receive the bread of affliction. Uh, or the, the water of of agony that we hear God's voice behind us saying, this is the way, walk in it, and he's with us. So I hope that's encouragement maybe to others who are also going through their own things and who isn't going through something, right?  [00:12:18] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:12:18] Jesse Schwamb: So we all have this great promise in the gospel that God is for us, and I love that James here gives us some practical instruction to that end. [00:12:29] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, for sure.  [00:12:31] Support the Show [00:12:31] Tony Arsenal: Well, before we move into our topic for the evening, uh, the internet tells me that I'm supposed to do this at this point in the show rather than at the very end like we usually do. Well, let's do it. Um, we are a listener supported episode, not like PBS, uh, not like other things. Uh, maybe kind of a little bit like PBS Yeah, a little bit. Anyway, uh, we have a, a pretty dedicated group of Patreon supporters who, uh, donate a little bit and sometimes some people, a lot, a bit of their discretionary income, uh, to help make the show go. And we've said before, like, we are not interested in providing special content or special gear or swag every once in a while. I think we did it once and we've, we've got plans to do it again sometime in the future. We'll send out a thank you gift to those who are subscribing through Patreon. Um, but we are committed to producing the show and making everything that we put online and everything that we make available, available to everybody. And really the only reason that we can do that, especially in today's economy, is uh, because there are people who support the show. And so we always want to make sure that we're saying we're thank you to those people. Yes. Um, they are a part of this show. I don't know if we are not gonna do like executive producer credits, but they're as close to that as you can get. Since we don't do that, um, we really wouldn't be able to do the show, at least not the way that it is without that supporting group of people. So if that's something that you hear and you no, I kind of think that maybe I wanna be a part of that. We would love for you to go to patreon.com/reform tears. There's no special swag, there's no early releases or anything like that. Um, but we would love if you would partner with us. Um, this is a lowercase m ministry, and if you've listened to the show for a long time, you know what I mean by that. Uh, we, we do consider this to be a calling, something that God has given us and we, we understand there's a responsibility with it, but we also know that we can't do it alone. So if you're interested after you've fulfilled all your personal finance obligations, your obligation to your local church and your immediate area, if there's a little bit left over that you're looking to spend somewhere on something that is valuable, uh, please do consider going to patreon.com/form Brotherhood. [00:14:39] Jesse Schwamb: And if you've been listening for a while and you've thought, you know what, I wonder who else is out there that's like me, that's listening to these guys on the internet. Guess what? You can actually meet some of those people. They have a little spot where they hang out. It's called Telegram. It's just a chat app, and we have our own little section of that app. If you just go to your favorite browser, whatever it is, you can choose and go to wherever you like, just go to t me slash Reform Brotherhood. And that link will take you into kind of a preview land where you can see the space where everybody's talking, and you can peruse some of the different channels, everything from uh, channels just for prayer, for a crusting, prayer to general conversation, talk about the episodes, talk about baptism, all kinds of things. It is, as we always say, one of the kindest, most charitable, most loving corners of the internet. Guaranteed. You can test us on that. So in fact, you should by going to t.me back slash reform Brotherhood, Tony, back to you. [00:15:36] Eschatology Shift [00:15:36] Tony Arsenal: Well, let's just slam it right into gear. We, we, we haven't figured out how to do transitions into or out of, uh, Patreon announcements, uh, or telegram announcements,  [00:15:46] Jesse Schwamb: right?  [00:15:46] Tony Arsenal: So this, I, maybe this is the awkward charm of the show, or maybe it's just the awkwardness of the show. It's just charm, Jesse,  [00:15:53] Jesse Schwamb: all charm. [00:15:53] Tony Arsenal: We need to talk about some things tonight. We need to talk about some oil. Yes. We need to talk about some lamps. Yes. We need talk about some bridegrooms.  [00:16:00] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.  [00:16:00] Tony Arsenal: It's the parable of the 10 virgins or the 10 lamps, or the parable of the oil flasks. Yes. There's lots of different things that it's called. Uh, it's what it isn't, it's not the parable of, uh, the 24 hour Jiffy Lube, which is what it made, what you made it sound like when you talked about the midnight oil check. Um,  [00:16:18] Jesse Schwamb: I  [00:16:18] Tony Arsenal: didn't even think about that. But yeah. This is, this is a good one. And I think we've, we've sort of. I've sort of observed that the parables do tend to clump around systematic theology themes, and they clump within the narrative of the gospel within Matthew itself around themes. So the last three parables that we talked about were all sort of like parables of judgment against the Pharisees and a, a lot of things like unconditional election and reparation were all baked into that pie. You know, we talked about with the parable of the lost sheep and the lost coins and the lost, um, the lost, uh, brother. We talked about how that has a lot to do with like election. It has to do with salvation and what the gospel looks like in terms of justification in the father's initiative. And we're moving into a section of Matthew, um, where Jesus is starting to teach on the last days. And so the parables in this section start to move toward ha to have more of an eschatological bent. Yes. We talked a little bit about some of the eschatology and the parables when we, we went through the, um, through the, the. Um, my brain just left me. It happened again, Jesse. The, the denial thing, uh, when we talked about the parable of the tears and the wind field and the, the, the different kinds of soils back on track, there was an eschatological element to that. But we are in like straight up eschatology Yeah. In these, these sections now. That's right. So we're coming to the end of Matthew, uh, our plan right now and who knows what the Lord has for us. But the plan right now is once we finish Matthew, to go back and visit some of the parables that are present in the other gospels. And there's not too many of 'em, but that are present in the other gospels that aren't necessarily, uh, present in Matthew. So, like you said, there's not a ton of 'em. Uh, we do want to hit all of 'em. And if there's, if there's time, and I say if there's time as though we have some sort of time constraints, um, if there's time we probably will talk a little bit about some of the I am statements and some of the things in John. 'cause John doesn't do parables quite the same way in quite the same fashion, but he does have sort of some of this. Allegorical figurative language baked into some of his, um, some of his writings or some of the accounts of Jesus that he, he, um, captures that are probably worth talking about in the seam light. So right now we're, we're coming up quick on the end of the parables of Matthew. Um, there's not very many left and then we'll, we'll keep moving on. Uh, that said. We are, it's almost unbelievable to say this. We're going to be coming up to the end of the parable series sometime in the next, I dunno, six to 10 months. Uh, if you've got ideas for what you think the next series should be, start thinking about those now. Bring 'em to the telegram chat. Let's start percolating those ideas up, right? And, uh, like a good coffee maker. And we'll, uh, we'll brew some goodness. How many more parables? How many more, uh, metaphors can I throw in there? Puns, can I throw in there? But yeah, Jesse, let's get started. This is a good one.  [00:19:08] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, that was a really, I think, fine introduction. I always enjoyed this parable because it has some really fun, dramatic elements, but I think I, I really haven't really appreciated all the eschatological underpinnings that you were just mentioning. And when you think about it as we're, I think we're gonna soon find here. That this is one of the most searching and solemn parables, actually, that Jesus uttered, and you start to get a sense for that as we've just kind of been hitting them, one after the other. As you said, this one belongs to the great olive discourse. It's delivered by Jesus to his disciples on the Mount of Olives just days before his crucifixion. It's in direct response to their questions about the destruction of Jerusalem and the sign of his condiment coming and the end of the age. So you're right. I think this carries like unmistakable eschatological weight because it's not merely this fable about preparedness in general, which sometimes is where we go. Yeah. But it's really more of like a precise theological warning about the spiritual condition required for entrance into the consummated kingdom of God at the return of the Lord Jesus Christ.  [00:20:11] Tony Arsenal: Yeah,  [00:20:11] Jesse Schwamb: I think that's the full setup.  [00:20:12] Read Matthew 25 [00:20:12] Jesse Schwamb: We, we've gotta go to the scriptures, right?  [00:20:15] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:20:16] Jesse Schwamb: Alright. It's time. You want me to read it? [00:20:17] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, yeah, go ahead.  [00:20:18] Jesse Schwamb: Okay. Here we go. Matthew 25, beginning in verse one, then the kingdom of heaven may be compared to 10 virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bride groom. Now, five of them were foolish and five were prudent for when the foolish took their lamps. They took no oil with them, but the prudent took oil in flasks along with their lamps. Now while the bridegroom was delaying, they all got drowsy and began to sleep. But at midnight there was a shout. Behold the bridegroom come out to meet him. Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the prudent, give us some of your oil for our lamps are going out. But the prudent answered saying, no, there will not be enough for us and for you too. Go instead to the dealers and buy some for yourselves. And while they're going away to make the purchase, that bridegroom came and those who already went in with him to the wedding feast and the door was shut. And later the other versions came also saying, Lord, Lord, open for us. But he answered and said, truly, I say to you, I do not know you. Therefore, stay awake for you do not know the day nor the hour.  [00:21:27] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:21:29] Assurance Not Fear [00:21:29] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, this one's heavy. And I just wanna say, kind of coming into this, right, I think a lot of our audience, and I would, I would include myself in this, um, we, we came to sort of like an awareness of faith. And I, I don't say that in a sort of tongue in cheek fashion. What I mean, um. I'll, I'll just speak from my perspective, but I think it's probably one that resonates. I came to faith when I was a, you know, a relatively young teenager, 15 years old, and, um, when you first become a Christian, you're not aware of all the different theological debates or even all of the major implications of the Christian faith. And I think a lot of us and myself, uh, as, as sort of the example when we be started to become aware of the different conversations happening in different dynamics and some of the more, uh, maybe third or fourth tier doctrines that you learn when you're, um, sort of being catechized as a new Christian, uh, catechized in sort of an informal sense, eschatology is probably one of those ones that comes along fairly, fairly late in the game. And I recall, um, when I first became aware of the left behind books, right? And so I, I came to faith in a large Lutheran megachurch, uh, that wasn't really as Lutheran as you would think, cup being a large Lutheran megachurch. It was very dispensational. And I think there is a sense of dread and fear associated with rapture ready theology. And I don't, I don't think all dispensationalist that, um, believe in a, a literal rapture of the church either prior to or following or in the middle of the tribulation. I don't think all dispensationalist fall into this category. But there are definitely dispensationalist out there that would emphasize being rapture ready. And you know, you think of like the song, I wish We'd All Been Ready, you know, and, and this, this sort of existential fear that the Rapture's gonna come and I'm not gonna be ready and I'm gonna be left behind. Right. There's an, the entire book series is about people who thought that they were Christians who thought that they were justified and saved and then weren't. And, and I don't think the book gives all that much explanation other than sort of like a general sense of like, these are sort of nominal fake Christians that maybe some of them think they're saved and some of them don't. I know there were definitely characters in the book who really thought that they were followers of Jesus and then they didn't realize they weren't until they were not raptured with everyone else. The only reason I sort of launch into that progam is I think that the tendency in most circles because of the pervasive. Sort of all expansive influence of dispensationalism in the United States, and particularly sort of this like rapture ready, left behind theology that is a, a major thread within, um, American dispensationalism. There's a tendency to look at this almost exclusively in light of that sort of rapture ready fear that right the end is gonna come and I'm not gonna be ready and. I don't, I'm not a dispensationalist, I don't hold to a rapture in that sense. I don't think you do either. Jesse and I, I think there's an element of this that has that same flavor that we have to acknowledge, but I don't think we should read this in light of like, you think you're gonna be fine, but actually you're not. So you better get it together. I don't think that that's the point of the parable. Um, and I wanna say that upfront because it is easy to read a parable like this and to, to become extremely fearful to the point that it actually shakes whatever assurance you may have had. And I've said it before and, and I, I will say it again, it is not, I am not in the business of robbing the assurance away from Christians. The assurance of faith and the assurance of salvation is the rightful possession and inheritance of all those who are Christ. And so I have no, no desire to shake or rob you of your assurance. That's just not my jam. Um, so I wanted to get that out there. Like I don't think that this parable is here. To scare the daylights out of us and make us question whether or not we actually belong to the bridegroom. I actually think it's here for a different reason.  [00:25:39] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, I agree.  [00:25:40] Watch and Be Ready [00:25:40] Jesse Schwamb: I, I think this may have more in common with like the tears in the wheat parable that we've spoken about before versus trying to promulgate a particular understanding of eschatology. There's no doubt that this is calibrated to the period preceding the perusia. At the same time, the parable is a reminder that describes like the visible professing church on earth as it moves toward that consummation. So this is why I think it is important for us to talk about, well, what do we mean by these 10 virgins? What do we mean about the lamps themselves? What is this saying generally about God's church? And again, him addressing the question of what does it mean for that church to be consummated in his kingdom?  [00:26:18] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I, I'm, I'm trying to find the specific passage, but um. We also should not miss the verbal affinity here. Uh, at the end of the parable, when it says truly, I say to you, I do not know you. We should really read this in light of, um, the, um, the statements. You know, I was hungry and you didn't feed me. I was, you know, and you say, Lord, we did these things. He said, away from me. I never knew you. We really should read this parable. I think in light of that passage and that phrasing, I think that's, that's actually the punchline of this  [00:26:54] Jesse Schwamb: Yes. [00:26:55] Tony Arsenal: Punchline. That's, that's the point. Parable is that last phrase, and then the, the extra parable, the outside of the parable, um, payoff or sort of like explanation that Christ gives is watch. Therefore, for you neither know the day nor the hour. The point is not, um, you may think you're a Christian. You may think you're, you're on top of things, but you actually, you might be totally wrong. And so you better get your stuff together. The point is what, what happens? Or the point is the same thing as I think it's the author of Hebrew is like, today is the day of salvation, right? Like, do not wait to turn to Christ. Do not wait. That's right to trust in Jesus. Do not wait to enter the kingdom of heaven until the last minute. Do not wait because you don't actually know when the end is coming. And I, I read this when I, when it's watch, therefore for, you know, neither the day nor the hour. I read this less in light of, um. Like universal eschatology, uh, every single person that, that Jesus was speaking to in this original audience that he actually delivered this parable to, did not see that, like, did not see the last days. Right. Whatever the last days looks like. And I mean, like, yes, the last days is from the resurrection to the end of the age. So some of them saw those last days. But what I mean is none of these people saw the return of Christ, like the second return of Christ and that the last judgment. So he would, it would be sort of meaningless to be delivering this parable to those people. With only whatever the last things are with only the rapture in mind with only Right, exactly. The great judgment. None of that would make any sense. So I read this more in light of you never know when your day and hour is coming. Not, not necessarily like the day, like the day of the Lord, although that's true. Yes. There will be a generation on earth who the last day, the final judgment is also their last day in terms of their ordinary human life. But I think this is more of a general call to all of us, and especially to those, um, out there who are in the orbits of the church who are exposed to the gospel, um, and have not yet trusted Christ. [00:29:09] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.  [00:29:09] Tony Arsenal: Um, there is a call to turn to Jesus and to, uh, to, to come into the kingdom of heaven, to be prepared by coming into the kingdom of heaven here. That's, that's the main point of the peril that we have to land on.  [00:29:21] Bridegroom And Virgins [00:29:21] Jesse Schwamb: I agree with you, and I think all of the imagery here points in that direction. So even starting with this image of these 10 virgins, which of course you've been listening to us talk for long enough, or you've read through the Old Testament, you're gonna quickly, and I think cogently see that this is the Old Testament imagery of Israel as the bride or the covenant community. It's also of course, like the Greco Roman custom in which the bridesmaids attended the bride and accompanied the wedding procession when the bride groom arrived to claim his bride. So to your point, what I think is really interesting about this is that we're basically saying that this parable is not speaking of like strangers or enemies, but those who have made a profession of faith. And so even this like idea of the bridegroom who, who's without a question? Christ here, that's a self-identification that's rooted in like John chapter three, where even John the Baptist calls himself merely the friend of the bridegroom and a revelation where you are going already, where the marriage supper of the lamb consummate, consummate redemptive history. [00:30:19] Lamps And Oil Meaning [00:30:19] Jesse Schwamb: So once we get through the idea of we have those whom Jesus is speaking about, and even those who he's speaking to as those who have made some kind of profession, religious or otherwise, to me, where this hinges is in this idea of the lamps or these torches or or burning lamps, which I take to be like this outward profession. And so the question is you have all of them coming with these lamps. Lambs represent this external common to true or false professors alike. But I think to what you are driving at, it's whether within that profession there is a true and actual reliance on Christ himself for righteousness.  [00:30:57] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, oil, I think the oil is really key here too, right? Oil in the, uh, in the scriptures, particularly in the Old Testament. Um, but also in some places in the New Testament, oil is associated with the Holy Spirit.  [00:31:11] Jesse Schwamb: Yes,  [00:31:11] Tony Arsenal: exactly right. So if, if we wanna sort of take the symbolism here, take, take the, the situation sort of as a mixture of, of different kinds of symbols. We have these folks that have all of the outward things necessary to be able to light the lamps. They have the lamps, the wicks are there. Um, they're, they're sort of ready to go. They're, they're ready and waiting for a time. Uh, but what they don't have is they don't have oil, they don't have the Holy Spirit. So yes, we, we need in some senses about false professors, but I do think it's broader than that.  [00:31:43] Salvation Has A Deadline [00:31:43] Tony Arsenal: I think this is, um, again, is a generalized parable about. The, the fact that the hour of salvation, the day of salvation, the opportunity to turn to God, the opportunity to come into God's kingdom is not an indefinite opportunity. It's not going to be out there as a possibility forever. There is a day and an hour and a minute for every single person where that opportunity is no longer available. And of course we're the reformed brotherhood, not the Armenian Brotherhood, right? We're the reformed brotherhood. So yes, God has ordained who will come and who will not. He's ordained the hour and the minute of those who will, and he's ordained that some will never come. But that all operates on God's God's level in God's knowledge. And that's not something we have access to know down here, right? Deuteronomy 29, 29, the sacred things belong to the Lord, but the things that are revealed belong to us and our children forever. And one of the things that's revealed is that God calls us to salvation. He calls us to repent and trust in Jesus. And here in this passage, he is cutting us to do that, to not delay doing that.  [00:32:53] Personal Evangelism Story [00:32:53] Tony Arsenal: I think there are a lot of people, um. I can actually think of a couple really specific examples in when I was in high school. Um, I was, I, I don't do as much personal evangelism as I I did when I was, uh, when I was in high school and younger. I, I don't know for sure what the reason is. Some of it's probably my own cowardice, but I think probably just that's normal, that as you grow and you kind of settle into different kinds of relationships, you have a different context. But I remember a, a friend of mine named Dave, I'm not gonna say his last name, I remember his last name, but I'm not gonna say it, but a friend of mine named David, um, who. All of us were coming to faith, like all, all of our friend group were coming to Faith. There was one of my friends, James was sort of like the first guy who, he was raised in a Christian home and he sort of came to faith in a very real faith, real way. And he sort of brought all of us along with him and sort of one by one we, we sort of like, it was like Domino's falling. And we all came to a genuine, true saving faith kind of all right in a row. And then there was Dave and Dave just didn't like he, he with us. He did all the things we were doing. And I remember having a conversation with him where I was like, what are you waiting for? Like, what's, what's the hold up here? And I didn't have any, again, I didn't have any framework for like what apologetics were, I wasn't trying to make an argument or any sort of like, um, any sort of like persuasion. It was just a real raw like we are all loving this. We're all, we're all so joyful and happy. The lives are changing and we. This is real, Dave, what, what are you waiting for? He never had a real answer. He, he didn't ever make an argument against the faith. He was very clear that he believed that God was real. He believed that God existed, that the sort of the facts of the gospel were true. Like he, he, um, to sort of put like theological language on it, um, he had, he had a ticia and a census, right? Right. He, he acknowledged he knew the true facts of the gospel and he acknowledged the reality that, that those facts were true. He just never actually took the step to trust in Jesus. And I don't know what happened to Dave. Uh, there's another friend of mine named Theo that very similar kind of situation. I don't know what happened to Dave and Theo. I have no idea whether they eventually came to faith or not, but, but it was like, you guys never know when the day in the hours. That's the kind of person that I think this is pointing to.  [00:35:15] Against Rapture Ready Fear [00:35:15] Tony Arsenal: Not necessarily the person within the church, um, who has made some sort of credible profession of faith, but thinks, but like, because like they haven't stopped swearing yet, or because they still have lustful thoughts once in a while. Like I think that's the rapture ready theology is like. You better not hope that like that's the day that a pretty girl walks by and you have a lutful thought. 'cause if Jesus comes back right after that, you're really in trouble. Like those are, those are actually, um, again, this is, this is a caricature of dispensationalism, but it's a caricature that I experienced. It's, it was people who were being characters of themselves. Right? This idea that, look, you better, you better not sin ever. You better not be asleep. And being asleep means sinning. You better not ever sin. Because if you happen to sin right before the rapture, then Jesus is gonna leave you behind. Right? You're not gonna fly up in the clouds if you're not perfectly rapture ready. And like, again, not all dispensationalist are like that. I actually think most dispensationalist these days would probably not fit into that category. Right? But when I was coming to faith in the late nineties and early two thousands, that was the real theology being presented. I don't think that's what this is. This is about a life orientation of preparedness. This is about an entire life. Yes. That is prepared for Christ's second coming or for the hour of our death. And that the only way to be prepared for that is to be happy in Christ, is to be blessed, blessed assurance, like to have your blessed assurance because Jesus is mine. Oh, what a, you know, oh, what a happy delight like that is. The only way to be ready for death, to be prepared for the end is to turn to Jesus. It's not about whether or not you've turned to Jesus and have become perfectly sinless. None of us are like that, right? It's not about, I just got done writing this series of articles on John Piper's affectional theology, affectional Justification, like it's not about perfectly treasuring Christ. There are gonna be times where your emotions do not sync up with what you actually believe. It's not about being perfectly obedient or wanting to be perfectly obedient. It's about trusting Jesus. And there's only one day an hour that that opportunity closes, and you never know when that is, when that day an hour is gonna be. [00:37:26] Wise Versus Foolish [00:37:26] Jesse Schwamb: We know that to be true in this particular parable because of what's written for us in verse two, how Jesus himself bifurcates and labels these two groups. He says five of them were foolish and five were wise. So Christ himself introduces the critical distinction, not of course, with reference to whatever the external practice is, because both of these groups are carrying lamps, both weight, both know the bridegroom is coming, but with an interior character judgment one is literally foolish, which is the same contrast that Christ employs actually in the parable of the two builders at the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount, where the wise man hears and does, while the foolish man hears, but does not translate hearing into obedient transformation. So I'm with you on this. The terms carry, I think, significant Old Testament fruit because in the all the wisdom literature, wisdom is synonymous with the fear of the Lord, that true knowledge of God, right? And that practical orientation, I think as you were saying, of one's entire life toward God. The fool is not like an intellectual simpleton, but it's a world spiritual category. It's one who lives as though God does not exist or God does not matter, or refuses in the light of incontrovertible evidence to come before God and to submit to him In this way. They are foolish or they are wise. And so again, I like what you're saying. It's not as if like they've just exhibited some kind of quick departure or they've fallen into temptation or sinfulness, but instead, rather, there's something way larger at stake here with respect to a spiritual category. And I think that's really what Jesus is after, as he's bringing these two groups apart from each other, explaining that essentially that they access the same things. They heard the same stuff, they had the same on the outward, at least the same priorities, but the true internal character, the interior character of who they were, was not compatible. These are not the the same kind of person.  [00:39:20] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.  [00:39:21] All Virgins Fall Asleep [00:39:21] Tony Arsenal: And this is actually something, um, that I hadn't picked up on before. Right. I think we can get into these ruts when we're reading and understanding, uh, the scripture, especially really familiar passages like this. Um, probably like at some point in the past, someone has taught it to me in this way. I heard a sermon or I heard it at a youth group in a particular way, and I just never really went back. The, the wise virgins also fall asleep.  [00:39:46] Jesse Schwamb: Exactly.  [00:39:46] Tony Arsenal: Like, like that, that's amazing to me, like Right. I've always heard this passage as though like, falling asleep is the equivalent of spiritual death.  [00:39:54] Jesse Schwamb: Yes. [00:39:55] Tony Arsenal: But the reality is, in this passage, the difference between the wise and the foolish virgins is not that they, one of them stays awake and one of them falls asleep. One, the, the, the difference between the wise and the foolish is that the ones that are wise are prepared for when the bride root clump comes, even though they fell asleep and, and actually, uh, they're, they're shown to be even more wise because they all fell asleep. Yes. Right. If they hadn't fallen asleep, then the foolish ones probably would've had time to go get more. But the, the wise virgins in this, uh. And not only were they wise in terms of like they had the stuff they needed, they were ready to go, but so wise that in fact their wisdom overcame sort of this happenstance that they were in a state of, of preparedness being asleep when the comes is a state of Unpreparedness, but they have able to compensate for the ready in every other area. And I think this also kind of like mitigates away away from the idea of like the, um. The, the emphasis of the parable here, the readiness of the par of the virgins is not based on the wakefulness of the virgins, right? Yes. The virgins are ready because they have the supplies they need. Right. They're not Exactly, they're not exactly, they're not un 'cause they fell asleep. They're ready because they've, they've prepared by purchasing the supplies they need, by having the supplies they need when the breadroom comes. That's true. Whether they fall asleep or not. So I think like this whole parable needs to sort of like be reoriented in reference to the way a lot of us have, A lot of us have been taught and understood this parable. I was always taught that the, the foolish virgins were foolish because they fell asleep. Yeah, that's probably partially true in that it's foolish to fall asleep when you're waiting for something, but that can't be the only thing that makes them foolish. 'cause it doesn't make the other virgins foolish. [00:41:51] Jesse Schwamb: Yes, exactly.  [00:41:52] Oil As Saving Grace [00:41:52] Jesse Schwamb: And that's why it's so interesting that Jesus basically doubles down or elaborates in verses three and four by saying for when the foolish took their lamps. They took no oil with them. Yeah, but the wises took flasks of oil with their lambs. I think it's actually, as you're, I think leading us into like the theological height of this whole thing, the foolish virgins took their lambs, but no oil. The wise took lambs and extra oil in vessels. And of course the lambs cannot burn without oil in the same way. I think what we're led to believe here is profession without grace has no sustaining power. So I know like throughout church history, this idea of the oil has been interpreted in various ways, in various forms. I think there's a lot of unification though on the point that the oil is more or less like a representation of the grace of the Holy Spirit. That like specific indwelling regenerating, sanctifying presence of the spirit imparted in effectual calling and genuine conversion. And that's why I think this has a lot in common with both like the tears and the wheat parable. But also what you've been saying about the time that is appointed onto a man to die, either for Christ to return or just for you and I to die. And so this understanding, I think is consistent with the Old Testament symbolic use of, like you said before, anointing oil is a sign of the spirit's presence. Not by might nor by power, but by my spirit. And so I'm seeing here like this oil is, I mean, is it going too far to say almost like a saving grace? It's, it's not common grace, it's not the gifts of the spirit, which the reprobate may possess, but I think we're, we're seeing here like that special sanctifying preserving grace, which is inseparable from true election and calling. [00:43:29] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, I mean, I think that's spot on. While you were talking, I was actually just looking up, uh, what Calvin has to say on this. I, I think it's funny because I constantly am saying things that I feel like I'm discovering for myself in real time. But if I actually just took the, a little bit of time to read some of our great sources a little more carefully, I would run into them. This is what he says. He says on, uh, verse five, he says, some interpret this slumbering in a bad sense as if believers along with others abandon themselves sloth. And they were, they were asleep amidst the vanities of the world. This is all together inconsistent with the intention of Christ as structure of the parable. [00:44:05] Slow Down And Read [00:44:05] Tony Arsenal: Like I think it's clear now here as we're working through this and this, and this is the main benefit, um, of taking time to just walk through the parables, any, any text of scripture, but the parables is what we're looking at. Taking time to just actually slow down and read them. I didn't intend to get to like a whole discussion about Bible reading plans, but the typical, I'm gonna read the Bible through, uh, the entire Bible in a year that typically has you reading three to five chapters a day is the average. That's probably too much if you want to be reading for understanding. And there is, there's definitely value. I've, I've commented in the past, there's huge value in reading large tracks of scripture all at the same time. Like if you wanna sit down over 10 chapters of Scripture day and you've got the time and the energy and the discipline to do it, then more power to you. But I think it's not realistic to think you're gonna sit down and read 10 chapters of scripture and have good comprehension and retention of the 10 chapters that you read. This is a really good example of that. If you sit down and you read three chapters, you're gonna be reading this, you're gonna be reading, uh, another parable. The parable of the talents you are gonna be reading. You know, the all of it discourse all at the same time, all in one sitting. Um, it's not until just now when I slowed down to really look at these passages, verse by verse individually and take an hour to discuss 13 verses with my brother-in-law in front of a microphone, right? Then I realized all of the virgins fall asleep. Like that's the kind of stuff that you really only, um, you only overcome. The assumed teaching that you heard when you were in high school, 15, you know, 15, 20 years ago at a summer camp. You really only overcome that when you slow down enough to read things and actually comprehend them. So that's not much of a commentary on the passage, but it is something that I'm learning as we do these parable studies. Just slow down, slow down and read them, read them multiple times, read it over and over again. Um, it is totally fine. The, this is the last, uh, Bible reading soapbox thing I'll say tonight. Um, I think like, because. Of the influence of like expository preaching and like wanting to read things in, in context, and all of those things are good. I think there is this tendency to think that if you sit down and just read a very short portion of scripture, that you're kind of automatically taking that out of context. I don't think that's the case. Like it's totally fine to sit down in the morning and go, you know what? I've got, I've got 10 minutes, I've got five minutes. I've got two minutes before the kids are up. I've got two minutes before the bus stop, you know, before the bus gets here. I'm standing at the bus stop. I've got 30 seconds before the coffee's done. It's totally fine to open your Bible app. And read two or three verses of scripture, that's a totally fine thing to do. It's totally fine because you've got 10 minutes before the kids got up. Oh, and by the way, you've gotta unload the dishwasher before they do. Totally fine to sit down and go, I've got time to read 13 verses of scripture today. So that's what I'm gonna get done. Um, and, and then just think about those things like meditate on those scriptures all day. I just think there's a lot of values to that and that's maybe that's my takeaway from this episode. I know like that's not a takeaway directly related to this passage. That's good. But I think we can oftentimes. Have and understand that isn't right because we've been taught it and we don't ever have the time or space in our life to like realize that what we were taught is maybe exactly right. This is like something so obvious on the surface of the text. It didn't even take any real thought. It just took slowing down and actually reading the words  [00:47:45] Jesse Schwamb: right. It's also a good reminder, like we said from the beginning, that our goal here shouldn't be to torture every detail, to like press it for some kind of allegorical significance.  [00:47:55] Tony Arsenal: Yes.  [00:47:55] Jesse Schwamb: But to take it on the face and to understand in context what's being said. And by context I just mean the context of the story. Of the accounts of the drama that's unfolding. And it is pretty remarkable that all 10 virgins sleep, that maybe even as you start with the details might not be your impression that that was gonna be, was gonna be the difference here, but both the wises and the foolish alike fall asleep. So to me, the parable is not condemning sleep per se, but I think it's the absence of oil which the sleep merely reveals, right? That's the critical detail here. And so Jesus delivers that to us and that's why it's, I think, important to think about these, these variables about what the oil represents and the context in which they're tested with their preparedness. But it's not because like they had it almost times you get the impression, it's like what we're saying here is the wise had more stamina, that they were the ones that were just willing to tough it out, and they knew the bridegroom was coming. And so as a result of that, they decided that they were going to ensure that they stayed awake, even if they had the drink, a couple of extra cups of coffee, just to make sure that was the case. But really their sleepiness, which they both have to endure, is the very context in which proves that they do are not prepared by having sufficient oil, not that they're unprepared by having sufficient energy or stamina.  [00:49:18] Prepared Despite Fatigue [00:49:18] Jesse Schwamb: Well, with all.  [00:49:21] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, that's a good takeaway too, is, is we all, um, we all will succumb to temptation in this life,  [00:49:32] Jesse Schwamb: right? [00:49:33] Tony Arsenal: Right. Every single one of us. And even if we think of sleeping in this negative sense, which I think we probably need to move away from it, even if we do, I think the point that you're making is really good, for instance, between the foolish and the wises is not their ability to stay awake. So I do think that, I do think there's a slightly negative connotation to drowsy and slept here. Like I think that, I think it's intended to show some level of fatigue. Fatigue, maybe not like a moral right, maybe not a moral, uh, negativity, but there's a fatigue. There's something that overcomes both wise and foolish virgins in this parable. Fatigue and drowsiness overcomes them and they sleep. And it's because the bridegroom was delayed, right? We wanna talk about eschatology, right? This is probably also more a commentary on the church as a whole. The church becomes drowsy and sleeps right, and then there's the foolish and the wise. The foolish are the ones who are not prepared even though they are drowsy and sleep. And then there's the wise who are foolish, or the wises who are prepared and are drowsy and sleep. But E, either way, if we think of drowsy and sleep, even in moral negative terms, right? All of us will succumb to temptation. All of us will succumb to sin in this life. I would even go so far as to say all of us sin in every moment of our life in that we never love God. Truly. Yes. With our full hearts and souls. You got that right soul the way that we're, we're commanded to. Right. Right. So all of us become drowsy and sleep. The difference is not in those who pull themselves up by their bootstraps and tape their eyelids open so that they don't fall asleep. Right. I don't, I don't know if you ever like had trouble staying awake in school, but I used to, like I used to sit at my desk with my pencil under my chin. Oh my Lord. So if I started to fall asleep, it would like jab me and I would wake up so I could stay awake in school. Oh. It's not about like gimmicks to stay awake.  [00:51:20] Jesse Schwamb: Right, right.  [00:51:21] Tony Arsenal: It's about the fact that those of us who have trusted Christ. Have received the oil. Yes. So even when we sleep, yes. Even when we are drowsy, even when we are overcome by the fatigue that prevents us from, uh, from resisting sin. Right. Even when that happens, we still have the oil. We still have the grace of the Holy Spirit. We still have the empowering presence and the, the, the justifying reality of Christ's death For us, in my mind as I read this parable, that really is what it is, right? Get the oil, go get the stinking oil now, because you never know when the day or hour is coming. Mm-hmm. Whether that's the day or the hour that you fall asleep and you're not prepared, or whether that's the day or the hour that the bridegroom was, even if you're awake. That's the other element of this. Even if the virgins had stayed awake, they didn't have the oil.  [00:52:11] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.  [00:52:12] Tony Arsenal: So it it's not as though, it's not as though had they stayed awake, they would've had time to go get the oil and come back. They, they wake up right away. Like there's nothing in the parable that's like, oh, it took 'em a little while to get up. So that's why they didn't have time to get the oil. They, they didn't have time to get the oil. 'cause there wasn't time to get the oil  [00:52:31] Jesse Schwamb: right.  [00:52:32] Tony Arsenal: So the only way you're going to be properly prepared when the bridegroom comes is if you already have the oil and you're already ready to go. Regardless of whether you fall asleep or not.  [00:52:42] Gospel Call Get Oil [00:52:42] Tony Arsenal: So I, I think, I think we have to kind of close this with like a gospel, a gospel call here. Like we don't do this very often on the show, and I think the vast majority of our show are professed, regenerate Christians. I don't, I don't know anyone who listens to the show that is outwardly not a Christian, but I think this is a time for us to say, listen, if you are hearing the sound of my voice, be diligent to make your calling an election. Sure. And that both takes the form of what Peter talks about, where he talks about growing in graces and walking in, walking in the qualities of holiness and righteousness that our, our, our in Christ. But it also takes the form of just trusting in Jesus.  [00:53:20] Jesse Schwamb: Right?  [00:53:21] Tony Arsenal: Right. If you are a person who is not confident that you have trusted in Jesus. Then you, you need to do that. You need to go and do that. And, and if you don't know what that means, look, I'm just some dude on the internet. By the time you hear this, I'm already, I'm already like seven and a half days into the future from when you hear this, like, I'm already gone. The me that's talking to you doesn't even exist anymore. But the pastor down the road, or your friend who's a Christian who shared this show with you, that person exists right now in your life, right? So go talk to them, find out what the gospel is, and you, you take care of getting that oil and you don't delay,  [00:53:57] Jesse Schwamb: right? Oh, you're right.  [00:53:58] Midnight Cry Urgency [00:53:58] Jesse Schwamb: All of that sets up what we see in verse six, this idea of the midnight Cry, which is of course where Petro draws the title for its own song. But this idea that midnight is that darkest hour, it's the hour of deepest sleep and greatest surprise, it really does capture, at least in this parable, the unexpectedness of like that second coming. It's a theme that's central, I think, to a lot of Matthew and this cry is it's sudden, it's arresting, it wakes all of the virgins. None of them remained asleep after this time. And I think you summarized really well how even like historically reformed expositions understood that midnight cry. It could be. And I say equally as opportunistic with the idea that it's the actual cry of Christ's angels as a return or as I think what you're pressing us with right now, which is important, is it's the voice of God and death. Since for everybody, each individual death really functions as the personal midnight that ends the time of preparation. And so every man's death to him is the coming of Christ. That's when our state is irrevocably fixed. And so I think it's important for us to understand there's an urgency here. This is an urgency of evangelism and self-examination because the midnight cry may come at any moment. It could come in youth, the middle age and old age, and health and sickness and wellness. The question is not when it will come, but whether when it does, you will be found with oil in your vessel. And so you're right. Maybe that's the best place for us to end it is to to stop and say, you ought to consider that. We all ought to consider that. That is the message that's put before us. That's why this thing is so penetrating and solemn, even though it seems a kind of, just a dramatic account of, well, don't get caught being sleepy. That's not the point. It's literally. The, the bridegroom's own delay that sets up all of this and highlights again, what is actually a lacking. And that is the grace of God, the give the deliverance of, uh, faith to his children that results in that effectual calling. So your rights, and maybe I'll go back to my initial starting point, which was you better check your midnight oil.  [00:56:05] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, yeah.  [00:56:07] Calvin Buy By Faith [00:56:07] Tony Arsenal: Lemme close with these words from Calvin here on this, uh, this verse he's commenting on, uh. Around verse nine and he says, um, the word buy does not at all, imply that a price has been given as appears clearly from the passage in idea where the Lord, while he invites us to buy demands, no price, but informs us that he is wine and milk in abundance to be fortuitously bestowed. There is no other way of obtaining it, therefore, but to receive by faith what is offered to us. So the parable is saying to go and buy the oil, but the only way to buy the oil is to trust in Christ and receive the oil from him. There's no cost, there's no fee. There's no merit that you contribute that gives us this. Um, there's nothing that you do to earn, to, to buy the oil to, to obtain a. Well, Christ bestows it on you by faith. You simply have to receive it. And point of the parable, and I'll just close with this phrase, the point of the bear parable is that you do not know the day or the, so I think this is a great, uh, um, this is a great parable for us to meditate on, for us to ruminate on. Um, I know I'm gonna think about it, not because I, I fear, I'm fearful for my salvation, but I do think. Maybe this is something we can chat a little bit about next week, and, and actually maybe this is why these two are juxtaposed.  [00:57:34] Evangelism And Next Steps [00:57:34] Tony Arsenal: Um, maybe we need to think about a little bit of what this says for the Christian for evangelism, right? Yes. Um, if, if we do not know the day or the hour and, and there is this midnight call coming for people, then maybe we need to tell them, maybe we need to tell them that they do not know when the day or the hour is. So I think this is great and I'm excited to get into the next parable and I'm excited to keep moving. We've made this pivot into some of the eschatological parables of Christ, which is great. It's a, it's a different, sort of a different register of teaching than we've seen from him in, in the parable series so far, which is exciting. Uh, so I'm really stoked to keep going.  [00:58:08] Jesse Schwamb: Me too. And again, come hang out with us in the telegram chat in particular, and chat about this with us. I think that that's where so much good conversation happens. It's not, of course, the only place and nor should it be where we process this and live life together, but it is one place where we can do that and get to know other brothers and sisters. I, I think, Tony, you've often challenged me and our listeners by saying, take this episode and go have your own conversation with your spouses. Yeah. With your parents, with your loved ones. And now more than ever. I think maybe the setup for our next conversation is, how do we understand the urgency of evangelism in light of what we've learned here? Because this grace in this message is for the Christian. And in that way we find, I think, great assurance in this parable, while at the same time delivering the stack reality of that midnight hour in that cry coming. And again, our states being. Fixed at that moment where there's no more preparation that can take place. And there is so much right now that's being preached in churches across the world that will tell you that really you don't need to worry about this. That even what Christ is saying here is not entirely accurate. That somehow, even though it may be a pointed once for man to die, that after that point there is some remedial way back into salvation. And what we find here, what Christ is telling us is that is simply not true. It stands in direct opposition to what our Lord and Savior is teaching us here. And so that makes it, I think, all the more urgent to understand that there is an emergency in our world and that is that there are those perishing without Christ. And so we ought to make that a priority to deliver to them the gospel that we ourselves have often also received. And the one that God, through his calling and through the affectual work of the Holy Spirit, has made real and effectual to us.  [00:59:55] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.  [00:59:56] Wrap Up And Teaser [00:59:56] Tony Arsenal: Well, Jesse, that's as good a place for us to push pause. We are done with this parable. We got through it in a week, which is pretty, uh, pretty miraculous. I think it happens. Um, but we're not done with the parables and we're not even really done with this teaching of Christ, because the next verse starts with four. So we know that it's a continuation of, uh, of what, uh, not for the number for FOR. What a teaser. What a teaser. We know this is a continuation of, of this teaching. So, Jesse, until then, until next time, honor everyone.  [01:00:26] Jesse Schwamb: Love the brotherhood. 
• God's Universal Gospel Call: The Parable of the Wedding Feast 25.05.2026 59мин

  In this profound exploration of Matthew 22:1-14, we examine Jesus's parable of the wedding feast—one of the most theologically dense teachings in Scripture. This parable reveals the magnificent scope of God's gospel invitation extended to all humanity, the tragic reality of human rejection, and the sovereign grace that ensures God's purposes will not be thwarted. Through the imagery of a royal wedding banquet, Jesus addresses the religious leaders who challenged His authority while simultaneously unveiling timeless truths about salvation, election, and the nature of the Church. This episode unpacks the parable's layers of meaning, from the universal call of the gospel to the particular grace of election, equipping believers to understand both the urgency and the sovereignty of God's redemptive work. Key Takeaways The Universal Gospel Call Is Genuine and Urgent: God's invitation to salvation goes out indiscriminately to all people, regardless of ethnicity, social status, or moral condition. This external call is sincere, well-meant, and accompanied by genuine offers of grace. Human Rejection Is Willful and Culpable: The parable demonstrates that humanity's refusal of God's invitation is not due to insufficient information but to volitional rebellion. This rejection often progresses from indifference to active hostility against God and His messengers. God's Sovereign Purposes Cannot Be Frustrated: Despite widespread rejection, the wedding hall will be filled. God's redemptive plan includes the expansion of His covenant community beyond ethnic Israel to include Gentiles from every nation. The Wedding Garment Represents Imputed Righteousness: The garment required for the feast symbolizes the righteousness of Christ, received by faith alone, not earned through human effort. This illustrates the doctrine of justification by grace through faith. The Visible Church Contains Both Genuine and False Believers: The parable warns that not all who hear the gospel and enter the visible church possess true saving faith, distinguishing between the external call and the internal, effectual work of the Spirit. Eternal Punishment Is Real and Conscious: The parable's conclusion soberly affirms the doctrine of eternal, conscious punishment for those who reject Christ, depicted as "outer darkness" with "weeping and gnashing of teeth." "Many Are Called, But Few Are Chosen": This foundational statement maintains the biblical tension between the universal external call of the gospel and the particular, effectual call of God that sovereignly draws the elect to salvation. Key Concepts The Nature of the Gospel Call: External and Effectual Reformed theology has carefully distinguished between two aspects of God's call. The external or general call is the sincere proclamation of the gospel to all without distinction, inviting everyone to faith and repentance. This call is genuine on God's part—He truly offers salvation to all who hear. However, due to total depravity, the natural person will not respond to this call on their own. The internal or effectual call is the sovereign, irresistible work of the Holy Spirit by which the elect are regenerated, have their wills renewed, and are infallibly brought to saving faith. This distinction preserves both human responsibility (we are culpable for rejecting a genuine offer) and divine sovereignty (God alone saves by His grace). The parable beautifully illustrates both realities: servants genuinely invite all they find on the highways, yet the King ultimately determines who is properly clothed for the feast. The Wedding Garment and Justification by Faith Alone The wedding garment represents one of the parable's most critical theological elements. In ancient Near Eastern culture, hosts often provided garments for wedding guests, making the lack of proper attire inexcusable. Theologically, this garment symbolizes the righteousness of Christ imputed to believers—a righteousness not produced by human effort but received through faith alone. This directly confronts any notion of works-righteousness or the idea that we can stand before God based on our own moral achievements, religious observances, or church membership. The man without the garment represents those who presume to approach God on the basis of their own righteousness rather than Christ's alien righteousness. His speechlessness before judgment illustrates that on the last day, no one will successfully argue their case on grounds of personal merit. This underscores the Reformation principle of sola gratia and sola fide—salvation is by grace alone through faith alone, clothing us in a righteousness that is entirely Christ's. The Tension Between Universal Call and Particular Election The parable's conclusion—"many are called, but few are chosen"—encapsulates one of theology's profound mysteries. This statement places two realities side by side without resolving the tension philosophically. The invitation truly goes to all (universal call), yet only some respond savingly (particular election). Reformed theology maintains this biblical tension rather than collapsing it in either direction. We don't limit the external call only to the elect (hyper-Calvinism), nor do we make the internal call dependent solely on human decision (Arminianism). Instead, we affirm that the gospel invitation is genuinely universal while the effectual drawing is sovereignly particular. This means Christians can proclaim unreservedly, "Christ has died for you" to any person, knowing the offer is sincere, while simultaneously trusting that God will infallibly save all His elect through that proclamation. Memorable Quotes "The most scandalous and tragic thing that could happen at a wedding or a wedding banquet is that nobody shows up. The guests don't come. Or in fact, not only do they not come, they don't want to come—they burn the invitations." "You don't bring anything to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary." "Many a man in this world will silence his own conscience with many a fair excuse. But in that day, there will be no excuse, no plea, no delay." - William Perkins Full Episode Transcript [00:00:58] Jesse Schwamb: Welcome to episode 493 of The Reformed Brotherhood. I'm Jesse, and this is the podcast where we will talk about every single parable. Hey, brothers and sisters. So when was the last time that you were at a wedding? I think weddings are one of the most glorious of all kinds of human events and celebrations, and I think the solemness of the vows and the promises that are exchanged between a man and a woman in marriage in that ceremony, or maybe only equaled by the joy of those same vows and promises. And of course, the whole point of coming together to celebrate a, a wedding. Is to make that joy consummate and complete by having others participate in it. The seeing the union of a man and a woman become one, the excitement of that love expressed in promise and commitment. It's an incredible thing. And I was thinking about this recently because our wedding invitation is actually framed in, in our living room because one of the guests that we invited gave that to us as a really thoughtful gift. And so our wedding ceremony and the party that followed, and it was a. Amazing and awesome party, especially thanks to my in-laws and my parents who generously made sure that that was possible was an exceptional event that we still talk about all the time. Actually, you know, in my wedding when we had this grand kind of wedding banquet afterwards, we had a friend of ours who actually performed the song that we danced to on grand piano and sang for us, which is amazing. We had a DJ in one room and we had a live jazz band in another, and I specifically recall. That when we left late in the evening, my new wife and I, that there were still people on the dance floor having a good time. And I thought, this is the way it's supposed to be. I mean, this is a wedding. This is a wedding banquet. [00:02:58] Why No One Comes [00:02:58] Jesse Schwamb: And so it also made me think recently, especially as we find ourselves in Matthew chapter 22, continuing to look at all these incredible parables that Jesus gives to us, that perhaps the most scandalous and tragic thing that could happen at a wedding or a wedding banquet is that nobody shows up. The guests don't come. Or in fact, like not only do they not come, they don't want to come, they burn the invitations. They wanna have nothing to do with the celebration or the ceremony itself. And so Jesus has been doing all of this teaching that we've been tracking, and he's been responding to these leaders in the Jewish community, the people we call the Pharisees and the scribes who have challenged his authority. And he's been progressing in the way that he's almost ratcheting up the language that he's using, the indictments that he's bringing to them. And now he's about to bring in weddings and specifically the wedding banquet. And that is where we're gonna find ourselves in a Matthew Chapter 22. Now, by the way, I should also mention that because my wife is super popular lady and super lovable. We had a pretty large wedding. I think we had over 200 guests, and so. Because my father-in-law is retired military, we were actually able to have our whole wedding banquet, our whole celebration and party on a local army base. But because of that, it meant that before you could actually get onto the base, all of our guests. Had to be searched. So it's nothing like, you know, basically just shaken down your wedding guests before they show up. So that also was super fun.  [00:04:32] Reading Matthew 22 [00:04:32] Jesse Schwamb: But let's go to the scriptures, everybody. So here's Matthew chapter 22. Uh, listen to this as we take a look at what Jesus has to say and why he brings in weddings. Actually, it might be helpful to say or to give you something, rather to listen to or listen for before you even hear me read the scriptures because. This parable of this wedding banquet, it is definitely one of the most theologically dense parables in the entire synaptic tradition. It is set like we've been saying within the final week of Jesus' ministry in Jerusalem, and it's embedded in the sequence of confrontational exchanges that he's having with the Jewish leadership because they have challenged his authority. And so as you listen to this being read, I want you to clue in, key in as they say to a couple of things. See if you can find the, like the Christological proclamation in this. There's a, a covenantal poll. I think there's some sociological instruction and there's an eschatological warning. All of this happens as is Jesus's jam in the short span of several verses where he illuminates all of these principles of the sovereign grace of God and the summons of the gospel. Total depravity and culpability of this, these rebellious people who refuse the call, the historical judgment of God upon the covenant breaking Israel. And then of course, the subsequent expansion of that covenant into the community include to include the Gentiles. All of this is happening. In this parable, and so I want you just to listen for that as we together read. Or in my case, I guess I just read, especially if you're driving, do not read the parable that begins in the first part of Matthew chapter 22. Here's the word of God. And Jesus answered and spoke to them again in parables saying The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son, and he sent out his slaves to call those who had been called to the wedding feast and they were unwilling to come again. He sent out other slaves saying, tell those who have been called. Behold. I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fon livestock are all butchered and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast. But they paid no attention and went their way, one to his farm, another to his business, and the rest seized the slaves and mistreated them and killed them. But the king was enraged and he sent his armies and destroyed those murderers and set their city on fire. Then he said to his slaves, the wedding is ready, but those who were called were not worthy. Go, therefore, to the main highways and as many as you find there, call to the wedding feast. And those slaves went out into the streets and gathered together all they found both evil and good, and the wedding hall was filled with dinner guests. But when the king came in to look over the dinner guests, he saw a man there who is not dressed in wedding clothes, and he said to him, friend, how did you come in here without wedding clothes? And the man was speechless. Then the king said to the servants, bind him hand and foot and throw him into the outer darkness. In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth for many are called, but few are chosen.  [00:07:50] Parable Context [00:07:50] Jesse Schwamb: Wow. So what an incredible. Story, what an incredible foundation or rubric or context in which so many rich theological concepts and pastoral concepts, doctrinal concepts are given to us from Jesus. And you'll notice that of course, chronologically here, this parable is following the parable of the two sons and the parable of the wicked tenants. Those are the vine growers that we were talking about over the last several episodes. And this one rounds everything out. It forms like a triptych of rejection parables directed against these chief priests and the Pharisees who keep coming after Jesus and his authority. And Matthew signals this kind of escalating tension. The Jewish leaders are now explicitly seeking to arrest Jesus. And Jesus responds not by treating their, not by retreating, of course, but by intensifying his indictment in this parabolic form. And here's where we arrive in Matthew 22. It's interesting to me, of course, that this is the approach that Jesus takes. He has already conveyed these two great stories, and at the end of the last one, Tony and I spoke about how this was where at least Matthew explains to us very directly that the, the Pharisees and the scribes, they understood, they discerned that Jesus was speaking about them, and yet Jesus says, I'm not done yet. I've got one more. And this is the culmination of all the things that he's been saying. And it starts again in verse one with Jesus saying, and again, he spoke to them in a parable. You know, it signals that the parable itself is still a reply. Not to a verbal question at this immediate moment, but to this ongoing posture of rejection exhibited by the religious leaders. You notice that what Matthew says here is very, I think, theologically significant in light of where Jesus explains that the parables both reveal and they conceal their instruments of divine judgment upon heart and hearts, even as they illuminate those with ears to hear. This is why I think it's just so important that as Christians. Even as we study God's word, as we participate in it, so to speak, as we let it read us, that we come with this posture of prayer, that we desperately need God's Holy, holy, holy Spirit to illuminate for us what the scriptures say, to lead us into the paths of righteousness and judgment, which are present in the scriptures, so that we may understand them with these spirit-filled eyes, with a spirit enabled brain with ears that have been unstopped by the spirit. So these parables are the mode by which Christ simultaneously honors and judges his audience. He shows indirectly what it would've been of no use to state plainly. And so the parable form itself is really part of the message here. I think that's something hopefully you picked up as we've been processing them all together, that Jesus opponents cannot arrest what they cannot fully comprehend, yet their incomprehension is itself their condemnation, right? This is, this is the mystery. Of the gospel of what God does, where there is this outward and full unbiased external call, and yet there is something that is efficacious by the power of the Holy Spirit for those whom God has chosen and called to himself so reformed to eus. Are attentive to the authorial intent in historical situatedness of each thing that Jesus says. That's one of the things I think is great about the way in which we kind of have organized our theological perspective and these parables function as a prophetic oracle of judgment. And certainly that's like in an Old Testament accent. I mean, that's the Old Testament jam. It's an Old Testament lawsuit kind of John. It's like law and order. If law and order were Moses, were doing it right. So notice that again, as Tony and I've said so many times before, what I kind of always find so phenomenal about these parables is that often we think of parables as having the main object of being a noun of some kind. It's a person, it's a place. It's a thing that is sometimes the case, but more often than not, it's one of those nouns associated with a verb.  [00:11:59] Kingdom And The King [00:11:59] Jesse Schwamb: And so we get that in verse two. The kingdom of heaven may be compared to what? To a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. And so it implies that the kingdom is being revealed and likened in a definitive act. We got verbs, loved ones. This is the classic. The ultimate, God does all the verbs because you're gonna hear her over and over again. God is going out. God is giving. God is seeking. God is going after, and these verbs are really the center of the parable itself. It's not just that it's the wedding banquet as maybe the title in your scripture gives you, but it's more about this giving of this event and it's preparing of this grand feast. And so the recurrence of this allegory seemed, I think, pretty straightforward to us. The the king is God, the Father, the Son is Christ, and the wedding banquet, which by the way in the Greek here is plural, is really emphasizing that it's a totality of an occasion. This is the Messianic feast. This is the eschatological consummation of the Covenant of Grace. And that image imagery draws like so deep from this Old Testament well and background of God as the husband and the bridegroom of Israel. Again, how lovely and amazing for Jesus and his thorough knowledge of the scriptures to draw in something that the audience would've been like, yes, I know what you're talking about. I'm totally down with that. And so the son's wedding is therefore not some kind of like incidental entertainment. It is the central event of all history, the installation of the Messianic king and the gathering of his bride. And of course, the people hearing this would've immediately gravitated toward that. I think they would've leaned in maybe even like smiled or smirked at one another, knowing that this was now all that veiled. What Christ was drawing on here was the classic presentation. Of the family of God represented in the children of Israel itself, being drawn back into consummate harmony with God the Father, where there was peace and unitedness, and a celebration of this fact that all things were now made and brought together, that God was restoring and bringing all those back to himself in his true and true kingdom that could not be thwarted. So the fact that the king gives the banquet, prepares it, sends servants, selects the guests, underscores this incredible modernistic character of salvation. I think it's impossible to miss here that God is literally doing all the verbs. The initiative at every point is divine. There's no hint here of synergism. The guests do not arrange their own invitations, literally. And so that's why in verse three, we see God, he sending out his servants. And of course that's a familiar theme. It should be to us. If you've been tracking with us the last several parables we've been speaking of because the servants represent the prophets of the Old Testament and subsequently the apostles and the ministers of the word. The invitation had already gone out to quote those who were invited. So it's this perfect passive parable in the Greek, it's, it's indicating a prior and standing invitation. This is the external or general call of the gospel going out through the preaching of the word. And notice that there is always a response. Even here, Jesus moves directly and quickly to here's what the response was. In other words, as the scripture has told us that God's word never goes out in returns void, there's always, as it were, a response here, that's illustrated for us very directly because the response is not so good.  [00:15:32] Invitation Refused [00:15:32] Jesse Schwamb: I mean, this is what would, this is horrible like wedding etiquette. They were not willing to come. And this verb I think is critical because it's volitional refusal. It's not mere ignorance. And reformed theology is insistent here against any kind of constellation that makes man's rejection of the gospel. A matter of insufficient information or circumstances we know better, right? We as people should know that we as Christians who have been changed, know that the natural man here is not natural, merely because he lacks the certain kind of information as if he could be restored or regenerated or reformed if we just knew more things. The will is in bondage to sin. And so as the Westminster Confession, faith says, man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation. This is classic Jonathan Edwards, like, you don't bring anything to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary. For some reason in my head, I said that with kind of a, a weird, almost like southern attitude, which I did not mean to convey. But the point is that this refusal is total, it's willing, it's culpable, it's damnable, it's precisely that, which makes it all the more grievous. The invitation is genuine, the refusal is genuine, and the guilt here is entirely real. So the invited in verse three, represent all of Israel. I, I would say like particularly the leaders here, Tony and I have been talking about the responsibility of these, these leaders in particular to, of course, lead Shepherd, grow these people in faith and a love toward God in a way that is toward freedom and now toward more conviction around extraneous rules or heavy burdens that they set up for them that they cannot perform. And so we have these leaders who had received the covenantal promises and the prophetic witness. I mean, that's like classic Romans nine. The rejection of the servants echoes the pattern of prophetic persecution throughout all of Israel's history. So this is sad stuff. It's a sad beginning to have this grand wedding feast prepared by this king for his son set in motion with the invitations already gone out. And essentially all of those who have been invited have Ally refused.  [00:17:49] Feast Is Ready [00:17:49] Jesse Schwamb: But what's so incredible about God and his loving kindness is still represented here in verse four. The king does not relent after the first refusal, which is remarkable. I mean, this is, again, going back to our proper understanding that we love because God first loved us. That love always leads to giving. And so therefore, God so loved the world that he gave his only son. And when did he give his son? At the fullness of time when we were still at enmity, when we were enemies with him still, he sent his son for us and he sends, therefore a second embassy with an even more urgent and elaborate message that he gives them. He puts into their mouth. And the feast, again, is not merely planned. It's prepared. It's ready. The oxen and fat and calves are images of this lavish like sacrificial celebration. Everything's all slaughtered. Everything is ready to go. Now, I don't know the last time you've been to like an epic feast. I do mean like epic over the top feast. I want you to look up something for me. When you have a chance, look up, just go to your browser of choice and type in shady maples smorgasbord. Now, I don't know if you know what a smorgasbord is, but it's like a, I guess it's like a buffet, but like if you took a buffet and multiply it by a million and then only serve like rich, decadent food and more food than you could possibly really imagine and close to where I live, there's a very famous Amish style. Buffet called Shady Maple Smoker Sport. Just go look it up. 'cause it's gonna be possible for you to describe, but all I can say to you is this isn't just like your standard buffet, it's not just like a potluck where it's like, Hey, we got ham. And, um, we've got some salads and, uh, we've got that, uh, what's that? That weird stuff. You can I, the ambrosia, like we, we've got your hydrox cookies for dessert. This is the last time I was there and uh, actually I was there with my parents and my wife and they treated us. And because this was at a part of my life where my gallbladder was trying to attack me and kill me, I remember just being so ill while I was there feeling so ill, and yet just being so disappointed and bummed out that I couldn't eat all this glorious food because there was filet mignon and lobsters. And shrimp and fish and ham like glazed ham and like carving stations. And then for desserts there was like custards and pies and ice cream and cookies and whoopee pies. And it was this over the top celebration of food. And you couldn't help but just feel like, wow, this thing that we're doing right now is like incredible. I've also, I don't think ever seen my father sample so many different desserts because it was special. This was a, a lavish and incredible celebration for us, and it was prepared, it was ready to go. And we find the same thing here. And so the second sending corresponds to this ministry of the Apostles and the early churches proclamation to Israel. The urgency of the messages come now. It reflects this eschatological pressure of the gospel. A good kind of pressure as if like there's a tea kettle on the stove and it's heating up, and now it's starting to whistle and then to boil over. The kingdom has arrived. Loved ones, the feast is set, delay is inexcusable, and, and so the language of readiness, I think is this glorious language of the gospel. The atonement has accomplished. Christ has been crucified, risen, and exalted, and the feast of salvation is prepared. And what I love is that the reformed tradition consistently insists on the sufficiency of Christ's work for all and the genuine freeness of that gospel offer. I like this is what I usually go back to, is that the cannons of dort affirm this in this way. This is the quote. The promise of the gospel is that whosoever believes in Christ, crucified shall not perish, but of everlasting life. This promise together with the command to repent and believe, ought to be declared and proclaimed to all the nations. The invitation is genuine and urgent. The feast is truly ready. [00:22:01] Mission To All [00:22:01] Jesse Schwamb: The church that I attend is part of the Christian Missionary Alliance denomination, and one of the many things I love about my church is that outward and continual focus on this very thing. That the invitation is genuine. It is urgent, and the feast is truly ready, and it is for all peoples. This freeness to, as we talked about before, scatter the seed of the gospel message unreservedly and without bias to all, all in your sphere of influence. All nations, all people, all tongues, all tribe. And my church is very serious about this. In fact, one of the things our pastor loves to do is oftentimes when he's giving it this kind of proclamation, in fact, just this Lord's day, he was speaking from Matthew 28 and about the Great Commission and the essential nature of that great commission is every Christian's promise to participate in that. It is something you and I are commissioned for and we ought to regularly evaluate our, what our prayers look like. What our finances look like and what our time looks like with respect to whether we are taking seriously that commission, which God has given to us. And so in reminding us of that very fact, one of the things he'll often say from the pulpit is he'll ask out to the congregation, he'll say, what is our middle name? And everybody will respond, missionary. And, and while it's a little bit trite, it reminds us that as part of like the essential ethos in DNA of who we are as Christians, and in fact in this particular year. One of the themes that the whole Christian Missionary Alliance nomination has been focusing on is all of Jesus for All the World takes all of us. I love that all of Jesus for all the world takes all of us. And so we have embedded in this parable here, so much of this intentionality of the gospel, of going out for all people, making this, this message and this mission available. Going out and speaking and preaching and witnessing and testifying of how great God is and what he has done in setting and preparing this gospel message for all people. But in verse five, we find out that even still with all of this, they paid no attention. They went off one to his farm and another to his business. In other words, the word here suggests this kind of contemptuous indifference rather than this active hatred that that actually comes a little bit later. But worldly affairs, a farm, some converse. All this displaces the invitation. And these are not wicked activities, of course, in themselves. Their wickedness consists in their displacement of what is the ultimate. And that I think is actually like very penetrating diagnosis of the human condition. The great enemy of the gospel, at least it seems to me, is not always, as you talk to people, like some kind of dramatic philosophical rejection, some well articulated hatred toward God. It's instead like a quiet absorption in the ordinary pursuits of life. It's like what I think Augustine called being curved inward upon oneself. The world is a great enchant. It be witches our souls, it distracts us. There are so many things that can pull us away from not only meditating on this gospel message, but coming alongside and appreciating. In participating in that great commission. There's so many things to distract us. It's, it's not as if we need a list. I think if I asked each one of you or you asked me, what are some things that you find distracting that pull you away from time and prayer time, studying God's word, time spent with my wife, time spent serving in my local church. I'm not gonna be hard pressed to find those things to say to you. So this idea that we have, whether it's the farm or this business pursuit here, I suppose it could be representative to at least great earthly loves. You have the land, kind of a agrarian rooted life, and then there's trade mercantile and acquisitive life. I mean, maybe these just suggests that the rejection spans all of our social and economic classes, both within Israel at the time and for us today. And so we move both from like this kind of cold indifference, this we'll have other things to do. I'm, I'm just too busy. And, uh, how many times do we really convince ourselves that we can justify our busyness when we feel the pull of the spirit that there is a need? We feel the pull of the gospel message because there's the gospel pressure to ensure that we are speaking truth and love to those around us. That we ourselves are responding to this invitation with our wholeheartedness, our mind, soul, and spirit, everything that we are, and we convince ourselves. Well, I just, you know, I have a lot going on right now. God, there's just so much that I need to do.  [00:26:34] Indifference Turns Violent [00:26:34] Jesse Schwamb: Now we get to verse six and things shift a little bit. Verse six reads, while the rest sees the servants and treated them shamefully and killed them. Now, what's interesting to me is the indifference, kinda just that cold lackadaisical ness of verse five escalates somehow into violence. In verse six, some of them invited not only ignore the servants, but actively persecute them. And so here we have them, basically are being told they treated them outrageously, shamelessly, they killed them, and, and that's really the language of the entire prophetic tradition, the killing of the prophets. In fact, this Greek word here is ris. It's a word for arrogance. Honor, violating, assault, a sin against the honor of both the messenger and the one who sent him both. Like the one who is the emissary and the one who grants power or vouch saves authority to that emissary. And so to assault the king's servant is of course, to come against the king, and this is an act of high treason. It's against the sovereign God of the entire universe. I, I like here something that Calvin notes about this kind of inexcusable aggregation of aggravation of Israel's sin. He writes, they not only rejected the grace, which was offered to them, but added cruelty to their contempt. That's incredible. Right? That's exactly what we do. We reject God. It's, it's of course like not only just taking all the gifts he gives us and pretending as if they're under our own authority or. Have been the result of our own talents or abilities. But instead, when we do this, we add cruelty to all of our contempt. And the reformed doctrine, of course, of total depravity is not merely the claim that humans are bad. It's the claim that following humanity left to itself moves progressively from the indifference. That we saw in the previous verse, verse five, two, hostility toward the living God in his gospel messengers, which we see in verse six. In other words, unless God constrain us, loved ones, that is the natural end of man to move from this place where I do not care about God till I hate him, and then I hate all those who represent him, all those who speak on his behalf. [00:28:46] Judgment On The City [00:28:46] Jesse Schwamb: And so the king's response here, as you might imagine, is one of anger. He's angry. He sends his troops and he destroys the scriptures, say those are murderers, and he burns their city. I mean, the verse is almost certainly this kind of pro prophecy filled in its intent and its content. It's I think, probably a transparent reference to the destruction of Jerusalem by Roman armies in 80, 70. And Matthew, even if we say he's writing after that event, or in like a conservative dating with prophetic anticipation, presents Christ as foreseeing and pronouncing the divine judgment upon the city. And this King's anger, of course, is not just, it's not anger that's looking for reciprocity. It's not just anger that's saying, this has made me upset and I'm responding viscerally and emotionally. It's not petulant rage. It is holy and righteous wrath of the sovereign whose grace has been despised and whose servants have been murdered. The destruction is complete. The murderers are destroyed, the city is burned to the ground, and there are foreign tradition kind of following. A covenantal hermeneutic, I think reads 80, 70 as this terminus of the old Covenant administration in many ways, and the judgment upon Nashville Israel for his rejection, for her rejection, rather of the Messiah, you know? While all of that is true, I think what this presents for us is a reminder of how serious our God's Holiness is. And that again, every time we sin, every time that we come against God and someone would challenge his authority as it were, either directly or indirectly, we put ourselves in the place of those who reject the gospel message. And in so doing, we ought to fall on our knees and ask for the kind of repentance that is necessary because we ourselves are putting our place, we're extending among. The murderers, and in this case, the, the message that Jesus has for those is only anger and again, is a righteous kind of anger. So one might imagine as we read in like the previous parables, that Jesus could have just entirely ended there. It almost sounds like we've drawn to a close.  [00:31:04] Invitation Rejected [00:31:04] Jesse Schwamb: Listen, there's a king. He has a wedding banquet for his son. He sent out last invitations. Nobody came. He goes to confronts the guests and not only do they say we're not interested, some of them are like, yeah, we burned all the invitations. And then the people that you sent to remind us, we killed those people. And it'll be right for the king to say. That's it. Everybody's done here. I'm shutting the whole thing down. And honestly, that could have happened in the garden. That could happen at the cross. Instead, we find something totally different. The parable goes on.  [00:31:33] Feast Still Happens [00:31:33] Jesse Schwamb: In fact, verse eight reads, then he said to his servants, the wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Notice loved ones that the feast does not get canceled. I mean, Christmas doesn't get canceled. It's just redirected. The king's purposes will not, cannot be frustrated, and this is a critical sociological and eschatological claim to me, at least. What we're seeing here is the refusal of the invited guests does not leave the wedding hall empty. Praise the Lord. It occasions the wider extension of the invitation.  [00:32:07] Gospel Offer Explained [00:32:07] Jesse Schwamb: And this idea of not worthy does not introduce a prior standard of merit by which the guests were found deficient. But instead, as you know, their unworthiness consists in their refusal To refuse the gospel is to demonstrate one's unworthiness of it. And so worthiness in this context is not some kinda like moral achievement, but it's a covenantal responsiveness. It's the openness of the creature to receive what the king graciously provides. It's why when we stand before God in the kind of judgment that we rightfully deserve, and he says something to the extent of, why should I let you into my heaven? Why should I let you enjoy eternal life with me? We should rightly say, because you promised. And because by the power of your Holy Spirit, through the faith you have given and instilled in me by this imputed righteousness, I can trust you at your promise. And so I think this verse is like so critical for understanding the well meant offer of the gospel. Again, we should together affirm that the gospel is offered to all without distinction, and that those who do not come are inexcusable. God does not will. The damnation of those who reject the gospel as a bare first intention, their damnation follows from their own culpable refusal.  [00:33:31] Mission To All Roads [00:33:31] Jesse Schwamb: And so the king says, listen guys, go out everywhere. Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding piece. As many as you find. I don't know how you're envisioning. If you were listening to this story and you were like setting the actual scene, but I don't know, to me, I just find them, the, the servants or the slaves that they look at it one another and they're just like s go time and they just turn around and start going everywhere to all the places, uh, to anyone who will listen to all the like, stops that there were on the byways. All the highways, all the roads. They're just going through all the places. Wherever the road takes 'em, that's where they're going. And all along the way they're spreading this mission, this invitation, and the mission now. Is universal in scope. The main roads, literally the, the exits, the outlets of all these places. The thoroughfares, where the roads branch out of the city and the highways diverge in the countryside. This is representing, of course, like the ends of the earth, the places where any and all may be found. And the command here to as many as you find to go to those is of course, like a command of universal scope. It's for you and me, loved ones there. There's no prior qualification, rich or poor, Jewish, gentile, moral or immoral. This is the missio day, breaking through all ethnic and social boundaries, and in this loving way, in this pastoral way, it underpins the free and indiscriminate offer of the gospel. Again, like going back to the Westminster Confession and the shorter catechism, affirming this covenant of grace that is administered by the preaching of the word. And no matter where you work, like reform theology from like William Cur, David Bernard, like to the modern missionary movement, we're drawing from this mandate of precisely this kind of universal commission. You know, it's like Spurgeon, I think once said something effect of like, Christ has done more than give a general invitation. He has given an urgent, pressing, commanding invitation to all something like that. And I always remember that because when I think about what it means to step into this role of fulfilling the great commission of understanding what Jesus is saying here, it's not just as if we're saying, listen, the world is in a dire place. This is an emergency situation. And so for all of us in our sphere of influence. To bring forward this message of the indiscriminate offer of the gospel is to take God at his word and then to deliver that word to all of those, all the highways, all the byways, all the outplace, every tribe, Tong, nation. What a glorious thing that our God has given us and put us on mission in this way so that no matter who we meet, we know we might say Jesus loves you, that Jesus has died for you. This is, I think, one of the things that those who maybe are new to the reformed tradition and the theological perspective. Find a little bit interesting to parse out, or maybe sometimes if you've had conversations like I have people think that we're parsing the words too much, but there's something to be said for the death of Jesus being sufficient for all and efficacious for the elect, that we're not simply splitting words. There we're describing very discreetly, very cogently, very crisply. This indiscriminate gospel message while at the same time recognizing that it's God's sovereign choice and will to draw those whom he will to himself. And so in verse 10.  [00:36:54] Good And Bad Gathered [00:36:54] Jesse Schwamb: These servants go out to the roads and they gather all whom they found both good and bad. And so the wedding hall, guess what was filled with guests, because this is God's sovereign prerogative because he can do all these things because even those who have denied him does not remove him from power. That he does all the verbs and so the servants obey and the results are comprehensive. They gather in all of these, and Matthew's quick to say both the good and the bad, and I think like the good and the bad pairing is significant. I don't think this is necessarily meaning that there's the morally virtuous and the morally depraved, though that probably is included somewhere. But I think this, this more, this reflection that, once again, it's all kinds of people. For God's to love the world that whomsoever, all of those who believe in him should not perish, but have eternal life. The wedding hall is filled, it was filled, and it's filled by God's sovereign action through human instrumentality.  [00:37:53] Visible And Invisible Church [00:37:53] Jesse Schwamb: And there is, like I'd say, if you're tracking with this, you should notice that there is a, a kinda a tension here. It sits between verses 10 and 11, and it's going to resolve the banquet hall is full. But you'll notice that it's not all within, well, not everybody who's within it are truly saved. And we'll get to why that isn't just a second. But the filling of the hall through the universal gospel summons does produce a mixed company. We've already talked about the parable of the terrors in the wheat before, so this, this should be news if you've been listening to us for a little while, but it's precisely the condition of the visible church in this age. Again, I just think it's fantastic that when we go to the scriptures, one of the reasons we know it's true is because God tells us the truth about the way things are. And we know that this is the way that the church is today. We would call this the visible versus the invisible church. And of course there's a distinguishing between the visible church, which consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion from the invisible church, which is the totality of the elect, those who God has actually called to himself. So the hole is full. But not all in the hall are clothed. And this is fascinating how Jesus brings in this idea of dressing of not, I mean, not what you put on your salad, a smorgasbord, but like what you're actually wearing.  [00:39:07] Wedding Garment Meaning [00:39:07] Jesse Schwamb: So in verse 11, but the king came in to look at the guests and he saw there a man who had no wedding garment. So notice that the parable scene here kind of shifts dramatically all of a sudden because the king arrives suddenly. He's present. He was speaking, he was giving instructions, he was preparing, he was a character, kind of chilling in the background. But now there's this eschatological moment the king's coming to inspect. The guests corresponds to this final judgment, and what he finds is there's a man without a wedding garment. He's at the center, I think of this parables, theological climax. So what, what is this wedding garment? I would put it to you like, as you're thinking through this and maybe interpreting listening for yourself, what do you think the wedding garment is? And I would say like what most reformed interpreters have been unified on is that this really represents that imputed righteousness, the the righteousness of Christ that's credited to the believer and received by faith alone. And so by a wedding garment, I would understand this to mean the purity and the holiness of that transforms and regenerated life, which is required of all those who are brought inside the true and invisible church. And though he immediately qualifies this as like righteousness, that is inseparable from justification. It is not earned, but it is received. In fact, I think, uh, I have my Logos Bible software up as I'm talking to you, and I see that Matthew Henry comments on this by saying, the righteousness of Christ is the robe of righteousness, the garment of salvation in which true believers are closed. I mean. That's a great turn of phrase, brothers and sisters. I love this idea of what the scriptures tell us elsewhere of putting on these garments of praise or worship, the garments of Christ, of being exchanged out as it were, for what is dirty and unsuitable for something that suits the occasion that is given to you to wear by faith alone. And of course, this wedding garment is not a work that the guest has produced, but it's a garment provided, uh, presumably like the king's servants actually supplied it. Uh, I, I think that's like a detail implied by the ancient custom and the severity of the guest condemnation for lacking it. It's almost as if the king is saying. Uh, like you were, should have been provided. Why did you not put this on? Why did by faith you not accept this? And this underscores the so gratia and so fide. The righteousness by which we stand before God on the last day is not our own, but Christ, it's received through faith. And the man without the garment represents those who presume to stand before God on the basis of their own righteousness. Whether that's religious profession. Moral achievement, charitable giving, mere church membership rather. And instead of. That alien and beautiful righteousness of Christ. So the fact that this man is inside the hall, you know, he's come in through the general call confirms that the parable addresses not only those outside the church, but those within it who lack genuine saving faith. It's almost, to me, kind of like an intra ecclesial warning. It's, it's not merely a missional observation. I think that is for all of us. It's why Paul elsewhere says. Check test, confirm to see whether you yourselves are in this faith because it is by faith that we put on these wedding garments which are appropriate and suitable for this great eschatological Messianic wedding feast with the lamb. [00:42:48] Speechless Before Judgment [00:42:48] Jesse Schwamb: So in verse 12, the king says to him, friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment? And notice the man's response. I, I almost find this kind of funny because he just says, and he was speechless. Like there was, there was nothing for him, uh, to, to say it all. And of course, like this question that's posed here, this, how did you get in here without the winning government? It's not a real question, right? It's not a question of genuine puzzlement. It's the same way in which when we find God walking in the cool of the day, in the garden after the sin of Adam and E, where he says, Adam, where are you? It's not a genuine question of a quizzical nature. It's instead, this rhetorical structure is God questions through judgments. And when he says to Cain, where is Abel your brother, where is Abel, your brother? He's exposing and he's condemning. He's not merely inquiring. And so this man in response, sensing this condemnation, discerning this condemnation, this judgment that's been brought against him, I think this is why the Greek says he was muzzled. He was silenced, his mouth was shut up. He had no answer. Uh, it's not because the question was unfair. But because there was just no legitimate words that he could bring there, there was no argumentation. In other words, there's no poll mic. There was no great debate that he could have. In this moment. Every mouth will be stopped before God. I mean, that's like Romans three. The silence of the ungodly before the Divine Tribunal is a consistent biblical theme, and we find it here. Again, this is the eschatological end to those who are condemned. No one loved ones is gonna stand before God on the last day and successfully argue their case on the ground of personal merit. I love William Perkins on this topic. He was apparently really moved. I learned by this verse and by what he saw in the silence as a profound warning against false assurance. So he actually wrote many a man in this world. Silence is his own conscience. With many fair excuse. Do you hear that? I, I love that turn of phrase. So we're talking about silence. It's about being silence, but I love how he says it's very easy to, to silence, not yourself, not like somebody coming against you with debate, but your own conscience. So he writes, again, many a man in this world will silence his own conscience with many a fair excuse. But in that day, there will be no excuse, no plea, no delay. So that time of plea is now, it's in this life. It's by faith and repentance, which is why there's an urgency to this gospel message. And so the king.  [00:45:17] Outer Darkness Warning [00:45:17] Jesse Schwamb: In hearing this and knowing that this man has no excuse for his outer attire, he says to him, listen to the servants. Bind him hand and foot, cast him into outer darkness. In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. The sentence is severe. It's total. Of the command is given to the servants and attendance maybe in this parable and parabolic form, likely the angelic executors of divine judgment and it is binding. It renders the condemned utterly helpless. It's a picture of total divine control over the destiny of the ate. He has cast into this outer darkness, outside the light and warmth of the banquet hall entirely. And I think it's incumbent upon us to take a second and to grieve the repercussions of what is being said here. That the death and destruction of the ATE should make us grieve. It should compel us to go out into the highways, the byways, and to share this message. Unreservedly. One of the ways we know really the full anguish of what this entails is this phrase, weeping and gnashing of teeth, actually occurs seven times in Matthew, and it functions as this refrain, this chorus, this common language of this eschatological condemnation, it combines interestingly in this wordplay here, both the anguish of grief with the rage of frustrated pride. It's a portrait, not of this just like regret, but continuing imp penitent, hostility against God and eternal punishment. And I think if Tony were here, he would agree with me that we have consistently affirmed the doctrine of eternal conscience punishment. You know, the Westminster Confession says, the wicked who know not God and obey not the gospel of Jesus Christ shall be cast into eternal torments. In other words, this outer darkness is not annihilation. The weeping and the gnashing continues. It implies an ongoing conscious existence. It's the image of a binding stands against the notion of this kind of postmortem repentance or universalism. The severity of that verse, I think, really must be allowed to stand in its canonical context without mitigation. The, the severity of this judgment ought to fill us with fear, not theological domestication. We, we shouldn't set this aside and be saying, well, this implies that there is nothing after that time. No, there continues to be only time with God in his presence, in eternal, consummate joy and harmony and peacefulness and celebration. Or there is literally. A weeping and a gnashing of teeth, an unresolved rage and anger where that is punished by God because he's absent where there's unmitigated pain and suffering because it is absent the presence and the mediation of God himself, who even now in this world, holds us back so that while we are sinful and we are not as bad as we could or ought to be because of his great kindness, all of us, even those. Who are not believers.  [00:48:37] Called Yet Chosen [00:48:37] Jesse Schwamb: And so because of that, it ends with these very famous in stock words in in verse 14, for many are called, but few are chosen. And that concluding aphorism is, I think, the theological linchpin of this entire thing. The contrast between this idea of called and chosen, you know, this is the vocabulary that is deliberately covenantal and elective, and we shouldn't shy away from that. Of course, it's referring to this external call, the universal proclamation of the gospel to all the hearers. The call is genuine, it's earnest, it's gentile, it's sufficient as an offer. It is the call that goes to all the highways, all who hear the gospel are truly called to repentance and faith. And for me, in my own journey of understanding what this means as God has allowed me to, that has been critical. This idea that this universal call means that it is sufficient as a call to repentance and faith for all those who hear it. And then it does become the responsibility of all those who hear it to respond to it. And so this idea then of this pairing then with the chosen and the elect is referring of course to those whom God has chosen from before the foundation of the world. The elect are those who not only receive the external call, but are effectually drawn by the eternal efficacious call of the Holy Spirit. We can look to Romans eight 30, those whom he predestined, he also called, and those whom he called, he also justified. And I say, because this is a Reformed Theological podcast, and this is what you came here for, I presume, brothers and sisters. Then it behooves us to at least mention again that the reformed tradition has classically distinguished between that external or general call, the sincere well meant proclamation of the gospel to all without distinction, inviting everybody to faith and repentance. That call is genuine on God's part and God's doing the verbs in that as well. And then again, we, we set that over in next two, the internal, what we call like effectual efficacious call. It's sovereign. It's irresistible work of the Holy Spirit by which the elect regenerated, have their will renewed and are infallibly brought to saving faith. All those whom God has predestined unto life and those only he's pleased in his appointed and accepted time to affectionately call by His word and his spirit out of the state of sin and death to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ. I was thinking recently of this idea of the narrow path and somewhere between like the scriptures there and pilgrim's progress, and paths and journeys. I had this image in my mind of the road on which we walk. And in this life, the natural man on that road encounters all these like intractable boulders, these things that cannot be traversed. These just great mountainous pieces of rock, which block the path. And so prevent us from at least accomplishing the thing that we would like. Like to live forever, to have peace with God, to be at peace with ourselves, to love our brothers and our sisters as much as we love ourselves to honor something that is greater than us. And those boulders are things like sin, death in the devil, which constantly invade us, which constantly thwart us, which constantly block us. And in Christ, what he has accomplished in salvation is not just, I think to remove those boulders, though that would've been good enough of course to just get them outta the way. Instead, it's as if he's taken them and he's crushed them, and now to the softest sand between our toes and we walk over them in victory by the power of his name through the Holy Spirit into eternal life. Into that grand wedding feast spoil, which we have been invited because he has done this because he loves us. And so verse 14 places these two realities side by side without resolving the tension. Philosophically, this is one of the great mysteries of theology. Uh, reformed theology does not collapse the distinction by limiting the external call to the elect alone as like maybe kind of a hyper Calvinist model, but it doesn't make the internal call dependent on a human decision. As like Armenian theology would instead, you know, the tension is, is biblical. This is here for us. It's here for us, because I believe that God wishes for us to submit our knowledge and our reasoning to him knowing that he is far and above us. And because this tension is biblical, it has to be maintained. The invitation is genuinely universal. The effectual drawing is sovereignly particular. How great is our God loved ones? There is no one like him. And so there's so much in this that I think we could spend all of the rest of our life thinking about, and that would be a noble, I was just thinking today that, um, you know, unless the Lord Terrys like, maybe this will be the last series me and Tony ever do, because there's so much that's rich and deep in these parables and there's so many of them, and the teaching of Christ is, is so complete of course, for us because it gives us everything that we need for life and salvation and godliness that. We find that the more that we look into them, the more that we ask the Holy Spirit to bathe us in a realization that comes from the spirit of God, the more that we will find. They challenge us. They encourage us. They equip us. So I'm thinking and praying for you all as I hope that you are for Tony and I as we continue to wrestle with these things as we continue to talk them out, because I'm asking God that he would equip us as we look at the teaching of his son in these parables with a firm understanding of the truth and equip us with his promises and with his encouragement so that. As he grows us in our faith, our faith for us would be like a thousand eyes and a thousand wings that we would find ourselves moving from glory to glory. Because we see in these parables the great work of God for us. What he has accomplished through his son and how he continues to be for us and the son who is given for us is with us. That we have his Holy Spirit within us and who discerns the mind of God, accept the spirits of God. So love us. Let's continue to get after what's being said in these parables here because there's so much for us here.  [00:55:14] Living The Commission [00:55:14] Jesse Schwamb: And might I add, just to tack onto the end, there's also so much for the world. I know that we're quick to say, or like colloquially Christians have said in the past like, Jesus is the answer, but you I think cannot necessarily fault the world for sometimes asking, well, what is the question? And unless we go forward with this proper understanding that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. That all are in need of this savior and that this gospel message is for, in fact, for all people without reservation. Full stop. I guess I ask for you and I and Tony who's editing this episode, are we going out into the highways and byways? What is the proof of the pudding in the eating look like when we examine our lives, but with specifically our finances and our time and our prayer closet and our service? Aren't we in fact concerned with the great commission that is reflected here? Are we concerned with the emergence and urgent need of this gospel message, which is for all people because God so loved the world that he gave his only forgotten son. That whosoever shall believe in him will not per but have everlasting life.  [00:56:27] Community And Support [00:56:27] Jesse Schwamb: So come hang out with us. Come talk about this parable. You know where to go. But I'm gonna tell you anyway because that's what we do. If you go to your browser, type in T Me Back slash Reform Brotherhood, t Me Back slash Reform Brotherhood, that link will take you to an app called Telegram. Telegram is just a messaging app. It's like, I dunno, iMessages for Apple or whatever you Android people are using these days. And there's just a little community that we've sectioned off there. And it's a community of listeners to the Reform Brotherhood who are talking about all kinds of things. You, you wanna be in that group? It is. It is a great group. Don't, don't reject the invitation. Don't reject it. Just, just come. I know you're thinking, listen, I got land. I got commerce I gotta deal with. That's fine. Come, come and join us. So go to t.me/reform brotherhood. One last thing. I would be remiss if I didn't thank all of those who make sure that this podcast still goes out to all the highways and the byways of the internet. That there is no Jericho paywall around it because it does cost money to put out there all the subscriptions, all the distribution. It's surprising, but there are. Intense fees with a lot of that stuff, and so I wanna say thank you, thank you, thank you to those who have listened and said, you know what? I would like to make sure. That this continues to go on. I've been blessed just by the conversation. God has done something here because again, he does all the verbs. Tony and I do zero verbs, and so because of that, they've gone to patreon.com Reform Brotherhood, and they've just decided to give a little bit of the kindness of their heart and generosity to the Lord. So if you're thinking, you know what? I've been listening for a while, and I do appreciate that this just magically, as it were, pops up in my feed and I continue to listen to it. Would you please consider helping us? Uh, Tony and I and so many other listeners who give a little bit just to make sure that together we can keep this thing going strong. And again, you can just go to patreon.com/reform brotherhood. There's also a website, uh, reform brother.com and all kinds of other fun stuff. But I will leave that to you. I, I didn't even bring it up. See, I'm just so glad that you mentioned it yourself 'cause it would've been awkward otherwise.  [00:58:31] Final Blessing [00:58:31] Jesse Schwamb: So loved ones. There are still so many more parables to go. They're all so good. So I hope that you all come back and join us next time as we continue to move through these parables. But until then, there's something that you should definitely do honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. 
• Matthew 21: The Kingdom Transfer from Israel to the Church 18.05.2026 1ч 8мин

  In this profound exploration of Matthew 21:40-46, Tony Arsenal and Jesse Schwamb unpack the Parable of the Wicked Tenants and its devastating indictment of Israel's religious leadership. The hosts navigate the complex theological terrain of kingdom transfer, covenant faithfulness, and the identity of God's people across redemptive history. With careful attention to the text's original context and its implications for the church today, they examine how Christ presents himself as the rejected cornerstone—the one upon whom people either fall in repentance or are crushed in judgment. This episode offers rich insights into supersessionism, the remnant theology of Romans 11, and the practical call for Christians to examine whether they're submitting to Christ as the true cornerstone or attempting to usurp his rightful place. Key Takeaways The Self-Condemning Verdict: The chief priests and Pharisees unknowingly pronounce judgment upon themselves when they declare the wicked tenants deserve destruction, demonstrating how the natural conscience can discern God's justice even when blind to personal complicity. Kingdom Transfer as Covenant Transition: The "taking away" of the kingdom represents not the abandonment of God's elect remnant but the historical-redemptive transition from the typological Old Covenant administration to the New Covenant church gathered from all nations. The Cornerstone's Double Judgment: Christ as the cornerstone presents two modes of encounter—those who fall upon him in repentance are broken but healed; those upon whom he falls in final judgment are ground to powder with no remedy. Visible vs. Invisible Church Distinction: The visible identification of God's people shifted from the geopolitical nation of Israel to the universal church, while the invisible elect have always been saved by grace through faith in the coming Messiah. Fear of Man vs. Fear of God: The Pharisees' restraint from seizing Jesus due to fear of the crowds (rather than fear of God) exemplifies how the wicked are dominated by human opinion rather than divine accountability. Infant Baptism and Covenant Community: The joyful inclusion of children in the visible covenant community through baptism reflects God's gracious promise sealed to those who contribute nothing to their own covenant status. Fruit-Bearing as Evidence: The "new tenants" are characterized not by works-righteousness but by evidential fruit—the genuine works that flow from "true and lively faith" worked by the Holy Spirit. Key Concepts The Irony of Self-Condemnation The theological and pastoral power of this parable reaches its climax when the religious leaders, failing to perceive themselves as the wicked tenants in Jesus's story, pronounce harsh judgment upon the hypothetical villains: "He will bring those wretches to a wretched end." This moment mirrors Nathan's confrontation of David after the Bathsheba affair, yet with a tragic difference—these leaders never experience David's repentance. Calvin observes that the natural conscience, even when blind to personal guilt, retains an "hidden impulse to identify with justice." The Pharisees demonstrate total depravity in high definition: they possess enough moral clarity to recognize egregious covenant-breaking in the abstract, yet remain entirely blind to their own embodiment of that very wickedness. This irony serves as both judgment and warning—we all possess an uncanny ability to see sin clearly everywhere except in the mirror. Kingdom Transfer: Covenant Continuity and Discontinuity The phrase "the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing its fruit" requires careful theological handling to avoid both replacement theology (in its pejorative sense) and dispensational fragmentation. The Reformed understanding maintains covenant continuity: there has always been one people of God, defined not ethnically but by faith in the Messiah. What changes is the visible administration of the covenant. Under the Old Covenant, the visible church was largely coterminous with ethnic Israel—a geopolitical reality with boundaries, a zip code, and national identity. Under the New Covenant, the visible church explodes these ethnic and geographic boundaries, fulfilling God's promise to Abraham that "in your seed all nations will be blessed." This is not Plan B; it's the eschatological unveiling of what was always intended. The "breaking off of natural branches" (Romans 11) refers to covenant unfaithfulness resulting in exclusion from visible covenant privileges, while the faithful Jewish remnant—the apostles, early believers, and the ongoing elect from Israel—remain fully incorporated into the church. The vineyard hasn't been abandoned; it's been opened to "other tenants" who will render the proper fruit: Gentiles grafted in alongside believing Jews into the one olive tree of God's redemptive purposes. The Cornerstone: Salvation or Destruction Christ's invocation of Psalm 118:22—"the stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone"—followed by his dual judgment ("whoever falls on this stone will be broken...on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust") presents two exhaustive options for relating to Jesus. The cornerstone in ancient construction was the foundational stone by which all other stones found their proper alignment and orientation. To fall upon this stone willingly—in repentance, faith, and self-abandonment—is painful. It shatters pride, self-righteousness, and autonomy. But this breaking leads to healing, to being properly "squared" and aligned with reality as God has constructed it. The alternative is catastrophic: to have the cornerstone fall upon you in final eschatological judgment is to experience irreversible, total destruction—being "ground to powder" with no possibility of remedy. The practical application is urgent: we must examine ourselves continually to ensure we're not attempting to be our own cornerstone, measuring righteousness by our own standards, aligning the universe to ourselves rather than submitting to Christ as the measure of all things. Memorable Quotes "There's never a time where that righteousness is removed or unapplied, but we are constantly faced with a choice as to whether we want to be the kind of people who render our fruit unto the Lord, as the faithful tenants when the unfaithful tenants are replaced. Or do we wanna be the people that reap wicked fruit and keep for ourselves?" — Tony Arsenal "The vineyard of God is still let out, the fruit is still demanded, the cornerstone is still laid. Blessed are they who receive him—and also get those babies into church." — Jesse Schwamb "This is not a wall you're gonna run through. Like you're gonna smash into this wall and it's gonna crush you. And if you are not properly assigning the cornerstone its place... the whole thing is gonna crush you." — Tony Arsenal Full Episode Transcript [00:01:05] Jesse Schwamb: Welcome to episode 492 of The Reformed Brotherhood. I'm Jesse.  [00:01:14] Tony Arsenal: And I'm Tony. And this is the podcast with ears to hear. Hey brother.  [00:01:18] Jesse Schwamb: Hey brother.  [00:01:19] Parable Recap [00:01:19] Jesse Schwamb: Well, the time has finally come for us to close out our discussion in Matthew 21. This is the Parable of the Vine growers, and everybody should just go back and list everything we said so far, but I think here's how we could sum it up. Jesus's authority gets challenged and he sets a trap so beautiful that we should put it into a museum. He tells basically the religious bigwigs, this whole story where tenants speed up servants, they kill the air. They generally behave like it's an HOA literally run by the devil. And then he asks them this question, so what should the owner of the vineyard do And the chief priest. Chest puffed up. Basically shout out the answers to their own indictment. Smoke 'em. Give the vineyard to somebody who isn't garbage. Listen fellas, you just preached your own funeral. So in this we get to see this total depravity in 4K. Sovereign grace skips the credential gatekeepers and it lands on the tax collectors and the gentiles. They elect the vineyard, the self-righteous, get the rock. And we're gonna close out what all of that means, including probably not a small amount of talk about the kingdom being transferred, whatever that means, and maybe a little engrafting. Aah, Romans 11 style. It's all there for us. And that is what is coming up. [00:02:34] Affirmations Setup [00:02:34] Jesse Schwamb: Of course before we can do any of that, we can't even get there. Tony, before we do affirmations, denials, you and I both know it's our contractual obligation. It's what the people want all over the world. If we skip this, there will be some kind of riot revolt. So we gotta start there. Let's not get too excited yet. So I'm curious as always, are you affirming with something or you not against something for this episode?  [00:02:58] Tony Arsenal: I am, I'm affirming, uh, this is gonna be like people are gonna grow and roll their eyes a little bit.  [00:03:04] Infant Baptism Joy [00:03:04] Tony Arsenal: I'm affirming infant baptism today. We had a lovely infant baptism at church, um, and a couple recently had a child. Um, there's been, this was a kind of a particularly, um, poignant baptism. Um, the, the mother was in the hospital for several weeks before the baby was born, um, with some medical challenges, so was in. In the hospital. In the hospital for like, I want to say probably four weeks, which is a long time. Um, they have several other children, which makes it even harder. Um, and then, uh, then the baby was in the hospital for quite some time. He came a little early and then had some other issues. Um, and so this family was out of church for quite some time dealing with these health issues, and we, we all miss them very much. So it was a very sweet moment. Um, and it's just a, a good reminder, right? And, and the way our church does it is, you know, the pastor, the family comes up, they do vows, they do the baptism, but he calls all the children forward and the children come and sit, uh, right in the front row and they watch this all happen. Um. Which is, is very sweet. And you know, I, I went up there with Augie, and Augie was sitting on my lap and he was very, he was like super locked into this, this whole thing, which is, uh, which was nice to see. So I'm affirming infant baptism. It's a beautiful, beautiful picture of the gospel. Um, it's, it's God's promise being sealed to someone who contributes nothing to, um, to that promise contributes nothing to, uh, their own, um, position in the church or status in the church. They contribute nothing. Um, in most cases they're not even aware of what's going on. So I know not all of our listeners are, uh, are covenant infant Baptists, uh, type people. Um, so yes, I get it. You disagree, but there is something just sweet and beautiful, uh, even I think even for people who aren't quite sold on infant baptism. Um, and I think even sometimes for people who are kind of opposed to infant baptism, I think we've commented in the PA past that there's kind of this impulse that I think all Christian parents have that their children should be. Treated in a certain way that's different than how a non-Christian family treats their children. Right. Um, so there is kind of this instinct that the, there's, whether it's a formal status or just sort of a, a way of thinking about things, there is this impulse that the children of believers are somehow set apart in different, and of course, the, the Presbyterian Covenant Baptist, um, position would, would formalize that through the rite of baptism, uh, at least in part. So I'm affirming infant baptism, both theologically, but also just experimentally today. Like it was just, it was just a balm to my soul to see this, um. And like I said, the congregation has been praying for a long time for the health, uh, and the, the welfare of this family, um, and been, you know, doing meal trains and all the stuff that churches do. But it was, it was a very sweet moment, um, to see the pastor scoop this little baby up in his arms and be able to sort of introduce him to the church as the newest covenant member of the congregation. Uh, it was just a very nice moment. [00:05:59] Baptism Dedication Common Ground [00:05:59] Jesse Schwamb: I think you're right. We can all agree that there's something really beautiful about God growing his church, at least the visible church, through just the multiplicative effect of. People having children, there's something beautiful about that, and then welcoming them in an official way into your congregation, into your midst. Interestingly, in my church, there was a baby dedication today and I was also equally moved though like I would say the promises that were invoked during that time, the equipment's made are very different than what you might hear during kind of pedo infant baptism. You're right in that the spirit of this that is like a representation kind of bringing forward of the child to say he or she is part of us and we're making a commitment to raise them in admonition of the Lord is a really lovely thing. It's like a public recognition that God is providing a manifest blessing in our midst, and that he is growing and working out his church and he's doing it by just bringing new people into it who are being, who are the subjects of procreation. Creation itself, but procreation and how can you not be like, just excited about that. And, and also a little bit like it's also, and I'm not trying to denigrate any practice here, but also just on the face also super adorable. Like when you, when you see a pastor scoop up, like you said, a little child, whether that's to pray with them and dedication or to baptize them. Either way, it's super just like lovely and just pulls in your heartstrings. Yeah. In like this very spiritual way, not just in kind of an emotional kind of way.  [00:07:26] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, I don't, I think, um, when I think back, you know, Augie's, obviously you know this, but Augie was dedicated, um, Addie was not. Um, but when I think back to the vows we took, when we dedicated Augie, there are some differences, but there's also a lot that's not different like the sure close to like, raise up your child in the church and to like, pray for them and set a good example. And then, and then the sort of reciprocal vows that the congregation typically takes, that the congregation will do what they can to support the family as they, they raise this child and the Lord. Um, you know, even in, even in a lot of contexts, like in the Presbyterian church, I'm in like prayers that this, this child would come to know Jesus and would, would come to confess the faith for themselves and become a full, you know, full communicate member of the church. Like, those things are all present. So as much as I think, um. As much as I wanna acknowledge that infant baptism or, or covenant, I, I say covenant baptism versus, um, sort of like baptist theology writ, large credo Baptist theology, which is covenantal, but differently covenantal in most cases. Right. Um, even though that is a dividing line, and I think like it's a real dividing line. There's a real division that exists and that there's good theological historical reasons why those divisions exist. There still is so much that is the same. Um, in terms of how Baptists and, and Presbyterians or however formed, you know, PR Christians, um, re reflect on and think about their children. There's some differences, but in terms of like. We all want our children to come to know Jesus. We all want their first memory to be worshiping in the church and loving the Lord. We, we don't want them to ever remember a time where the name of Christ was not on their lips as their savior. Um, all those things are the same and even the, the way we promise before God and, and primarily before God, but before others, even the way we promise to nourish them in, in right doctrine and nourish them in good teaching and bring them into the church and, and set a faithful example. All of those things are the same. So I I I, I never want to diminish the fact that there are differences 'cause there are real differences and there are important differences. But I also think we often sort of like. I think because we've talked about this before, like Reformed Baptists and Presbyterians are so close that we have to bicker over the things that are different. It's like you're, it's like when you fight with your brother on whose side of the room it's on. Like you're so close that you have to find the little things to really bicker about and then you really, really bicker about them. And I think that kind of like describes the, the Presbyterian Baptist divide in a lot of ways. I know there's a lot of people that would say like, Lutherans are closer to Presbyterians and those people are just, I dunno, they're just wrong. Um, on, on, maybe on baptism, they're, they're not wrong. But in terms of general theological principles, like, you know, Westminster Confession, London Baptists, confession, like, it, it's 95% the same content. Sure. Um, and 95% like the same confession, not just the same like words, but the same meaning of the words. And, um, so yeah. Anyway, that's my affirmation. Infant baptism. It was a joy. I was happy to see it. Um, uh, we have a ton of little, little babies in the, the church. It's funny 'cause another, another, um. A couple announced today that they were expecting, and we've, we've had basically pregnant women in the church for, you know, obviously like at least nine months if someone is still pregnant. But like we've had, we've had this like rotation of, of women delivering babies for like, at least, probably, at least 16, 18 months of, of constantly having people who are, are expecting, which is really a great joy to see. So I, I love it. I love the church. I love the Presbyterian church. Um, and this was just another great example of, of the beauty of, uh, a robust confessionalism and a robust presbyterianism. [00:11:08] Jesse Schwamb: The way in which you said that made it sound like you're about to make like a grand historical statement. Like, we've had pregnant people in the church since the first century.  [00:11:18] Tony Arsenal: Well, I mean that's probably true, but  [00:11:19] Jesse Schwamb: yeah, it definitely  [00:11:20] Tony Arsenal: true. Not, not our church. Our church has only been around, our particular church has only been around for like 10 years, so I'm sure there have been times during that period where there were not pregnant people  [00:11:29] Jesse Schwamb: pregnant. It just sounded like we were going all the way back as if like to, again emphasize and maybe this isn't, this is as fair statement, like how faithful God has been like from the beginning. There's always been. Pregnant lady Church. Look, look at how faithful God is.  [00:11:42] Mic Grabbing Babies [00:11:42] Jesse Schwamb: And, and this is true, I like to play this game when there is a baby dedication. I'm not sure what the sound system is like in your church, but often our, our pastors wear like the tiny little like Backstreet Boys style. It's probably outdated reference, but microphone that comes over the ear and to the mouth and it's very discreet. But the game I like to play is like once, once he takes the child for a time of dedication or specifically prayer, the, the goal is to see like how long before that baby goes for the mic. Because as soon as like a baby sees a mic right there, it's like, oh yeah, this is the best thing that's happened to me in my tiny little life.  [00:12:20] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, it's like an angler fish is really what it is. Yes. It's like that glowing bulb that just sits in front of its face and it's, the baby's just gotta grab it. [00:12:27] Jesse Schwamb: It's just too tempting. It's just too tempting. And I, and I love, you can tell like our pastors are really adept at being able to keep the prayer going and like discreetly maneuver the child, keep the child happy. It's, it's really an amazing thing. So altogether, I'm totally with you on so many levels. It's so good to see that happen in the church. And I'm with you on that. We gotta take joy in that For sure.  [00:12:48] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Jesse, what do you got for us tonight?  [00:12:50] Book Breath Pick [00:12:50] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, something that's entirely unlike everything you just said. Certainly. Well, maybe, I guess there is a large spiritual component to this, but it's, I would say, for me, totally unexpected book recommendation and I came across this 'cause it was recommended to me and a while back, the keen or the listener who's been with us for a really long time, or a member that we talked about the book or why we sleep, this book became for me, like the equivalent of that in a totally different kind of topic or genre. It's called breath. The New Signs of a Lost Art by James Nestor and it explores how the way that humans breathe profoundly affects our health, our performance, our longevity. It's a book that is filled with both science and pseudoscience, which the author is really good at distinguishing and calling you to think about those things. But it's really totally changed how I understand like this little pattern in Habits of breathing. And it's a really interesting book of course. Like he draws from a lot of like religious influences, including of course the Judeo-Christian one. And I think that it even drew me back to understanding how God created us. And he did in a very specific way that text's giving some great description to the breadth that he gives us and how he gives us that breath. So if you're looking, I guess, for a little bit of a read, so that might surprise you about something that you might thought was automatic and simple in life and also that might. Be able to bring you some recommendations on how to better your health. Again, we're not doctors, but we are routinely considered among the top 50 healthcare podcasts. Then I would say this would be an interesting book for you to check out.  [00:14:19] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. I haven't read it, but it's been recommended to me and one of the, one of the takeaways, actually, I think it might have been my doctor, my my PCP who mentioned this to me is like, if you wanna improve your health drastically, like just make it a practice of breathing through your nose. Yes. Like something that simple and straightforward has pretty significant health impacts of like. Like the way that your brain processes breath when it comes through your nose, the way that like, there's more filtering that happens with breath, so the air that gets to your lungs is cleaner. There's just a lot of, um, I haven't read it. I've, I think I actually have it somewhere, but I have not read it yet. Um, I, I should, I should take a look at it. I, I've heard good things about it.  [00:15:01] Jesse Schwamb: At the very least, if you're a Christian, it'll cause you to marvel again. That's how beautifully complex God has made the human body and how it seems entirely impossible that anyone could even logically reasonably conclude that somehow we are just time plus matter, plus chance, and that all these things got worked out. I don't wanna spoil some of the punchline. A part of the book is about this. Breathe through your nose, which you might think was just kind of an innocuous decision. Breathe through your nose, breathe your mouth. How, how different could it be? They actually do an experiment where they plug their noses, the author and somebody else for, uh, several, like 10 days straight. And do all these these things under medical supervision to see what the impact is. And I'll leave you to read it so you can hear that. There's also something fascinating, absolutely fascinating about carbon dioxide and a study that's done where they actually have people inhale a little bit of carbon dioxide and what it does to the body. In other words, like the system that God has put into play to ensure that the body gets the kind of right amount of oxygen that it needs and how it functions when it's given the warning side of carbon dioxide, even when. Your lung capacity and your oxygen, your blood doesn't change. There's a fascinating section on that. So I didn't expect to be this interested in the book and generally I take a little time before I recommend a book. I finished this a couple weeks ago and I'm still thinking about it. So, and I'm trying to put some things into practice, including I try to do some running and for the longest time I just thought, well, when you run, like even at any like moderate speed, like you have to breathe through your mouth, this book challenges some of that. So lo and behold, I went out and started to try just a little bit to see if I could just breathe through my nose. It turns out it's totally possible, like all this time I just thought that was impossible, like God didn't make us that way, and it's actually improving how I feel when I run and the running that I'm able to do. So I am surprised, I, I'm shocked by all this, and it's just as simple as understanding breath. Who would've guessed.  [00:16:56] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. I mean, I've heard it's a great book. I, I, I. It never ceases to amaze that the, the more we look at the human body, the more we look at God's creation, the more we see the fingerprints of our creators. So not, not  [00:17:07] Jesse Schwamb: right.  [00:17:07] Tony Arsenal: Sounds like a great book. I can't recommend it from personal experience, uh, although I've heard very good things.  [00:17:12] Reading Matthew 21 [00:17:12] Tony Arsenal: So, Jesse, I think we should probably just get into it because this is now week three of, uh, one week episode and, uh, we want to wanna dig in and we wanna wrap it up so we can move on to the next best thing out there, which is of course, the parables of Christ. [00:17:26] Jesse Schwamb: Let's get some. So I'm gonna read for us starting in verse 40 because if you've been tracking then you've already been with us through the first part of this parable, and it's notoriously or variously called parable the vine growers, or I kinda like the husband men, just because that's fun to say, and you don't get to drop husband men like very often. But vine dressers, vine growers, vine workers, it's all the same. But here's starting in verse 40. This is after Jesus has already explained the parable. He set it up for them and he's gonna bring for the indictment. So Jesus says, and therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to these vine growers? They said to him, he will bring those wretches to a wretched end and he will rent out the vineyard to other vine growers who will pay him the proceeds at the proper seasons. Jesus said to them, did you never read in the scriptures the stone, which the builders rejected? This has become the chief cornerstone. This came about from the Lord in his, marvelous in our eyes. Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruit of it. And he who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust. And when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they understood that he was speaking about them. And although they were seeking to seize him, they feared the crowds because they were guarding him to be a prophet.  [00:18:48] Irony Blind Leaders [00:18:48] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, that, that last little section here is just such, it's like dripping with such irony,  [00:18:53] Jesse Schwamb: so good  [00:18:54] Tony Arsenal: that like they, they are so blinded by their own, um, I dunno, ambition isn't, maybe isn't even the right word, but something in that, that neighborhood, they're so blinded by their desire to. Maintain their own status quo, their own uh, their own status. That they fear the crowds because the crowds hold them to be a prophet,  [00:19:15] Jesse Schwamb: right?  [00:19:16] Tony Arsenal: When in reality, like there is a prophet in their midst and much more than a prophet, uh, and they can't see it because of their own blindness. So I'm stoked to get into it. This is such, like we said, this is such a, like on the nose, paril, it's crazy. This is so much like, you know, Nathan's, you are the man kind of parable. Like yes, that's right, except there never is a, you are the man moment for them. They never get it, which is. Stunning. Like I, I, it just sort of is like, I don't even know what to make of that. [00:19:41] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. There is like a wild blindness. I've been thinking about that a lot in our past conversations, but it culminates here. These chief priests and elders, I would say strangely, but I think that this is probably true of all of us, and maybe especially me, perhaps not yet, like perceiving themselves to be the vine growers here in view, they render this verdict of severe justice. It seems like you, you wanna say to them? Like, guys, guys, pull up, hold up a second. Yeah. Take a step back before you overreact here, because you're about to condemn yourselves and in the Greek here, this expression like, miserably destroy these wicked men. Or it gets like this double wretched in our translations. Mostly he will bring those wretches to a wretched end. It's this rhetorical intensification. It's incredible. And I, I think there's at least like two truths here. That come to my mind. One is, we've talked about before, but is in line with what you're saying, that the natural conscience, when not even aware of its own complicity, can still discern the justice of God's judgments. So here are these men who are so prone almost, I think what Calvin says elsewhere, like that we have this hidden impulse to identify with justice. Even when we can't see that we are the ones perpetrating something of injustice, still we can't help but cry out. We can't even help but identify it. And here they. Accurately identify it. And even though they're putting themselves exactly in the cross here, they cannot help but basically cry out that how egregious this behavior is of these vine growers that Jesus has basically, you know, created in this hypothetical environment, even still there, they're filled with rage and the rage gets turned on them. So the Pharisees here, of course, function as this unwitting witness to the righteousness of God's wrath against covenant breakers, even though they, they don't see it.  [00:21:29] Kingdom Transfer Talk [00:21:29] Jesse Schwamb: Uh, the second thing I think that comes to my mind, and maybe this is like more to the point, is that. The verse foreshadows this transfer of the kingdom from the Jewish nation to a new people that would bring forth its fruits, which I realize if I bring that up right now, that we've just committed to like six episodes just on that topic probably. But yeah, but like, we're gonna have to come to it because there's so much here. And the phrase of this, like, let out his vineyard unto other vine growers or husbandman, it does to me like anticipate this calling of the Gentiles and the formation of the Christian Church and in, in this way. It's not to me. The abandonment of the elect, remnant of Israel, but it is like the breaking off of the natural branches and then this engrafting of the wild olive shoots that come through like Allah, Romans 11. So it's, it's not like from one nation to another simply, but from like the carnal seed to a spiritual seed gathered out of all the nations, that that's wild. Right? I, I think that's all in view here. And it's like a kind of a crazy thing to say. It's certainly like a wild thing to say, no pun intended. And I imagine like, unexpected thing to say.  [00:22:38] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.  [00:22:40] Supersessionism Clarified [00:22:40] Tony Arsenal: Let's think about that a little bit because I think too, there's, there's almost an element of, um. Man, I'm gonna get a lot of flack for saying this. You're, there's almost like a legitimate replacement theology here, right? Like replacement theology. I got covenant theology, you know, reformed, um, reformed theology often gets slandered as, you know, supersessionism or replacement theology, uh, with this idea that like, it's, it's interest. Uh, you have to have dispensational presuppositions for that phrase to even make sense because like the reformed paradigm is that there is one people of God full stop. And yes, like the identity of the one people of God seems to sort of like morph from the Jewish national people to now like Jews and Gentiles and actually predominantly Gentiles in the scope of like the whole history of the church. But what I mean by this is like, there's a visible church in the Old Testament, in the old, under the old Covenant, and the visible church under the old covenant is the national people of, of Israel. Right. By and large. Right. Um, and there are, there are sort of like Gentile, um, Clingons, not like the Star Trek people, but like gentile, like attachments to that throughout the history of, of Old Testament, um, theology. Um. That visible, that visible identification of this is the people of God being the Jewish people. Uh, these are the people that are the vineyard, the, they're the, the owner or the tenants of the vineyard or the, the visible Jewish people of the geopolitical nation of Israel under the old covenant that does sort of like get superseded by the church in the church age, in the new covenant,  right?  [00:24:24] Tony Arsenal: But where, where Supersessionism or the accusation of Supersessionism goes wrong is that there is this distinction between the visible and invisible church. And that distinction is what prevents us from being like, sort of like true replacement theologians in the way that the, the dispensationalist wanna paint us. So I, I think you're right that there is a lot to say here about the fact that, um, and, and this is where it gets, um. We have to be careful systematically. Right. God, God doesn't have to pivot. He doesn't have like a plan B. It's not like the Gentiles are the plan B, but there is a sense in almost in which the way that this is presented, the way that it appears in the scriptures is actually, yeah, there is almost like this plan B, like there is the geopolitical ethnic people of, of Israel, the Jewish people under the old covenant. And, and they don't do what they're supposed to do. They don't follow the terms of their covenant. They don't accept the kingdom that is bequeathed to them under the terms of the old covenant. And they, they reject that kingdom because of a disobedience. And, and I think what Christ here is narrowing in on is it's not just disobedience, right? It's not sort of like, um, accidental ancillary disobedience. It's not generalized disobedience. It is this sort of like usurpation of God's rightful status as the ruler and king of the nation. That's right. The the people, the, the Pharisees. And the chief priests and the scribes and the Sadducees, they want to be the rulers of the nation. They want to, they, they seem to wanna take the place of God, at least as far as Christ is presenting it. In this, they wanna usurp the kingdom. They want to take the heirs, uh, rightful inheritance, and they want to claim it for themselves. That is not a generalized disobedience, it's a special t type of covenant unfaithfulness that causes God to causes and kind of air quotes that causes God to hand over the kingdom to another people. Right. Partially, I think, uh, we don't need to get into Romans, the Romans 11 stuff, but partially I think because that's actually the way that he's going to ultimately save the Jewish people, right, is by sort of making, making them jealous of the Gentiles. Like there's a, there's a real element of that, that the salvation of the Gentiles is actually for, in some sense is for or unto the salvation of the Jewish people or the, the faithful Jewish remnant that's all here. And, and you can't really get past that in this parable. Um, this is why I think a, a lot of dispensationalist, um, uh, some of the classic dispensational sources would actually see like this, this is not for the Jewish church. This, this is for the Gentiles. This is actually part of the parentheses, um. You know, and, and again, dispensationalist divide all that stuff up differently, but this is a really interesting section for us to talk about that we can't, we can't just gloss over that. [00:27:11] Jesse Schwamb: I certainly don't mean to imply that it's wild because it's unexpected. I think it's wild because interestingly, the Pharisees, the teachers here, they challenge Jesus authority and his response to that is to challenge their covenant faithfulness.  [00:27:24] Tony Arsenal: Right?  [00:27:25] Jesse Schwamb: So it's not just if he turns it around, he uses this opportunity to explain what's going to happen to them as those who are, like you said, were supposed to be representative. And I think critically like the qualifying phrase. That that's using the text here, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons. That's like really important because these new vine growers are characterized by their fruitfulness. So this is not like a doctrine of works righteousness, but it's evidential fruit. And that's why, and I had to look this up and the Westminster Confession confession, chapter 16, good works are quote the fruits and evidences of true and lively faith, which I love. I was trying to find that language true and lively faith. So the visible church under that new administration is identified by the fruits of repentance, faith, and obedience worked out by the Holy Spirit. Again, I think that's all that is in view here, that that's a lot to say. But you know, famously, like you've kind of intimated, when we go back to the Old Testament, even we find when the Israelites leave triumphantly from Egypt, that they're accompanied by those outside of Israel. We find that other characters like Grh who continually want to identify with a Yahweh whom God is saving and drawing onto himself and here is kind. Him, Jesus, at least representing as the son of God. That kind of cli climactic view. Speaking from the prophet register again saying, this is what I was saying to Abraham. I said, like from your seed, all these nations in this spiritual sense will be gathered out. So there'll be a single nation as it were in Christ. And even now, I'm telling you, I'm breaking down those boundaries. But I think to your point, importantly Tony, in part because you have failed in the covenant promises and you who were to represent and to heed and to lead, have fallen down. And so now you're gonna trip over this stone and it's going to crush you. And as a result of that, the vine, the vine growers will be, or the vineyard itself will be turned over to those who bear this true and lively fruit.  [00:29:22] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.  [00:29:23] Israel Failure Remnant [00:29:23] Tony Arsenal: There's an interesting, um. There's an interesting dynamic here that actually strikes me as kind of similar. It's a little bit more opaque, but similar to, uh, like Joseph in, uh, in Egypt, right when his brothers come and he says, you meant this for evil, but God meant it for good. Mm-hmm. There's a, there's an element of here, we've talked about the parables. That's sort of like systematic theology in story form. Um, there's a reality here that it's both true, that God always intended for the kingdom to be expansive and, and to expand beyond the nation of Israel. To be this universal, global lowercase c Catholic, universal church universal in the sense that it's not bound by any particular nation, by any particular geopolitical reality. Um. That's true, but it's also true that the reason, uh, on a sort of like horizontal level that that's true is that Israel failed. Right? It so God always intended for Israel to fail, yet Israel is responsible for the fact that they failed. Yes, that's right. Um, and, and, and again, we, we, we sort of commented on this before, like there are some in our broader reformed circles that turn this into a sort of antisemitism, like a sort of hatred for the Jewish people. And I don't think, I don't think that there's any warrant in scripture for that. In fact, I think scripture speaks strongly against that. Is that, um. Not necessarily because there's any particular unique special affection that God has for Israel, like, like the modern Jewish people, but, but that, like racism in general is prohibited by the Bible. But I think where we do need to be clear though, is that there is a real failure. It's a true, genuine failure on the part of the first century Jewish. Leaders and people, um, with a faithful remnant. Right? There was, um, we're, we're getting, you know, we're in the springtime and we've already had, uh, we've already had discussions about this. We've already done Easter, but like there is always conversations around Palm Sunday of like, are the crowds that are following Jesus into, into town screaming, you know, yelling, Hosanna? Is that the same crowds that are yelling crucify him a couple days later? Um, I tend to think like, no, like actually, like the people who are saying crucified, crucify Christ are probably like the Jews who live in Jerusalem or like the, primarily the religious leaders. There's a whole host of Jewish believers and kind of the hoy pallo, the, the people out in the country that absolutely follow Jesus. Like they follow him as the Messiah. They, they confess him in many cases. They convince him to be, um, they confess him to be God, to to be the savior, to be the, the figure from Daniel seven, the son of man. Um. There's a reality in which the Jewish remnant absolutely recognize Christ and they persist in the church, right? The earliest Christians were all Jews, and you know, there was a few Gentiles along the way, you know, and maybe not even Gentiles like Samaritans. I don't even know if you would call them gentiles. They're kind of this midway point, but in Jewish gentil. But there are people throughout Christ's ministry, right? Cornelius or not Cornelius, the Centurion recognizes that this is the son of God. Like there are people, the s Phoenician woman, there are people who are not part of Israel proper, who even in the, in the midst of Christ's ministry are recognizing him as God and as Messiah and as the savior of the world. But, but by and large, the earliest Christian movement was Jewish people. It was the faithful remnant of, of Israel who recognized that their Messiah had come. That is true. And at the same time. The, probably the majority, and especially the rulers and the leaders of the Israel, you know, the Jewish faith in the first century absolutely rejected him. And this is what I, this is what I think is wild, is I think sometimes we think that, um, the prophecies and the understanding of Christ and what the messiah, who the Messiah was to be and what to expect, we think of those as like super obscured and super hidden until Christ comes and then all of a sudden they're really obvious. Christ doesn't seem to treat them that way. Right? Right. He tells this parable and they rightly identify that, and this is a, this is such a thinly veiled parable. Like this is like, you killed the prophets. You're going to kill me. And there's going to be consequences. Like he practically says that outright. Um. He treats that as like they should obviously know this, right? The, have you never read in the scriptures, the stone, the builder rejected has become the cornerstone, right? This was the lord's doing. It is, and it is marvelous in their eyes that have you never read?  [00:34:06] Decree in Rejection [00:34:06] Tony Arsenal: That is a, that's a rhetorical question with the implied answer of, of course, you've read exactly like he's not, he's not teaching them something that he anticipated is new to them. He maybe is teaching them something that he anticipated they maybe you didn't recognize. But actually I think probably like, uh, there probably were many among them that were like, oh yeah, we are doing this. But then almost like we're powerless to stop themselves from moving forward in that.  [00:34:32] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:34:32] Tony Arsenal: Sort of like wicked plan. [00:34:34] Jesse Schwamb: Right. Yeah. And I think we could extend that as well to say that this rejection of Christ by this Jewish leadership, which of course was a incredible failure, like you're saying, it wasn't an accident, it wasn't an unforeseen tragedy. So just like interestingly in Acts four in his sermon where Peter quotes from the same Old Testament passage about Christ being the cornerstone, you know, it was prophesied long before. And so the doctrine of God's eternal decree, I think finds v vivid illustration even here. This is all the Lord's doing. Yeah. And even the wicked rejection of the Messiah is serving this purpose, this sovereign purpose of God's great exaltation. And so it's fascinating, and we should marvel at the fact that, again, like God means what he says when he says like He uses what is weak to overcome that which is strong, or to embarrass the strong, he uses that which seems foolish. To make the wise themselves, the ones who are actually foolish in the same way.  [00:35:29] Cornerstone Unites Church [00:35:29] Jesse Schwamb: This very stone, which men in their malice cast aside on that day. God is in his wisdom setting as this chief cornerstone. And I love like that idea of this phrase, this head of the corner denoting that amazing preeminence of Christ, that Christ is not merely included in the building of the new Covenant church. He is its chief and constituent stone that joining together both like the Jew and the Gentile, finally into one structure. And that's really, I think to your point, that's the great mystery of the hidden ages from the past. That that's the thing which Christ is bringing to like this grand display, like out on the stage in the open, in front of everybody. He's drawing it up, he's calling it to account. And so in that way, the same Jesus that was rejected by men is in God's account of inestimable value. And that should be like, I think, familiar to most of us because like there a form tradition has always insisted that. The true theology always issues in doxology and the cross and exaltation of Christ are not merely these facts, which we give these intellectual ascent, but we, we confess them as mysteries which provoke us to adoration of who God is. It's the excellency of Christ expounding at length, like the wondrous conjunction of Christ's humiliation and his exaltation, which finds its pattern here, rejected by men, glorified by God.  [00:36:50] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.  [00:36:52] Works Covenant Failures [00:36:52] Tony Arsenal: And, and this is, um, we, we commented in our first, uh, episode on this par ball. This is not isolated to just the rulers of Israel at the time of Christ, right? This is in reality, kind of like a reflection of every failure of the covenant of works. In some sense, every failure to hold the covenant of works boils down to an attempt to make oneself, God. Right. This was Adam's failure in the garden. Um, Eve, Eve was the first person to eat the fruit, but Adam, Adam was responsible for that and he, he also ate the fruit and they, they did so in part because they thought it was useful to make them like God and, and in an illegitimate fashion. And they knew it was an illegitimate fashion. It's not as though Adam and Eve suddenly were like, maybe we can eat the fruit. Maybe like we actually are fine to do it. Like they knew it was still forbidden. Right. They did it anyways. And the Pharisees here, um, are in a real attempt. Um, they are trying to take the role of Messiah for the people. They're trying to be the savior of the people in sort of shepherding and guiding them into this like. Ultra legalistic Puritan, like puritanical in the worst sense, um, kind of approach to the law. Um, this is the, the story of Old Testament Israel, right? What is the first thing that the Israelites do? Um, at Mount Sinai? The first thing they do is try to fashion gods so that they have a tame God that they can control and that they can actually be God's over. So I think this is really key and, and this is where it becomes practical for us, is that. I think we always are faced with a choice, right? There's, there's obviously those who are Christ, who the son is set free. He's set free indeed, and they will never not be his people. Like you never become not justified. If you were justified, you always forever more are justified. Justified is a final. It's, it's the future judgment of God's people dragged and dropped into the present and applied. It's the righteousness of Christ applied. So there, there's never a time where that righteousness is like removed or unapplied, but we are constantly faced with a choice as to whether we want to be the kind of people who render our fruit unto the Lord, uh, as the faithful, the sort of the implied faithful tenants that are going to be brought forward when the, the unfaithful tenants are replaced. Or do we wanna be the people that reap wicked fruit and keep for ourselves? And I think that's, that's really the thing. Like we're either gonna rep. Fruit of wickedness, or we're gonna reap fruit of righteousness. And the only thing to do with fruit of righteousness is surrender it to the Lord. But we often are faced with that choice, like, are we gonna reap our own wicked fruit and keep it all to ourselves right, uh, to our own detriment? Or are we gonna go ahead and be the faithful tenants that give the Lord what he deserves?  [00:39:46] Kingdom Transfer Explained [00:39:46] Jesse Schwamb: We're seeing so much of the simplicity of God here that like you and I have said so many times before that his loving kindness, his long suffering ness is his righteousness, is his justice, is his wrath. And so I think it's helpful, again, to remind ourselves that we're, we are talking, or he specifically is speaking of the kingdom of God here. And again referring to this visible administration of the covenant of grace, not to the inward and invisible kingdom of saving grace, which as you just said, can never be lost from those who possess it, which by the way is a really important distinctive of reform theology. There are many that would disagree with that statement, and I think really much to their harm in, in disagreement with the scriptures themselves, this one in particular, but it is this external administration, the privileges, the ordinances, the oracles of God. That is being transferred from the Jewish nation as a corporate body to a new and broader people of God. And because I know that sounds very extreme, I did look up Calvin and his commentary on this and let me read what he says because this is interesting. I think even this could possibly mis be misunderstood. But here's Calvin who can say it better than I. He says, quote by these words, he means that God would deprive the Jews of the honor and the privilege of being his peculiar people and would call the Gentiles that out of them he might form a church end quote. And going back to what you said earlier, I'm with you. I, I. I mean, this is not, I think as some have wrongly concluded, like replacement theology in like a wooden sense. I, I see this still as like this historical redemptive transition from the typological administration of the old covenant to the eschatological fulfillment of the new. And the elect remnant of Israel is not cast off, but the national like typological privileges are being transferred to the Catholic church, gathered from all nations. And in that, I really do see this wonderful confluence of God's loving kindness, his, his fidelity to the promises that he's made and his wrath being manifested all at once. And somehow Jesus, of course, in complete perfection, can bring that all to bear in this tiny little story.  [00:41:51] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And and isn't it just like the master teacher to like, put all of this baked into this? I mean, that's right. We think of this as like a long parable, like I think,  [00:42:02] Jesse Schwamb: right?  [00:42:02] Tony Arsenal: I think like it's, it's amazing how we think of parables as, you know, like this is a short one. A short one is a couple sentences, a long one is like a half a dozen sentences. Like, and of course like Christ is teaching broader than this. He's teaching more than this. Just, this is what's recorded by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. This is what Matthews preserved for us.  [00:42:22] Stone Breaks or Crushes [00:42:22] Tony Arsenal: But you're right, there's so much baked into this little parable and I think, um, there's something to be said about this idea of like. Not only do those who smash against the, the rock, the, the cornerstone, those who smash against the rock, like those who who fall on the rock are broken to pieces, but also the rock falls on others and smashes them to pieces. Right? And, and there's something to be said about the fact that, and I'm not exactly sure how I wanna articulate this, but it's only those who like recognize the proper place of the rock and don't either let it fall on them or don't smash themselves against it. You know, we always joke about like running through a wall. Like this is not a wall you're gonna run through. Like you're gonna smash into this wall and it's gonna crush you. And if you are, if you're not properly assigning the cornerstone it's placed, right? The cornerstone is, is the stone that's placed in the foundation of a building that all the other stones find their orientation and their proper alignment based on. [00:43:26] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:43:26] Tony Arsenal: You might think of this sometimes. I've heard this articulated as like the, the arch stone. I think it's a little bit different than that. Um, but it, the, the idea is the same, right? Like there's a stone in an arch. If you think of like a classic Roman arch, you have these piles of stones until you put the final arch stone in. That, in that stone is what makes the arch stable. Until that point, either side can fall, but if you don't properly set that arch stone where it's supposed to be, then the whole thing is gonna crush you. It's gonna fall down on top of you at some point. I think this is a little different. This is the cornerstone of a, this is more like the cornerstone of a building. This is the stone that the rest of the building, building is oriented against and is aligned with. If you get that wrong, then you have a, you have like a crooked wall, a wall that's not set, that's not straight. It's not stable. What this is saying and what this, this prophecy right from, from Psalm one 10, I think I should probably look it up, but I haven't yet. But this prophecy that Christ is referring to this, this prophetic statement in the Psalms that he's assuming the audience is familiar with, right? I think that's a really important point. Like he's not only assuming that they're familiar with it, there's rhetorical force of kind of like, of course you understand this principle that there is a cornerstone coming. There is something or someone who is coming that all other things will be measured against. And if you're either in alignment with this, with this person who is coming or you're out of alignment with reality, this thing is understood by them. It just is so critical and I think like the, the, a lot of the parables don't have explanations built into them. Some of them do. We've talked about some of them. A lot of them don't, this one does, but it's kind of like a really surprising way to explain it. And there's so much, um, the more that I look at this, the more we talk about it, this really is so similar to David and Nathan, right? Right. When with the, the affair with Bathsheba, he is saying to the Pharisees, look, you're the man. Like, you're the one here. You're the guy. You guys are the wicked tenants that are gonna, you've killed the prophets. Right? Um, I'm losing my, my timeline a little bit, but John the Baptist either had been executed or would be executed shortly at this point, right? So like the, the most recent prophet either was already killed or, or Christ knew of course he was going to be killed. Um, he's saying, look, you guys are the ones that are doing this and you're going to kill me. Right. And this is obviously what the prophecy is, that you think you're going to come against the cornerstone, but in reality you're going to shatter yourself upon me. You think you're gonna come against me, I'm going to crush you. And rather than say, you know, as ba, you know, as David does, where he repents, he, he fasts and he, he refuses to eat. He's, he's in mourning over both the loss of his infant, but, but more so over his own sin, I think is the picture the text gives us. Um, he's mourning trying to uh, sort of like reverse God's decision, but there's a genuine repentance to it, right? That's where we get Psalm 51, like creating, clean me a clean heart, oh God, renew a right spirit in me. There's none of that for the Pharisees, there's none of that for the sadist of the chief priests. They just continue to smash themselves against this rock, not recognizing that it's actually the rock that is crushing them. [00:47:05] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, it's, it's a bit like, I'm gonna speak like a little maybe beyond my depth here, but there's a little bit of like that Nathan, like Strategem, and then this is where I'm outside my own experience. And then a little bit like maybe like WWE the rock in terms of like. If you want some come and get some, right? It's a little of both. And of course the passage ends very tragically, well ends humorously by them, you know, saying that at some point they were like, they understood in these parables, again, this is one of three of the same kind of topic of variety, but that Jesus was referring to them, which is funny. You wanna be like, yeah, it took a, took a long enough, I guess, guys, but you finally got it. But then that last sentence of like, they still sought to kill him. So to your point, even after all of this, there wasn't repentance. And we do get these, I think, two very distinct judgements that are depicted here, which you've already kinda led us into this first, like, whoever shall fall on the stone shall be broken. You know, to me, I think that's invoking this idea that in this life, there we are, we can be brought to brokenness through the gospel and to fall upon Christ. And repentance. And faith is to be broken in self, in pride and self-righteous. It's a breaking that does lead to healing. But this second judgment, you know the one, but on whomever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder, grind him to dust, I mean. Man, think about what a vivid image that is. I mean, that's like the more terrible of the two. That that's like the, yeah. Final Es logical judgment of those who persist in unbelief and it, it admits there's like no remedy. So there are only two ways to relate to Christ. You either fall upon him willingly in faith and repentance, which is painful, but it is saving, you know, to have him fall upon us in judgment is final in damning, and so that's what Christ presents here. [00:48:48] Psalm 118 in Context [00:48:48] Jesse Schwamb: It's, it's both of these things and you're right, it is brilliant that he goes to Psalm one 18 even that as a setup, because as you've kind of already said, I love to think, of course that's, can you manner the tone in which this was said to these scribes and Pharisees? Because of course the, the secondary indictment here is like, listen, you guys who like your great pride is that, you know, the scriptures really well. Have you read this part is familiar to you. Yeah. Can you tell me where that is? So like, we, we should go there just, just quickly. This is Psalm one 18 because I think that here again is, as I'm hearing it in context. There are some verses surrounding this that I think we might be surprised that they come right on the heels of this idea of the stone. So just a couple verses. In Psalm one 18 being in verse 22, the stone, which the builders rejected, has become the chief cornerstone. This is from Yahweh. It is marvelous in our eyes. Here's the verses that we might not recognize. Come right after it. This is the day which Yahweh has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. Oh, Yahweh, save. Oh, Yahweh, succeed. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of Yahweh. We have blessed you from the house of Yahweh. Yahweh is God, and he has given us light by the festival sacrifice with corns to the horns of the altar. You are my God, and I give thanks to you. You are my God, and I exalt you. Give thanks to Yahweh for his good, for his loving kindness endures forever. And so this idea that there's rejoicing in which day, I mean, usually we kinda say that it's like, well, it's a beautiful day out. It's the Lord's day. This is the day that Yahweh is like that. That's true. But also here in particular, it is this blessed day of Yahweh giving the stone, which the builders reject and which has become the chief cornerstone. And that stone is some will run headlong into and shipwreck their lives and others will be crushed underneath it. And guess what? This is the day which Yahweh has made and we're gonna rejoice and be glad in that.  [00:50:41] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.  [00:50:43] Mark's Angle on Fear [00:50:43] Tony Arsenal: The other thing I think, you know, we. Should, um, maybe not spend any time on, 'cause we're at like, out, like minute 50 of a 60 minute podcast. But just going to, to Mark's version of this parable real quick. Um, starting in verse, uh, this is chapter 12, verse 12. It says, and they were seeking to arrest him, but feared the people for, they perceived that he had told the parable against them. So they left him and went away. And the, the main difference here, the reason I'm reading this is Mark chooses a d. Concerning them. The verb is, or the preposition is Perry. So it's kind of like this idea that he was, he was sort of speaking around them. He was talking about them. Mark uses the, the preposition, proce, which is not, um, not against, in like the same, uh, direct sense. We might use the word against. That would be something like Kada. Um, but he's, he's speaking this parable towards them or to them, um, against them. He's, he's directing the parable at them. And this is, this is, we, we commented on this a little bit in the, the first episode here. Um, he is speaking to the crowds. But he's telling the parable about or against or concerning the Pharisees and the scribes, and they perceive this, right. The, the gospels here don't say that the crowds perceive this. Right. And I think that's key. Like the Pharisees basically look at this and say, uh, we better get this under control because he's talking about us. Right, right. Like, I'm just picturing Paul Washer's. I'm not trying to say Paul Washer is a Pharisee, although some people would probably make that connection. But like I'm, I'm just hearing Paul Washer's voice saying like, I don't know why you're clapping. I'm talking about you. He's speaking to the Pharisees here. And it's interesting because Matthew associates the, the, uh, Pharisees. Cowardice in acting against Christ, uh, because they fear the crowds and because the crowds believe Christ is a parable or is a prophet Mark associates. And again, both of these things are true, right? This is holy scripture. This is inspired, these are not contradictory accounts. This is facets of the same diamond. Mark associates this with, they fear the crowds. Um, because they had taken him. They, they understood that the parable was being spoken against them, right? So there's this element that the Pharisees are not only understanding that the, the parable is about them, they feared them because the crowds believe that Christ is a prophet and that prophet is speaking this parable against them, right? So like they're, they're recognizing full on that it's only a matter of time before the, the general population, the general people that are listening to Christ recognize that he's overturning. Not only the Pharisees, the entire geopolitical nation of Israel, he's overturning the ethnic based reality, the geopolitical based reality, that God's people have a zip code and that zip code is Jerusalem. That zip code is this little si, this little tract of land the size of like Vermont and New Hampshire in the Mediterranean, like off the Mediterranean Sea. He's overturning that. And the, the Pharisees, the educated people, the, the Sadducees, the chief priests, the rulers, they recognize it's only a matter of time before the people understand what Christ is doing. They, they follow him as a prophet and this is what he's prophesying. And rather than, rather than, um. You know, I think of like Nicodemus or Joseph Ram that are like part of this class of people that actually seem to get it rather than go, okay, he's doing it, he's doing the thing. We better get on board. They just continue to smash their heads against this wall.  [00:54:51] Jesse Schwamb: Yes,  [00:54:52] Tony Arsenal: they just continue to bash themselves against the rock of ages and rather than learn, rather than submit to this, they shatter themselves and they crush themselves. [00:55:01] Submitting as Cornerstone [00:55:01] Tony Arsenal: And I guess this is where, I don't know, maybe this is like the Puritan turn in me, like I guess this is where I want to say like, how often are we smashing ourselves against Christ, right? Instead of submitting to him that I think if, if we want to take a, a practical turn here, that's really what we need to look at. Again, no one who is truly justified. No one who is truly. Uh, converted who, who has true faith and trust in Christ. I am not in the business of stealing away the insur, the assurance of Christians. That is not my thing. Assurance is the right and privilege and inheritance of every Christian full stop. Right  [00:55:35] Jesse Schwamb: on.  [00:55:35] Tony Arsenal: Right. It is of the essence of faith. It's just not so of the essence of faith that it can't be shaken. That's what the Westminster Confession teaches, right? But the reality is that we can continue to smash our heads against that rock. We can continue to, to look at the cornerstone and say like, ah, maybe I'm the cornerstone. Maybe I'm the measure of, of righteousness. Maybe I'm the one that measures whether or not God's law applies here. Eh, I don't know. Like Christ seems to say that if you're gonna set yourself up as the cornerstone, if you're gonna try to take the inheritance for your own, that's not gonna go well for you. And even as c, even as Christians who are regenerated by the Holy Spirit and have faith in Christ, and who ultimately will be saved from our own foolishness and folly, ah, we still, that still is not gonna go well for us if we are not gonna be able to submit to, to Christ as the cornerstone and the, the, the stone that aligns all things and makes all, every, all other things straight, all other things, regular, all other things, right? That, that's what the cornerstone does. So this is not only just a parable, but what would happen, uh, or I should say the parable is about what happens when this particular group of people tries to set themselves up as the cornerstone, the application and where Christ takes this application is like, I think it's broader than that. It is applied to this particular people. But when we look at it, we go, well man, I really don't want to be like those Pharisees when, when they do this.  [00:56:59] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:57:00] Fear of Man Exposed [00:57:00] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, practically speaking, I think those concluding verses, they definitely demonstrate again this profound sovereignty of God, at least the doctrine of God's providential restraint of evil. Until this sour was come, no man could lay a hand on Christ, and it was the fear of the people, which was the means by which God preserved his son until they appointed time of his sacrificial death. That's fascinating because the Pharisees were free agents in their wickedness. They were bound by sovereign decree until the father's hour arrived for his own son, and so I would say as well, maybe one of the profound things I've been thinking about that we can draw out of this for a practical application is that it seems to me demonstrated here and elsewhere that the fear of man, rather than the fear of God is shown to dominate. Wicked. That's always the way it is. Yeah. So this idea of not submitting ourselves to Christ, I think one of the ways that we can find that we can move ourselves by God's grace, by the power of the Holy Spirit into increasing levels of submission is to understand where our fear lies. If our fear is in God himself, we're trusting ourselves completely to him, then I think we know that we're more aligned. If we tend to find ourselves fearing man on various ways, which we're gonna be prone to do because we're sinful, I think that is a wake up call to understand that that is what dominates the perspective and the worldview and the purview of the wicked. In the same way. To go back to you bringing up Joseph again, this reminds me of, you know, when Joseph brothers, they go and visit him, they take the green back, and I, I, for some reason, I find this scene funny. I'm sure it's not funny, but they open up the sacks in the head of the sacks, they find all of their money returned, and I, I guess I would be the same way, but instead of like being like, well that is weird. That seems like a really innocent and weird mistake. How do they react? They're like I told you, it's because now what's being paid back to us is because we sold Joseph to slavery. Yeah. Like the wicked always looks over their shoulder. They're always fearful of man. And so the multitudes recognition of Jesus as a prophet while. Inadequate because of, certainly he's more than a prophet, is yet a witness to the testimony of the spirit working through the works in the words of Christ here. But that is not enough. Like we said before, the drawing that Jesus was doing was to the common people who hurt him gladly. It was to the sinners who recognize that he spoke with authority and who are willing to submit themselves because they perhaps were the ones that understood what it meant to be broken, that they needed healing and that they recognized that they were already broken, but that they wanted to come before the rock who could break them wide open, as it were, to do the complete and full restorative healing that only he could provide. And so, you're right, it is like the blessing and the promise and the right of God's children to call out to God in humility for this kind of healing. That only he can do. And by healing really, I mean like the giving of eternal life, the, the true saving of the inner man, that selfish part of ourselves, which wants to rebel just like the Pharisees, which is willing to condemn ourselves with that Nathan, like Strategem, and yet to refuse to see that it is in fact ourselves. Who are we speaking about? It is that kind of Christ and Savior that we need so that we can then get to Romans eight and say there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus because he is the rock of ages, the cleft for me. So I, I agree with you. This is that we've said it before in other ways. This is the one wall you cannot run through. When you come up against this stone, you're not just gonna bounce off. You're gonna be pulverized, and you don't want this stone coming against you and crushing you and grinding you into powder, as it were in that final ESOL judgment. So the call, the clearing call, loved ones, as you've said, Tony, is to examine yourself to see whether or not you are into faith to test and see what you're doing with this one who has been laid as the cornerstone. [01:00:51] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.  [01:00:53] Wrap Up and Next Parable [01:00:53] Tony Arsenal: Well, I think that's a good place for us to wrap it up. Uh, although we're not really wrapping it up, because next week when we come back in, we're gonna be talking about, uh, the parable of the wedding feast in, uh, chapter 22.  [01:01:07] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.  [01:01:07] Tony Arsenal: Which, uh, is in many ways the same parable with a slightly different angle. And, and I think this is, this is part of, like, I initially wanted to say, like, this is a, this is a softer version of the parable, but as you were speaking, I was kind of like glancing through it, kind of getting ready to jump in here. And it's not really all that much softer. It's a different angle, right. It's a different perspective on the same basic truth. So th this is just like Christ as the master teacher, right? He doesn't just leave the Pharisees with his one, uh. It's obviously not ambiguous what he's saying, but he gives them no excuse because he tells them the same basic parable three times in a row just to make sure that they get it just so that their condemnation is just, so we will put a pin in that and we will come back to that next week. And Jesse, this is such a great series that I've just really enjoyed working through. And you know, it's funny because when we talk offline, we're kind of like, why don't we just talk about the Bible more? Um, I love systematic theology. I love doing church history stuff. Me too. And I think those are all really, really important and valuable. But there's something very sweet and, and something about like the episodes planned themselves and write themselves and do themselves, like when we're just talking about the scriptures. So I've really enjoyed working through the parables. I've really enjoyed the feedback that we're getting. Um, I do some Google Analytics stuff on our podcast episodes. We don't use the. Uh, I'll toss our episode statistics into Google or into to Google Gemini and ask it to analyze it. This parable series has been easily our most, uh, our most downloaded and most, um, accessed series in all time. Um, when you look at the way that podcast statistics are calculated, there's a, there's a weird little thing that happens that coincides both with COVID, uh, and also with some changes in the ways podcast statistics are calculated, um, that everybody saw a huge drop in their statistics, um, around, you know, 20 22, 20 23. But when you account for that blip, this, this series has been well received, better. Received than any other, uh, content we've ever provided, which is saying a lot. 'cause we've had some really popular series, some really, uh, really widespread series. So this one has hit a nerve and I'm really, really, really feeling it. I'm really, really here for it.  [01:03:29] Community and Support [01:03:29] Tony Arsenal: So if Jesse, if other people are here and they're feeling it and they wanna let us know about that, how would they do that?  [01:03:35] Jesse Schwamb: Well, we know they're feeling it. So really what you need to do is come hang out with us. And the best way to do that is we have a little corner of the internet through an app called Telegram, where there's a bunch of listeners, brothers and sisters from all around the globe who are dialoguing with each other, with us, about the episodes, about all kinds of topics. So you've heard it enough from us. So we're just saying to you, why not now? Why not now? Why not you? So if you wanna come find that place, all you have to do is go to your favorite browser and go to t Me Reform Brotherhood, t me slash reform brotherhood. One more time. For those of you Baptist, in the back, in the pew still t me slash reform brotherhoodhood. [01:04:18] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, and it's a great little place to come hang out, um, per constantly. Actually, I think one of the most. Busy. The most frequented channels in our group is the prayer request channel, which I love. Right on. Um, people are constantly bringing requests. People are genuinely praying for those requests, often typing out their prayers that they're praying for their brothers and sisters. Um, there's a. Section four charitable baptism discussions, which is actually a charitable discussion that's going on as an ongoing discussion's, a place for memes. There's a place like if you wanna taste an interesting food and take a video of your face when you do it, uh, you can do that. Um, so please do join us. And one last thing, you know, Jesse and I are. Veteran podcasters who do everything wrong. If you're still listening to this, then you're already a faithful listener and we're doing all of the stuff in the wrong order. That's right. Um, there is a small, relatively small group of people who make this podcast possible in a very real sense. Um, you know, there's not a ton of overhead to run a podcast, but there's some, and it's getting more because everything is getting more expensive. And there is a group of people who, um, who faithfully donate each month to allow us to continue podcasting. Um, we had. Some, you know, some technical issues. A while back we had to make a switch to a different, uh, different way for Jesse and I to connect. Uh, there's hosting fees that are getting more expensive If a microphone or a laptop breaks, we need to have funds to cover that. Uh, and so there's a group of people who, who contribute to allow us to be able to do that without having to tap into our personal finances, which is, is a huge blessing. I think we would probably still figure out how to make it work if we had to, but the fact that we don't is a huge blessing. So thank you to those who are contributing financially, and please do consider it if you, if that's something that, you know, you're listening to this and you're going, you know, I benefit from the podcast and I fulfilled my obligations to my local church and my family, and all my bills are paid, and I'd like to do something about it. What you can do is go to patreon.com/reform brotherhood. Uh, you can sign up to do a monthly, uh, donation of any amount. We don't have tears. We're not giving away any special swag at this time. Um, you're not gonna get special access to early podcasts or anything. There's lots of podcasts that do that, and that's great, but that's just not us. Um, but what we're doing is we're making sure that, uh, we're able to continue producing the podcast. If that's something you're interested in, go to patreon.com/reform brotherhood and uh, join the team.  [01:06:37] Final Gospel Warning [01:06:37] Jesse Schwamb: So what have we learned in this whole conversation, and maybe to wrap up this entire parable? Well, it seems clear that the Lordship of Christ established in his threefold role, he's the rejected stone. He's the cornerstone, he's the consuming stone, and the call of the gospel is pressed home in this passage with double urgency. Either we fall upon Christ now and be saved through brokenness, or he will fall upon us then and grind us into everlasting powder. So there's no neutral ground. The vineyard of God is still let out, the fruit is still demanded, loved ones, the cornerstones still laid. Blessed are they who receive him and also get those babies into church.  [01:07:16] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. Amen to that, Jesse. So until next time, until we come back and continue on this sort of parable trilogy, Jesse, honor everyone  [01:07:26] Jesse Schwamb: Love the brotherhood.
• The Wicked Tenants: How the Pharisees Condemned Themselves 11.05.2026 1ч 3мин

  In this powerful episode of The Reformed Brotherhood, Tony and Jesse dive deep into Matthew 21:33-46, examining Jesus's parable of the wicked tenants. The hosts unpack how Christ masterfully draws the Pharisees into pronouncing their own condemnation, revealing not merely theological error but intentional usurpation of God's authority. Through careful exegesis, they explore the shocking setup of the parable—where the landowner does all the work while the tenants contribute nothing—and how this mirrors God's sovereign initiative in salvation. The discussion touches on confession, the value of full-time ministry, and the scandal of rejecting the Messiah despite recognizing His authority. This episode challenges listeners to examine whether they, like the Pharisees, attempt to claim God's work as their own. Key Takeaways God Does All the Verbs: The parable emphasizes that the landowner planted, built, protected, and prepared everything—the tenants contributed nothing yet claimed ownership of the fruit. Self-Pronounced Condemnation: Jesus draws the Pharisees into declaring their own judgment, demonstrating that even the unregenerate conscience bears witness to divine justice (Romans 2). Intentional Usurpation, Not Mere Error: The Pharisees weren't well-intentioned but misguided; they recognized Christ's authority as the heir and deliberately murdered Him to seize His inheritance. The Scandal of Grace: The parable's shocking element is that the landowner prepared everything before leasing the land—far exceeding normal agricultural arrangements and illustrating God's unmerited favor. Ecclesial Support for Ministry: The OPC presbytery's decision to fund a full-time call demonstrates how church structure can honor the ministry of Word and sacrament by freeing ministers from worldly distractions. Particular Repentance Matters: Westminster Confession 15.5 teaches that believers should not content themselves with general repentance but "endeavor to repent of his particular sins, particularly." The Stone Rejected Becomes Chief: Christ's citation of Psalm 118 reveals that the very rejection by the builders (religious leaders) was God's plan to establish the cornerstone of salvation. Key Concepts God Does All the Verbs The concentration of action verbs attributed solely to the landowner in Matthew 21:33 is theologically significant. The landowner plants, builds, digs, and rents—creating a fully functional, productive vineyard before the tenants ever arrive. This arrangement differs radically from typical first-century agricultural practices, where tenants would lease raw land and develop it themselves, sharing profits with the landowner. Jesus deliberately presents an extraordinary scenario where the tenants receive everything prepared and ready, requiring only stewardship of what already exists. This parallels God's sovereign initiative in election and salvation: believers contribute nothing to their standing before God, receiving instead a fully accomplished redemption. The Pharisees' rebellion wasn't against burdensome requirements but against simply acknowledging God's rightful ownership of what He alone created. Intentional Usurpation, Not Mere Error The hosts challenge the common sympathetic reading of the Pharisees as well-intentioned legalists who simply got sidetracked. Instead, verse 38 reveals the tenants explicitly recognize the son as heir and plot to murder him to "seize his inheritance." This isn't accidental rejection but calculated rebellion. The Pharisees weren't confused about Jesus's identity or authority—they understood precisely who He claimed to be and deliberately chose to destroy Him rather than submit. This interpretation carries significant weight for understanding the nature of unbelief: it's not primarily intellectual confusion but volitional rebellion. The religious leaders didn't need more evidence or clearer teaching; they needed transformed hearts. This same dynamic appears whenever humans recognize divine truth yet choose self-sovereignty over submission to God's rightful claim on their lives. The Scandal of Grace The parable begins with a scandalous premise that would have startled Jesus's original audience. Unlike normal tenant farming arrangements where landowners simply provided land in exchange for a share of whatever the tenants produced through their own labor, this landowner invests everything. He doesn't just own the property—he plants the vineyard, constructs the protective wall, digs the wine press for production, and builds the watchtower for defense. The tenants receive a turnkey operation requiring minimal effort. This extravagant preparation mirrors God's unmerited favor toward Israel and, by extension, the church. God didn't merely create humanity and wait to see what we would produce; He established covenants, sent prophets, preserved His Word, and ultimately sent His Son—all before requiring any response. The only "payment" demanded is acknowledging His ownership of what He created. The parable thus exposes the absurdity and ingratitude of claiming God's work as our own achievement. Memorable Quotes God does all the verbs. All of the verbs are done by the landowner. There is nothing expected of these tenants—they really add nothing to the landowner's land. Christ is not painting the Pharisees as well-intentioned but ultimately wrong. He's painting them as usurpers who recognize the proper authority and rather than submitting to it, they're going to reject that authority and try to take it for their own. Men ought not to content themselves with a general repentance, but it is every man's duty to endeavor to repent of his particular sins, particularly. (Westminster Confession 15.5) Transcript Welcome to episode 491 of the Reformed Brotherhood. I'm Jesse.  [00:01:12] Tony Arsenal: And I'm Tony. And this is the podcast with ears to hear. Hey brother.  [00:01:17] Jesse Schwamb: Hey brother.  [00:01:18] Parable of Tenants [00:01:18] Jesse Schwamb: So picture this, Tony, your landlord. You've built the perfect vineyard. We're talking wall watchtower, wine, press, the works like what everybody says. Everybody knows you need all those things. You've got it all set up, and then you hand the keys to some tenants. You take a long trip, you go enjoy yourself. And when the harvest rolls around, you send your servants to collect the rent. And shockingly, your tenants, they beat. Stone. Another, the kill a third. So naturally you think, you know what? I'll fix this. Lemme just send more people. That's obviously the problem. There's some kind of just profound misunderstanding about what's going on here and about our relationship in this business. And then when that doesn't work, you send your son now loved ones. If this were a business strategy, we would already be calling hr. But of course it's not a business strategy, it's a parable. And Jesus is telling it to the very people about to prove the parable true. So welcome back to the Reformed Brotherhood because we're in Matthew Chapter 21 and we're gonna be actually getting all the way into the parable of the Vine growers where the patience of God looks, I would say, to almost anybody else, to humanize at least almost reckless until you realize that's exactly the point. So yeah, grab your beverage of choice, grab your Bible, pull the car over, will you? Because this is gonna get real and we're going to reason together. But before we do all of that, let's do a little affirming with or denying against, what do you got?  [00:02:41] Inside Baseball Affirmation [00:02:41] Tony Arsenal: So this is a sort of inside baseball, uh, affirmation. Um, I'm not sharing anything, although it may feel like I'm sharing something that is private and like, uh, like confidential. It's not No, this is good. Um, so I had the opportunity to visit. Um, my presbytery, um, for those who are listeners of the show or people who like, have been with us a long time, um, I was part of a Baptist church. Uh, I've always kind of been a Presbyterian at heart, but, um, our church closed, uh, a little over a year and a half ago now. And, um, uh, I've joined an OPC congregation in membership now. We've been members there for about a year. And, um, so I've been visiting Presbytery, which is the, the meeting of all of the leadership of all of the churches. So we won't do a polity breakdown here, but basically like, it's, it's the regional meeting. It's the regional business meeting or church meeting for a group of churches in the OPC, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. And so a lot of the meetings, you know, have the normal kind of business type stuff. You have reports from different committee committees and stuff. Um.  [00:03:48] Presbytery Call Debate [00:03:48] Tony Arsenal: Where this is affirmation is coming in here is at this most recent presbytery meeting, um, was pretty heavy on, um, licensing or, or, uh, not licensing on approving men who had received a call to formal ministry within the presbytery. And so in the OPC, and I would imagine that other Presbyterian bodies are not like super different, although I'm sure there's some variation in the OPC. Um, when a church intends to extend a call to a pastor, to a teaching elder, um, to a minister, they must have the call, which is. Is both theological but is also eminently practical. Like the call is a physical piece of paper that details, you know, what the pay is, how much vacation time. So it's kind of a combination between like a theological call and also a contract. Um, the presbytery has to approve that call. And so at this most recent one, there was a couple calls that were more or less uncontroversial. There was no question about them, and they were approved pretty quickly. But there was one call, um, one call to ministry that took, I, I, I didn't time it, but it was probably like four or five hours of debate and discussion in various fashion in order to get to a point where the presbytery could approve the call. So this was a call to a minister who is being called part-time, which is unusual in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Um, the OPC uh, acknowledges the fact that bivocational tent making ministry is sometimes a necessity, but really views the ministry of the word in sacrament as something that should not have. Distractions. And actually our book of church order talks about, doesn't use the word distraction, I think, but it talks about a, a properly ordered call to a full-time minister includes phrasing that the congregation promises to compensate them in a way that allows them to be free of worldly burdens and cares. And I might have not, not have gotten that wording exactly right. But that's the idea. And so this call was. Explicitly, um, not a full-time call it, they actually took the language out of promising to pay him in a way that he's able to ignore or to not be distracted by worldly care. And that was intentional, but there was a lot of question in discussion at presbytery level about the fact that the call did not include the phrase or the wording of part-time or bivocational. So the conversation started out of like, can this call be modified to include that? So it's explicitly known in this man's call that his calling is part-time, which is both theological, to make sure that the call is properly formatted, but also like very practical that the congregation should acknowledge explicitly that they recognize that this person is not, not going to be putting, you know, 40 hours a week or 50 hours a week towards this position. [00:06:34] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:06:34] Tony Arsenal: Um. What I'm affirming is where it got to, right? So there was lots of discussion about that. There was some finagling about the retirement package. The OPC recommends that a, a minister be given a retirement contribution of no less than 5% a year of his salaried package. Um, which there's a couple line items that go into that, but 5%, and this was a little bit less than that. And this is what I'm affirming and this, I, I don't know that this is a super widespread thing that would happen all across the, um, the OPC, but it happened in the presbytery of New York and New England this past week, and it's just amazing. And I just, I just want to lay it out there and then I want to hear your reaction. [00:07:13] Funding Full Time Ministry [00:07:13] Tony Arsenal: And I, I wanna hear your reaction as the son of a minister who labored his entire adult, more or less, his entire adult career in ministry, working two or three additional jobs on top of his ministry, the presbytery decided. That because it did not like the idea of a part-time minister. They didn't think that was appropriate. They didn't think that that was good or that that was really the right goal. The presbytery allocated, I'm not gonna say the figures 'cause they're not super germane, but allocated a significant amount of money to be dis to be dispersed to the church for the next three years in order to take what was a part-time call and enable it to become a full-time call. [00:07:54] Jesse Schwamb: Wow.  [00:07:54] Tony Arsenal: And so there are a lot of, there are a lot of church bodies that would say, yeah, we don't love the idea of bi-vocational ministry. You know, we really think it's ideal that a minister could be full-time. Um, they may even put some, some theological freight behind that. Um, I have never encountered a body, um. That was willing to put a sizable amount of money towards essentially supplementing a part-time call to make it full-time. Um, this was just amazing to me, and the candidate was there. I didn't get a chance to talk to him, but I would love to talk to him about what he felt. I, I can just imagine the phone call to his wife who was not, not at presbytery, but to his wife, following the outcome of this to be like, you are never gonna believe what just happened. Right? This is a family who was intending to move across country. Right. He's currently a student at Westminster, California in seminary, uh, California, Westminster Seminary in California, finishing his M Div. They're planning a cross country move into a part-time position where she's probably gonna have to find a job, and then also he's gonna have to find a part-time job. He had the ability to call her on the break and be like, you're never gonna guess what just happened? You're never gonna,  [00:09:09] Jesse Schwamb: it's wild.  [00:09:09] Tony Arsenal: Uh, sorry, I'm getting a little emotional here. You're never going to. Believe how faithful God is in this. Right. So I'm interested to hear your reaction to that as the son of a, of a try and quad at times Quad vocational. Yeah,  [00:09:23] Jesse Schwamb: for sure.  [00:09:23] Tony Arsenal: Minister who labored his entire, more or less, his entire adult career, um, working full-time in a call as a part-time, part-time minister. You know, like that's a, that's a crazy situation. So I'm just affirming that again, I don't know how common that kind of thing is in the OPC. I don't wanna make it seem like that's the norm. Um, I actually get the sense that this is probably not the norm, but it was amazing to see and it made me in intensely like. Proud in the right way of being a part of this broader body that would, would so emphasize and so value the ministry of the word and the sacrament, and the importance of a man being able to dedicate himself to that without distraction. That they would put forward this amount of money and this kind of money. They had no reason to do so. And there's no real direct benefit to the presbytery for doing this. I mean, there's an indirect benefit of like not having a church with a part-time minister, but like there's no direct benefit to this. There's no direct return on investments that's gonna come out of this. Um, it was pretty amazing to see. It was, it was, it was super encouraging.  [00:10:28] Jesse Schwamb: That is really encouraging. I, I think it's, there's no doubt that for the called pastor, their heart is in the ministry of the word. That's what they want to be doing. They wanna be doing it all the time and as much time as they possibly can, and they wanna be able to have all of their intentional focus on it. So I. I'm excited for that guy. I mean, that's just an incredible blessing to go in hoping for funding, essentially for a part-time role and to basically be told, no, no, no, no, that's, that's not enough. We want you to be committed to this fully as we know your heart is committed. As we validated that call.  [00:11:00] Why Structure Matters [00:11:00] Jesse Schwamb: I do love being a part of churches, well, lemme say it this way. There is, I think, a benefit of being part of congregations that have like a wide resource network that has like appropriate hierarchy and structure and that can be one of them. I've seen something similar in the Christian Missionary Alliance, which is the church that I'm in, not exactly the same, but I've seen some surprising allocations of resources where they basically said, you know, this is important. Like, it even trumps we're, we're gonna. Allocate or resource something so that this can move forward because it is important in a way that was like better than the person who was bringing it before them could have hoped for. Yeah. And uh, suddenly it's as if everything aligned. And it was really in part because there was this structure to come alongside, to validate as you're saying, and then to authenticate and then again to resource assets that could be used. There's, there's something to be said for that interdependency where there is kind of this hierarchical structure in which all that's happening at a level where things are codified. And again, like there's a structure and a way in which we move through those decisions to make sure that they suit the objective of the entire movement. So I guess there's nothing I'll say, but that's a beautiful thing, isn't it?  [00:12:14] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.  [00:12:15] Generosity in Action [00:12:15] Tony Arsenal: It was, it was, it was cool because it was like this, it was like this real. Actualization of the principle of outdoing one another and showing honor. Yeah, sure. Because you know, like the initial debate was like, Hey, you know, I'm not sure we can approve this call because the, the OPCs guidelines tell us not to approve a call that has less than 5% of the retirement benefit. And there was a lot of discussion of like, well, the presbytery can't modify the call, but we don't wanna delay this guy coming in and like, we don't wanna delay his ordination, his installation. And so the initial proposal was a, a. What feels like a large amount of money to me. But after I understood more about the, the budget of what's going on in, in the presbytery was actually a very small amount of money. Started with a very tiny, very modest proposal of basically like supplementing the retirement fund to make sure that like we could, they, I say we, like, I was part of this, I was just observing, but to supplement the retirement fund in a way that allowed the church to still proceed with the call as written, but still also make sure that this person had the appropriate retirement fund. And then that just basically was like, there would be some instruction given to the church that like, you've gotta bump this up in the next budget cycle. Like you've gotta get to the 5%. That's, that's the expectation. It went from that. And like I said, I won't give you the specific numbers, but one of the presbyters and I, I'm, I, um, I, I've known this presbyter from a distance for quite a long time and, and I have an immense amount of respect for him. He stood up and he's like, well, if we're gonna give X, why don't we just give 10 times X instead? And then actually, like the discussion was like, well, is, are we sure that 10 times X is even the right amount? Why don't we have this particular group meet over the lunch break and figure out whether that's the right number and then come back after lunch and we'll vote on it. And then they came back after lunch and it was actually a number that was even greater than 10 times X. So it was like this exercise in like. This very small proposal that was still imminently generous, right? The presbytery has no obligation to do this. There's no obligation from any of the presbyters to stand up and say like, we should. We should supplement this fund. They would've been well within their right, and no one would've looked, I think. I think some people would've been frustrated by it, but I don't think anyone would've looked sideways at it or thought it was sinful. If the presbytery just said like, we can't approve this call. You guys are gonna have to come back with it and we'll vote on it at the next presbytery. Like that would've been problematic. This, this kind of poor guy who's coming outta seminary, his call and his beginning of employment would've been delayed, but like. That would've been good and orderly, but instead they were like, one, we don't want this pulpit to stay empty longer. We don't wanna disadvantage this guy who's just getting done with seminary. We want him to get started. We don't wanna discourage him. So here's a small proposal, a very modest amount of money that we can put forward for this purpose. And then it was like, let's just keep seeing how much closer to a real full-time call we can get. And they finally came back and said like, we're gonna do this. We're gonna do this in a wise fashion. They structured it. So like the first year he gets more, the second year he gets a little bit less. The third year the church gets a little bit less with the idea that like each year the church should be adjusting their budget to compensate and get this guy to that with the, the hope that like with a full-time minister, they're able to grow their congregation to the point where they can support a full-time minister. So it was just this really cool, super encouraging exercise. And what I loved about it is the only real debate that was going on was about do we need to do more? There was no one being like, wait a second, why are we, why are we putting more money to this? The whole thing was like, is this actually enough to accomplish what we think God wants to do with this person's call? Because if, if God is truly calling this man to this, this particular church, and we believe that he is. Then what do we as a, as a people of God need to do to enable that call to look like what we actually believe calls to ministry are supposed to look like, which is a full-time call to ministry that is undistracted by the cares of the world. What do we need to do? The answer in this case was like, I think we need to put a sizable amount of money to it. Um, it's a, I mean, and again. I'm not gonna say it on the air. It was not a small chunk of change. Um, it was, it was a, it was a large amount of money that was devoted to this cause and that just goes to show how much this body values the importance of a full-time minister of the word, so. [00:16:50] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:16:51] OPC Love and Recommendation [00:16:51] Tony Arsenal: That's enough about that. I, I could gush about how proud I am to be a part of this body and how encouraged I am and how amazing it was and how awesome this, this guy, how, how much this guy must be thanking God for the providence and like, this is the last thing. I'll say this, this young man younger than me, I think he's graduating seminary. I saw him across the room. He looks like he's probably in his mid twenties, right? Young guy. He's got a wife doesn't have kids yet coming into this ministry, not only is he coming into this ministry, but as a Presbyterian minister, when he's installed as the minister of this church. He will be joining this body of presbyters as the, as his brothers like. He is not a member of the local church. He's a member of the presbytery, which is the regional church. So now he's coming into this fully supported by his brothers in the presbytery that he saw go to the mat to make sure he was properly taken care of, that the congregation was not unintentionally taking advantage of his labor, but also that he knows that all of these men are willing to do what they need to do to make sure that his ministry is successful and edifies the church like that is. Uh, I don't want to gush on Presbyterianism too much, but like that is Presbyterianism at peak form, right? This is the body of elders making sure that every church in the region, even the ones they're not directly ministering in, has what it needs to succeed and to honor God and to do what needs to happen. So I'm affirming the presbytery of New York and New England and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Um, I have been so blessed by knowing many of these presbyters. I've been so blessed by being a part of the congregation that I am. There are lots of really great churches and really great denominations out there. If you are looking for a church and there is an OPC congregation in your area, absolutely go check it out. I know it feels stuffy sometimes, and I will admit, like sometimes it feels a little bit overly traditional in terms of like just the vibe of the congregation,  [00:18:52] Jesse Schwamb: right?  [00:18:52] Tony Arsenal: But press past that because I don't think, I don't think you will find, um. You may find lots of congregations that are as faithful. I don't think you're gonna find many that are more faithful than your average OPC congregation. So I could be wrong. I just, I just love the OPC. I just really, really love it. So that's my affirmation. What do you got for us, Jesse?  [00:19:18] Denial Catholic Confession Math [00:19:18] Jesse Schwamb: I think I got denial, which is maybe a little bit unusual for me. [00:19:21] Tony Arsenal: As long as you're not denying the OPCI think we're fine.  [00:19:23] Jesse Schwamb: No, it's, it's not, it is church related and I, I'll try to keep it short 'cause I think I can make this way longer than it, it probably should be, but lemme think how to phrase this. So, I don't know with a devil negative, I guess when I'm a denying against is maybe not enough confession by your own standard. So the, I'm gonna try to make this so brief. I, I just happened to be out with my wife this afternoon and we had to run errands. We got stuck in traffic and this gave me longer than usual to sit in front of our. Very local and very large Catholic church. So I happen to be looking at their sign. It's a very large congregation. I've been actually been in this one on a couple of occasions for funerals. So not only do I know its size and scope, but again, if you get, if you get on this road at the wrong time on the Lord's day, you're gonna be stuck for a long time because there are so many people that attend. I say that because I noticed on the sign that there were three times for mass on the Lord's Day. So that also says something about the number of people coming through. And then on the sign though, underneath it said for confessions, go to our website. Mm-hmm. So I was like, man, I gotta lick this up because I can't tell if they're telling me I can confess on the website or if it's go to the website for the times. And I said to my wife, only half jokingly, if I can confess online, I'm gonna confess something. So I went to, I went to the website and, and sure enough it was almost disappointingly. It was just the times.  [00:20:45] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:20:46] Jesse Schwamb: Here's what I've found interesting, which just launched me into this like deep rabbit hole. There were three times for confession. Two of those times were just a half an hour, and the third time was an hour. So, uh, what I did was I went through, actually, I think what they had on there was, was three full hours a week. It was a little bit confusing, but I think it was three full hours. Now I think about it. So I went back, I just couldn't help myself, Tony. So I started to think, alright, let's say. I think it's fair to assume  [00:21:15] Tony Arsenal: math, Jesse is kicking in right now. Yes. You're gonna calculate how many minutes per, per person is what you're doing. I'm thinking, ah,  [00:21:22] Jesse Schwamb: yeah, it's something like that. So what I thought was, I don't think it's, uh, I was gonna be conservative. I wanna be fair. I wanna be fair. So, and now we should say like, I think most people realize that the Catholic understanding of confession and the Protestant one is, is very different. The Catholic sacrament of confession is the right through which Catholics are gonna confess their sins to a priest receive absolution, and it's gonna restore the relationship with God in the church. And, and they're gonna believe that the priest acts as a person of Christ and is bound by the seal of confession and an absolute kind of obligation. Uh, of course never to reveal what was disclosed during that process. So, by the way, the website that I went to, lovely instructions. I mean, I was like, wow. I was reading it to my wife who was, uh, not familiar with this at all, and she was like, they can make you do stuff. And I was like, well, yeah. I mean, obviously like there's, there's a portion of this where there's contrition or penant penance. It could be a prayer, it could be act of charity, like all kinds of stuff. So I went back and I thought. I don't think it's unreasonable that there's 350 persons that would say, let's say an average, uh, that would wanna take part of confession. Now, let's say that they did that at, at least monthly, just once a month. And, and I don't know how people's conviction is on that, but I'm gonna say conservatively once a month. Let's say that, and I don't think this is unreasonable, Tony, but you tell me. Let's say you're, you're trucking, you're moving through confession. Let's say it's five minutes a piece. So we're up to 1,750 minutes, uh, per month. That's the demand on the priest because I was, I was looking at this time and I was thinking something is strange here to me, so. That was the demand then, and I'll spare you the other math, which could be very long and un uninteresting. I'm coming up with, you'd need 2.24, two and a quarter priests, which of course you can't have a quarter priests or a quarter person for any reason. So you'd hire, you'd hire three priests, which satisfy the demand if, and the major assumptions here, that is like everybody can't show up at the same time. Obviously, I'm assuming that like everybody has their own time, they're spreading it out. So everybody gets the confession, but it's just five minutes. And I, I have no idea. I mean, if you're a Luther, that's certainly not sufficient time.  [00:23:20] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:23:20] Jesse Schwamb: And you would need three priests. Now here's the thing that I just kind of backed into that, besides like three being like, okay, that, that's, you would need three priests just to satisfy this congregation. If they're confessing for five minutes, once per month. Uh, by the way, if you said, well, half the congregation is going to go weekly, uh, then you, you would double the number of priests you need to 5.98 or six. But here's, here's the bottom line for me. This is why the denial comes in about maybe not enough, is. If you were just to distill that down to like, if you could have one priest cover that time, that there's a demand for like 779.4 hours, or excuse me, minutes of confession, that priest would only be allocating approximately like seven and a half percent of their working hours, their work toward handling confession. This seems like not enough confession given the standards of confession in the Catholic church. And again, I know that I'm, I'm now allocating that to one priest and I just told everybody you need three. That's true. So if you had these three now, if you hired three just to meet the demand, that would only be about like three and a half or a little under three and a half percent of their combined time. So the denial is Catholics, I think, unless I'm way off in some of my assumptions here, you might not be confessing enough by your own standards because  [00:24:33] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:24:34] Jesse Schwamb: Uh, that seems like not enough time.  [00:24:38] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.  [00:24:39] Ritual Faithfulness Explained [00:24:39] Tony Arsenal: I mean, I think, um. I don't want to be too bombastic here, but I think,  [00:24:46] Jesse Schwamb: I think I already started this on this  [00:24:48] Tony Arsenal: path. Maybe this, maybe this isn't all that bombastic. Um, because this is so much about ritual and actually I say this is gonna sound really, we, we go, but trying to think from the Roman Catholic perspective, it's actually not, and I'll I'll tell you a brief story, uh, to explain it. Um, a lot of Roman Catholics are just going through the motions. [00:25:13] Jesse Schwamb: That's true.  [00:25:14] Tony Arsenal: But the point, the, the, the point of contention actually is that going through the motions is valuable for the Roman Catholic, right? So I, I knew this, uh, this young woman when I was in college who was a Roman Catholic, and we had many discussions about, about the differences between Protestantism and and Roman Catholicism. And what I came to understand is that going to mass for her. Itself was an act of faith. And so for the Roman Catholic, the concept of, of faith is different than the concept that Protestants operate under. So for the Roman Catholic who, um, goes to mass, even when they feel like they're, like, when they think they're just going through the motions, going through the motions is itself the act of faith. And that's because for most of Roman Catholics, most of Roman Catholicism, faith really equals faithfulness, right? So, so doing the act is the act of faithfulness. Doing the act is faith. Where for the Protestant, like faith is about belief and trust and knowledge. Like it's, it's an. Not entirely intellectual, but it's, it's an inward thing for the Roman Catholic faith is an out is primarily an outward thing. It's what you do, it's how you act. It's faith formed in love. It's faith formed in charity.  [00:26:36] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:26:37] Tony Arsenal: So I think most Roman Catholics going to obligatory confession first. I think once a month is probably like, probably more frequent than most Roman Catholics go to mass or go to confession. Um, I thought I read a stat that it was like every six months is, is pretty average and I think that's what's required by the church maybe even once a year is, is required by the church. Um, I think like most Roman Catholics go into the, the confessional booth and like father forgive me for I've sinned. It's been such and such a number of days since my last confession. Right. And they may bring up a couple particular things that they've done and, and then I think the priest commonly absolves them of all of their sins. Like, almost like in an omnibus fashion and then prescribes their acts of penance, which is it, it like, honestly, it's probably things they should already be doing as a faithful Catholic saying Hail Marys and doing our fathers and acts of charity and things like that. So I think your math is probably right. [00:27:39] Protestant Repentance Particular [00:27:39] Tony Arsenal: I think your, your theory that more confession is probably like, I'm gonna read this from, uh, the Westminster confession, just to, just to say it here, is, this is chapter 15, which is titled of Repentance Under Life. And this is, uh, this is section five or paragraph five. It says, men ought not to content themselves with a general repentance, but is every man's duty to endeavor, to repent of his particular sins, particularly. And I think that's just such a beautifully phrased sentence like. Not only is it like potent theologically, but like, it just, it just feels good, like in terms of like the English language to repent of your particular sins, particularly. And like the idea is yes, Protestant reform, Christians affirm a general repentance from sin, right? We repent of our sin before the father, uh, as a result of our, of our coming to faith in Christ. And as part of our sanctification, we mortify our sin and we, Viv we are vivified by the spirit and repentance falls in that ongoing sanctification process. And there is this general repentance of like, I repent of the fact that I'm a sinner and that I commit sins, but there is this element in the reformed faith of like, I should be confessing to God. And I think by extension, like we should be confessing to our fellow Christians, our particular sins, our individual sins, and we should be doing that on particular occasion. And I think like. The Luther style confession of like going into the confessor and confessing like every particular sin. Particularly I think most Roman Catholic priests would, priests. Priests would probably have the same reaction Tobits did where he was like, get outta here. Like, come on dude. Like just go live your life and like deal with it. I think that's probably the reaction most Catholic priests would have. But yeah, I think you're right. Like if we're really talking about like. Five, five minutes of confession once a month and that somehow having some sort of spiritual efficacy. I'm not sure I buy that math. Like I think you're, you're probably spot on.  [00:29:47] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah.  [00:29:47] Confession Hours Oddities [00:29:47] Jesse Schwamb: I just was curious about how many priests would be required and then the allocation of the duties. By the way, you are right. So I, because I had to check on this, the, the fourth letter in council of 1215 does say that the church requires confession of any grave or mortal sins at least once a year. But the church, yeah, strongly encourages more frequent confession as a spiritual practice, even for, of course, like the venial or the less serious sins in their eyes. So yeah, my thought here was just that. I think it's actually undervalued by way of the math. Like the, as the kids say, the math just isn't math thing for me on this one. But I was more curious about, since this is one of the seven sacraments, even if you just said like, well, it should have at least one seven of the allocation. That's like, what? Like something like 14%. And so this is, um, almost half of that. I just found it a little bit, a little bit odd and yeah, I think you'd have to be, uh, so in other words, when I looked at the, basically, here's the bottom line. When I looked at the hours for confession one, there were weird times and uh, two, I was like, that doesn't seem like enough hours. Like, it was just more like that. Like how that's like saying like, Hey, the post office is open three hours a week, and by the way, one of those hours is from seven to eight o'clock on Friday. Like they had some hours. One hour just on Friday was like, I guess that's the way you wanna start your weekend is like, let's get all of this off my chest. Yeah. And, and do it. Right. And the last thing I'll say by the way, is you're correct. When you look at the instruction they give you, and this is common of course, toward the end, when they say like, here's how you like wrap up your part. Actually everybody should go read, go to the local, local Catholic church website and read the instructions. 'cause in some ways they're just interesting and kind of, um, I don't wanna say funny 'cause I'm not making fun. I'm just saying like, they have to give you instruction if you've never done it before. And so most of us are not really probably familiar with the process and they give you explicit instruction and toward the end it's like, here's how you kinda like hang up the call with the priest. And it's like you said, you know, these are my sins and all others, would you be willing to forgive? So you're right. Right. They just kinda wrap them all up because it's sins of omission, sense of commission, it's all to be together. But I, I wonder, you gotta think there's people in there that are like. The priests are like, okay, man, just yeah. Wrap, come on, wrap, wrap it up.  [00:31:55] Confession Timing Talk [00:31:55] Jesse Schwamb: And other people that come in are just like, you know, forgive me father. And uh, lastly to your point, when they give you instruction about how you should start, of course you're always to signify how long it's been since your last confession. Right. Confession. And they say parenthetically, like, reference the days, weeks, months, or years. So you're right. There are gonna be people that probably do it very frequently and probably people who do it infrequently still, I would say I just couldn't believe for a church this large, that there was just three hours a week.  [00:32:21] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:32:21] Jesse Schwamb: For everybody else.  [00:32:22] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:32:23] Vance and Papal Authority [00:32:23] Tony Arsenal: This leads me to two very brief sub, uh, denials slash affirmations. Uh, I don't know if you saw this, um, this is not a political statement, right? I, I have lots of feelings and thoughts about the current administration and I think most of my feelings and thoughts would surprise. Everybody. But I thought it was hilarious because JD Vance, who is a Roman Catholic, uh, confessed Roman Catholic part of the Roman Catholic Church, uh, he ha I, I'm not sure if I'm affirming or denying this, there was this funny, uh, funny exchange. I think he was at doing like a, doing like a TPU, I don't know, speech. He was doing a speech at some conservative event and he said something like, I think that the Pope should be more careful when he makes theological statements. I'm wanna be like, do you understand what the pope is in your religion? That was one of my sub denials. Uh, I don't remember what the other one is, so it must not have been that important. It'll come back to me at the worst possible moment and I will try very hard not to interrupt our show for it, but I probably will fail.  [00:33:25] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah.  [00:33:25] Reading Matthew 21 [00:33:25] Jesse Schwamb: Listen, we, we gotta get to some scripture because. We're, we're doing this old school style where we take like half the time and just talk about affirmations. It's true in house. It's true. Which is great fun. But let's, let's get back to Matthew 21. And I, I know we did this last time, but I am gonna rock through the passage 'cause of course, that's the best part of any of our discussion, is actually hearing from, from the Holy Spirit through the scripture, uh, which he's given to us. So this is, uh, Matthew 21, starting in verse 33. And you're gonna hear the, the whole thing right here. Uh, this is Jesus speaking. Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard and put a wall around it and dug a wine press in it and built a tower and rented it out to vine growers and went on a journey. Now, when the high risk time approached, he sent his slaves to the vine growers to receive his fruit, and the vine growers took his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. Again, he sent another group of slaves larger than the first, and they did the same thing to them. But afterward he sent his son to them saying they will respect my son. But when the vine growers saw the sun, they said among themselves, this is the heir. Come let us kill him and seize his inheritance, and they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vine growers? They said to him, he will bring those wretches to a wretched end and will rent out the vineyard to other vine growers who will pay him the proceeds at the proper seasons. Jesus said to them, did you ever read in the scriptures the stone, which the builders rejected? This has become the chief cornerstone. This came about from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes. Therefore, I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruit of it. And he who falls in the stone will be broken to pieces, but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust. And when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they understood that he was speaking about them. And although they were seeking to seize him, they feared the crowds because they're regarding him to be a prophet. [00:35:28] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.  [00:35:30] Pharisees Condemn Themselves [00:35:30] Tony Arsenal: This is like a super heavy parable. Right. And we talked a lot last week about how like the point of this parable is not necessarily to try to instruct the Pharisees or the Sadducees. Like it's not to instruct the people who were going to reject Christ, uh, the, the builders who would reject the cornerstone. It's really a parable to teach those. Who are observing this process happening. But I think it's, I, I think it's really interesting just listening to you read this and reading through it, and I guess this is a question I haven't asked and I, I need to study a little bit more. It's crazy to me in verse 41, um, Christ seems the, the, the, um, Matthew seems to say here, and maybe I need to do a little bit more Greek study, so bear with me and, and have grace if I'm wrong here. Matthew seems to say that like Christ asks the people he's speaking to, the Pharisees he's speaking to, what is he gonna do to these people? And the Pharisees answer, he's gonna put those wretches to a miserable death.  [00:36:36] Jesse Schwamb: Right?  [00:36:37] Tony Arsenal: Like the people listening to this parable understand the outcome, like they understand the. The consequence that the, the, the vineyard owner or the vineyard tenant tenants are facing based on their lack of faithfulness to the covenant. To me, that is like a really striking part of this parable. And, and it's not even like the parable proper, but like the striking element of the context of this is that nobody listening to this parable, including the Pharisees that this parable has basically spoken against, nobody fails to see the gravity of the consequence of rejecting God's emissary, like rejecting the Messiah. That to me is like a really, I dunno, paradigmatic. Portion of this that I think we need to grapple with. This is not an unclear, an unclear outcome. This is not, this is not masked or vague or OPA opaque. Like everybody understands, the people who reject the Messiah are going to face dire and eternal consequences for that act. [00:37:48] Jesse Schwamb: That does make this really interesting, doesn't it? Because it's not just entirely like Romans one adventures or even Romans two. It's that this is what Jesus does and he does it in a profound way that's not trickery like I think kinda like you're saying like the lead up to this isn't as if he's even leading the witness. He's making it very clear, all like the parameters of the story and the characters involved and what should be the proper judgment. And it's not as if like they start saying, they're like, oh, we shouldn't say anything more like we, we plead the fifth because it's gonna condemn ourselves. He draws his audience in to producing and pronouncing like their own sentence. It's very much like, I think I mentioned this last time, the prophet Nathan and David, isn't it? It's the exact same. Yeah. And the verdict is unanswerable, like even in its own terms. These other, like these other vine growers, prefigures of course like the inclusion of the Gentiles and the apostolic office. But I like that what Jesus does here, even before he gets to that point, is he extorts from them an acknowledgement of the punishment which awaited them. And so in this way there's like, I think the Puritans use this passage a lot actually to demonstrate that the natural conscience even of like the unregenerate, still bears witness to divine justice. That's Romans two. Like they, they can't get out from underneath it and Jesus isn't using any trickery on them to get them to say this thing. They are compelled in their own way, even being unregenerate to, like you said, even as they're rejecting the Messiah to recognize that punishment is due these characters in the story, even as they perceive at the end that they are those characters. [00:39:21] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:39:22] Jesse Schwamb: Saying we'll receive the judgment.  [00:39:24] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:39:25] Usurpers Not Misguided [00:39:25] Tony Arsenal: And I think too, like, um, this is kind of one of those chicken or the egg scenarios, right? Like Christ is both recognizing the intention of their heart as well as prophesying. And, and not just prophesying, but like inception level prophesying the, the outcome of the intention of their heart. And so like, again, like we've, we spent a whole week kind of like leading into the parable and now we spent a whole week, we're gonna spend a whole week again kind of leading into the parable. This is such a deep parable, and that like Christ is not just laying bare. The fact that the, the people who were going to reject him were doing so out of this sort of like attempt and intention of usurping the kingdom of God for their own purposes. I think that brings a layer to this that we don't often appreciate in. Christ's interaction with the Pharisees. I think sometimes, and maybe this is because I just listened to an episode of where Matt Whitman on the 10 minute Bible hour talked about this. I think sometimes we actually have a tendency to sort of be sympathetic to the Pharisees where we think, you know, they were, they were just trying to obey God's law and they got a little sideways on it and you know, they were putting these boundaries in place, but they were doing it in this sort of like misguided attempt to protect the people. Christ actually here seems to contradict that in that the comparison he's making is not to a, a well-intentioned group of people who just get it wrong, but he's painting the Pharisees, the, the religious leaders, the Sadducees, the chief priests. He's painting them as these usurpers who recognize the proper authority of right. The master and his emissaries and ultimately of his son, they recognize this proper authority and rather than submitting to it and submitting to the covenant obligations that they, they already actually agreed to, instead of doing that, they're going to reject that authority and try to take it for their own right. It's not just that they do the wrong thing, it's that they recognize the heir, which is Christ. They recognize this heir and they kill him to try to take his place. That is a really heavy element of this parable. Christ is not painting. Um, the, the, the Pharisees here, the, the religious leaders. He's not painting them as um, well-intentioned, but ultimately wrong, which is I think a lot of times, and I think there's reason to do this right. I'm not being overly critical and I've done this, I've actually done this myself, and I think there's some. Space for it. Like the Pharisees were wrong, but they were wrong, kind of in the right direction sometimes. Um, Christ is not really on board with that, at least in this parable. Right. This isn't about them thinking that the heir was a threat, and so killing the threat in, you know, inadvertently this is them absolutely seeing who the hair, who the heir is, and intentionally deciding to reject that heir and to murder him and to try to take his inheritance. Mm-hmm. That's an affront to not only the heir who they murder, but an affront to the owner of the vineyard himself, which of course in this parable is figured to be God the father primarily. But God in sort of general terms, like the whole Godhead, um, with Christ as the second Adam has, as his representative, as his heir. This is a really heavy parable and I think where this comes into play for us in our own Christian life is. Are there times where we. Sort of do the same thing in refusing to, maybe it's tie into your denial a little bit. Like refusing to acknowledge our own sinfulness, refusing to acknowledge the ways that God has provided for us. Um, do we at times look at what we have and lay claim to it as though it is our own inheritance that we've taken? Um, right. Do we kind of crucify the son of God anew in, in refusing to repent of our sins particularly? I dunno. I think those are some open questions for us to kind of explore as we dig into this a bit more. [00:43:54] Jesse Schwamb: And that may relate as well to, well eventually at some point, I dunno, like 2040, get to like the parable of the talents. There's some similarity there with a little bit, right? You're saying? I think you're right.  [00:44:06] God Does All the Verbs [00:44:06] Jesse Schwamb: And where I think we can anchor some of that is in those first couple of verses. I'm really always impressed by really the number of action verbs that are packed within, like that just initial statement of Jesus explaining the situation. [00:44:19] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:44:19] Jesse Schwamb: So he sets it all up and he's saying there's a planting that goes on, this landowner puts up a wall, digs a wine press. Builds a tower and then RINs it. So there's all these like amazing things being done, all this action verb. And I, I think in part why he comes against the Pharisees so hard in the same way that we're looking at like the parable that, uh, the, uh, talents for instance of saying like, what did you do with that was entrusted to you was like this great treasure which Christ has entrusted or God has entrusted to his people, which is, is the gospel essentially is, is all a prophetic witness, is like the truth of who God is and his revelation of himself. And so I think. The first thing we gotta see in those verbs is that there's this emphasis that the vineyard was God's sovereign creation. You know, he plants it, he chose it, he established it. Israel didn't plant herself. She was planted. And that sovereign initiative is foundational, I think in, like you're saying, the parables indictment, because these vine growers, they don't possess anything that they did not receive. Right. You know, they did not find a vineyard already planted, but God himself made it from the wilderness that all his glory, all the glory might be his. So. I think it's helpful for us to observe that the church is always the planting of the Lord and that no congregation flourishes that is not first planted by God. And so there is a major offense here when those who are to care for it, who know, like you're saying, that they ought to care for it, who understand something about the hierarchy and the way it has been entrusted to them. Not to only break that covenant, but then seek to try to usurp the power in the roles of those whom they should be, quite frankly, in our own language, like under shepherds too. And so it starts with all, all those verbs. Like I think we could probably spend a. A lot of times just speaking about what does it mean? Why? Why is there all this explicit in particular language about the fact that there's a hedge and there's a press besides just these are part in piece mail or part and parcel of what it means to have a vineyard, apparently, but that they're all part of this narrative of God talking about how he protects and cares for his people and sets them in a place and chooses them and is particular about the construction and does so with great volition and authority and care and concern and creative ability. And then again, you have those who are meant there to do the very job that he's entrusted them with. And not only are they not doing that, and of course you're right. Jesus elsewhere, comes in, comes in hot, right, with a Pharisees saying like, listen, you set burdens on people's backs that you yourselves cannot lift. You're twice as in the hell as anybody else, and that's who you are. Yeah. It's not just hypocrisy, but you're literally setting people up to fail in this. So you can see how you're right. It's not just like, guys, I appreciate that. Like you wanted to set up some additional boundaries and maybe you took it a little bit too far. This parable is just scorched earth. It's, it's nuclear. Yeah.  [00:47:10] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:47:11] Scandalous Vineyard Setup [00:47:11] Tony Arsenal: And you know, I think, um, we are obviously gonna spend another week on this 'cause we still have not really addressed a single verse in this parable. I, I think like a lot of ink has been spilled on explaining sort of like the feal agricultural arrangements of this passage. What it represents. M my understanding is. A typical arrangement would be that a, a landowner would basically just lease out land and the tenants would be responsible for the planting, for the development. Right. And the, the, the landowner would essentially just collect a portion of whatever they produce. Right. This parable is actually taking this a step further. Exactly. That it's not as though the landowner just says like, all right, you can use this land. Right. And I own the land, so I get a portion of the pro, the profit. He's actually done all the work. Yes. And all that. The, all that the, the tenants need to do essentially is reap the harvest and then provide the portion of the harvest that belongs to the landowner, and so there is a greater investment. Of the landowner into this land than would be expected. We've commented in the past about how a lot of times the, the parables start on sort of a premise of shock. Like there's a, there's an element of the setup of the, of the parable where the audience would kind of like sit back and gasp or kind of be like, wait a second. Like that's not normal. Right. In the parable of the, the, um, lost son, it was the idea that like the son demanded his inheritance. And that wasn't the shocking part. The shocking part was that the father just granted it. Right. Or, um, the lost sheep, like the, there's actually a sort of a shocking element to the fact that like the, the land, the like sheep owner would just go get this other sheep. So we've, we've commented on there's kind of like. There's sort of like a scandalous setup. The scandalous setup in this is not that the land has been leased to tenants, right? It's that the land has been prepared for the tenants before it was leased out in the first place. And I think that's something we might miss if we read over this too quickly, is. The landowner has prepared everything for these, these tenants.  [00:49:30] Jesse Schwamb: That's right.  [00:49:31] Tony Arsenal: So the, the, at the, the punchline of the parable where they refuse to acknowledge the sovereignty of, um, sovereignty and maybe a lowercase s in the, in the context of the parable, they refuse to acknowledge the sovereignty and the rightful claim of the tenant or of the landowner on the, the profit of the land. And sort of like highlighter emphasized by the fact that they actually didn't do any of the work. There's a certain kind of like Amer, like American rugged individualism where we're kind of like, yeah, like if I planted all the crops, then it's kind of lame that this guy's coming in expecting to take a portion of it, right? Like, yeah, I guess he owns the land, so maybe he gets a little piece of it, but like, who does he think he is? All of that already is already short circuited. Like I. The, these tenants are not actually, um, portrayed as doing anything in this parable. That's right. Like they just lease the land. They, they, um, and leased is not really like the right. The right word, the, the Greek word is omi, which is like he gave over the land to them. Um, when we say leased, we have this idea that like the tenants pay to use the land and then like part of their contract is that whatever profits they reap, uh, off the land goes back to the, to the landowner. This is really more like the landowner graciously allowed them to live on this land, and the only payment he required was that they would eventually provide him part of the profit back. Like he's planted the land, he's put up the fence around it. He dug the wine press so that they could make a product out of it. He built the tower so it would be defended. Yes. And he gave it over to them essentially just to like live on until it was time for the harvest. And all he is asking for is basically like, alright, so this is my land. I've planted the vineyards, the profit is mine to have. And so when the time came for him to come claim that that's where they have now rejected him. Yes. That's where they've now said like, I know you did all the work and really graciously allowed us to live in this land, but we're gonna keep all of it for ourselves. That's the scandal of this. That's what I think like the original audience would've set up and like, wait a second here. Like, hold on. They didn't even plant the vineyards themselves. They didn't even build the tower themselves. That's really the force of this that I think we miss when we, when we overemphasize, trying to think through like what the original agricultural arrangements were. 'cause this is painted. Very different than what the original arrangements would've been typical for. Like this is a different scenario and I think intentionally so,  [00:52:09] Jesse Schwamb: and we need those words like rented, at least in English, to help us understand that it didn't belong to them. It wasn't a gift, right? It wasn't as if like it was just turned over in the sense that it belongs to you now do with it what you will. And it's very clear in the passage one, like you said, that the landowner does all those things. So it was a, you know, he completely set it up. I mean, this is just such a beautiful, I think, depiction of the hold of prophetic, you know, understanding of God's word here, but it's very clear that says the, he sent his slaves to the vine growers to receive his fruit. So you're right. The scandal is that they're like, well, obviously. They need to give him his fruits, like  [00:52:48] Tony Arsenal: right.  [00:52:48] Jesse Schwamb: It was all set up before he left on this long journey. He then turned it over to them to care for, and that was really all that they were supposed to do. They had no role in this. And so it does like lead us in into this weird space where it's like, well, well what, what did the Pharisees think they were trying to do themselves? What does actually Jesus commenting on, on their own, like licit on their own initiative here, is he basically saying that not only are they not respecting his sovereignty, but they were trying to claim for themselves what only rightly belongs to God that even their position right. Society in culture as their representatives, God himself, they wanted to take that over for themselves, which he does bring that condemnation upon them in other parts of the scripture. So again, this is really hot. I think it's a, it's both heat and light, but there's no doubt that there's fire to this, right? Because it's a direct indictment that God the father set all of this up. You yourselves are on rented property, but guess what? Even the property that you've rented, I'm not exacting a tax from you as if like you have put forward and grown or supplied or created some kind of profitable outcome here. And I just want a piece of that. He's not even talking about tithing in that sense. What he's basically saying is, none of this belongs to you. Like how? Right? How dare you? None of this is yours. I set all of this up and in fact, because you've done so poor poorly at this, I'm gonna take it away from you and give it to those who actually produce fruit and guess what's gonna be the Gentiles? So it's, there's a wild. Amounts of condemnation packed into a very small story.  [00:54:19] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. It really is.  [00:54:22] Tenants Add Nothing [00:54:22] Tony Arsenal: Um, there is nothing expected of these tenants. Right. There's no contract, like there's no terms, they, they really add nothing to the, the landowner's land, except I guess maybe they're the ones harvesting these, this fruit. Right. But even that's not explicit in the parable.  [00:54:43] Jesse Schwamb: Exactly.  [00:54:43] Tony Arsenal: Right. Right. He, he does all just to steal your thunder, like he does all the verbs. Yes. All of the ves are done by the landowner.  [00:54:50] Jesse Schwamb: Yes. Right  [00:54:51] Tony Arsenal: on. There is an implication that the, the tenants are somehow like the ones harvesting this, or they're the ones producing the wine, I guess, in the wine vat or the wine press. But at the end of the day. A normal tenant landowner agreement would be, I'm, you're, first of all, you're probably gonna pay me to use this land, right? You're paying me to use this land, and the way you pay me is you're gonna plant the, the gr the crop. You're gonna harvest it. You're gonna make the produce, and all I'm gonna do is let you live on this land. I'm gonna take the pro, like the profit, you're gonna pay me outta that profit. There is nothing asked or expected of these, these landowners, except to give the fruit that is already hit.  [00:55:36] Jesse Schwamb: Yes, exactly.  [00:55:37] Tony Arsenal: And, and that's where like, I think our Christian life, John Piper, I won't get into too much, but like John Piper is all in the news again for the same like finance, final salvation stuff that he's, he's been controversial for, for years. Right. And I think like this ties into that thi this is a, a direct parallel in many ways to the par, like the, the parable of the talents, which I'm, we we'll get into eventually is like. The, the landowner provides these talents or the, in this case, the land and the fruit. All of this is brought forth by his will and the fact that these, these worthless tenants do nothing and then still have the audacity to basically like refuse to. Provide back to this landowner what he has produced.  [00:56:25] Jesse Schwamb: Right? Yes. That's  [00:56:26] Tony Arsenal: the key. That's, that's really the point of this parable.  [00:56:29] Jesse Schwamb: Yep.  [00:56:29] Tony Arsenal: Is somehow the Pharisees, and I think where the application of this is probably where we'll go next time, is like somehow the Pharisees have got in their mind that this thing that God has done in the people of Israel and is now doing in the Messiah, this ministry of the Messiah, in coming to claim the fruit, that somehow they have a right to lay claim to that and to withhold it from the Father. [00:56:54] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.  [00:56:54] Tony Arsenal: Even though they had nothing to do with anything that brought about, its, its, uh, its occurrence. Right. The Pharisees didn't create the nation of Israel. They didn't create the gospel. They didn't create the Messiah, and somehow they think that they can withhold the fruit of that ministry from the father and take like lay claim to it for themselves. And this is where I think. We have to trust the Holy Spirit and trust Jesus because there's really nothing in the gospels that explain what they were doing that sort of like showed them trying to like take over the Messiah's inheritance, right? But that's what this parable teaches, is that that's what they're being criticized for, that they were somehow trying to usurp the position of the Messiah. They were trying to become the mediators. They were trying to become the sons of God or the son of God who interceded from God for God's people. They were the ones that were gonna do that. They were the ones that were gonna accomplish that. So I think what'll be interesting next week is when we come, come back to this parable and sort of try to talk about like what does that actually teach us as believers 2000 years later, who aren't Pharisees. We're not trying to do that. What does this have to do with us? What does this have to say to us?  [00:58:07] Wrap Up and Next Week [00:58:07] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, I think you're entirely right and I'm looking forward to, uh, well, we'll wrap it up officially.  [00:58:13] Tony Arsenal: Yes.  [00:58:13] Jesse Schwamb: In, in that next episode, it's gonna be  [00:58:15] Tony Arsenal: probably  [00:58:16] Jesse Schwamb: totally, probably, it's like a 70% chance, honestly. Loved ones,  [00:58:21] Tony Arsenal: 70%, 50. [00:58:22] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. There's definitely a meaningful material probability that that still won't be the last one once we get started, but we're gonna try. As always. I, I'm totally with you. I, I hope people take a little time to go read through this because I think the more we slow down and really try to set ourselves into the details and actually be particular about maybe envisioning the circumstances exactly as they're laid out for us and not as we sometimes try to fill out in our minds. I think maybe the biggest challenge that we've learned in this particular conversation is that verse 34, what is meant when the scripture says Now, when the harvest time approached. He that is the landowner sent his slaves to the vine growers to receive his fruit. And I think what you've challenged here is this idea of, well, it doesn't say like he sent to go get them to harvest it. Right. Just saying like, listen, it's my fruit. Like let's do this thing. Like you knew I would show up. I've left you to, to care for all these things which I put into place. So here I am, I've sent my people to come and receive the fruit. And, uh, they can't do it. They refuse to do it. They won't do it. Uh, they kill everybody whom he sends, including his own son. And so, you're right, it's not even here. We gotta be careful about the actions and of presuming that they here, like the Pharisees were these people who were in charge somehow of even harvesting. There's, there's actually no mention of that except for it was just harvest time.  [00:59:40] Tony Arsenal: Right?  [00:59:40] Jesse Schwamb: And so it's even there, I think it's purposely ambiguous to remind us that God is doing all the things. I'm a little embarrassed that I missed the phrase. God does all the verbs when I was literally saying. The landowner does all these verbs.  [00:59:53] Tony Arsenal: It's okay.  [00:59:54] Jesse Schwamb: The first sentence I, I've, I've fallen down on you loved ones. I'm so sorry I missed it,  [00:59:58] Tony Arsenal: Jesse. It's okay because God does all the verbs  [01:00:02] Jesse Schwamb: is factually. That is factually correct, so we'll give this one. One more shot because at least there's so much for us. We could do a whole series just on this one, and I think if you're tracking with us, you're probably discovering that we also, sometimes in real time, as we really spend a little bit of effort kind of speaking about the particulars, find that these parables are more chock full than you think. There isn't just one idea. There's often many ideas coalescing around. Yeah. The central theme and the setup in the context is important. The word choice is important, and I am as well, just as you were saying, blown away by the way in which Jesus really evokes from the audience here, their own condemnation, their own judicial decree, which is, yeah, he's gonna take those wretches and kick 'em out. And they're saying it about themselves. This is what sin does, isn't it? This is what the natural man is like. Ken has to bow down to this great sovereign justice that comes from God while at the same time they think in their self-righteousness. They're proclaiming that in somebody else, and what they're really doing is they're putting it on their own head apart from God. We are all like that. All of us are like this. So glory beats a God who through the Holy Spirit, opens our eyes to receive and to understand the gospel, to be changed by, to be transformed by it because he does all the verbs. I'm so grateful that that's in fact what he does, that that God has planted us, that he's pull a wall around us, that he stick out this wine press for us, that he's built a tower to protect us and that he has grown the fruit in us because of all the things that he has done. [01:01:42] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Well, this is normally the part of the episode where we would do all of our announcements, uh, which just shows you we are not great podcasters. 'cause really we should do that at the beginning of, of the episode. Uh, but you know what, like if you wanna know what all of our announcements are, you're just gonna have to come back next week. 'cause we are out of time. We're not gonna do that. So I, I know that that's the most cliff of all cliffhangers is if you have listened this far and you want to hear about Oliver of our housekeeping assignment, an announcements and whatnot, you're just gonna have to come back next week and listen to it. Uh, because as much as my brain is telling me I should tell you all about it now, I'm not going to. So, Jesse, until next time when people join us for our housekeeping announcements, honor everyone.  [01:02:31] Jesse Schwamb: Love the brotherhood. 
• The Wicked Tenants: Christ's Indictment of Covenant Unfaithfulness 04.05.2026 1ч 8мин
• Repentance Over Religion: Matthew 21's Parable of Two Sons 27.04.2026 46мин
• The Vineyard Workers: A Rebuke to Covenant Entitlement 20.04.2026 1ч 3мин

  In this powerful episode of The Reformed Brotherhood, Tony and Jesse return to their parable series with an in-depth examination of the Laborers in the Vineyard from Matthew 20:1-16. This often-misunderstood parable confronts our natural inclination toward merit-based thinking and exposes the scandal of God's grace. The hosts unpack the covenantal language embedded in the text, particularly the workers' "grumbling"—a loaded term echoing Israel's wilderness rebellion. Through careful exegesis and theological reflection, they demonstrate how this parable dismantles religious entitlement while celebrating God's sovereign freedom to bestow mercy according to His purposes, not our calculations. The discussion offers fresh insights into grace, election, and the radical generosity that defines God's kingdom economy. Key Takeaways The parable operates on covenant logic, not economic fairness: The landowner's dealings with his workers reflect covenantal promise-keeping rather than marketplace transactions, establishing that God's relationship with His people is fundamentally gracious. "Grumbling" carries profound theological weight: The Greek word used for the workers' complaint is the same term in the Septuagint for Israel's wilderness rebellion—not mere dissatisfaction, but a covenantal accusation against God's faithfulness. Two types of workers represent two approaches to God: The first-hired workers who contracted for specific wages represent those relating to God through legal obligation and merit, while later workers who trusted the owner's promise represent faith-based relationship. The reversal of payment order is narratively essential: By paying the last workers first, the landowner deliberately exposes the merit-based assumptions of the first workers, forcing them to confront their entitlement. Grace doesn't negate justice—it transcends it: The landowner fulfills every contractual obligation while simultaneously exercising sovereign generosity beyond what is owed, demonstrating that mercy and justice coexist in God's character. The parable addresses the present kingdom, not just heaven: Because it includes grumbling and complaint, this parable describes life in God's kingdom now—the "already but not yet"—rather than the consummated state. Divine sovereignty in salvation is the theological climax: The landowner's declaration "Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?" directly addresses God's freedom in election and the scandal of unmerited grace. Key Ideas The Covenantal Nature of the Landowner's Dealings The parable's opening establishes a formal agreement between the landowner and the first workers: one denarius for a day's labor. This contractual arrangement is crucial for understanding what follows. Unlike marketplace haggling, this represents a covenant—the landowner binds himself to provide what he has promised. Tony emphasizes that even this initial contract is an act of condescension and grace, as the master had no obligation to employ anyone at all. As the day progresses, subsequent workers are hired with increasingly less formal agreements. By the third hour, the landowner promises only "whatever is right," and by the eleventh hour, no wage is even mentioned. These later workers enter the vineyard based entirely on the landowner's character and trustworthiness. This progression mirrors the movement from law to gospel—from contractual obligation to trusting promise. The theological implication is profound: those who relate to God based on His gracious word rather than calculated merit are actually in a more secure position than those who attempt to earn their standing through works. The Wilderness Echo: Grumbling as Covenant Violation The hosts make a critical exegetical observation about the Greek word for "grumbling" (γογγύζω) used in verse 11. This is not casual complaining but the identical term used throughout the Septuagint to describe Israel's covenant rebellion in the wilderness. When the workers grumble "upon receiving" their wages, they're not merely expressing disappointment about pay inequality—they're filing a covenant lawsuit against the master, accusing him of unfaithfulness. This connection to Numbers 16 and Exodus 16-17 is devastating. The Israelites' wilderness grumbling wasn't about logistics or comfort; it was fundamentally about doubting God's covenant fidelity. By employing this loaded terminology, Matthew signals that the first workers' complaint is nothing less than accusing God of covenant violation. The landowner's response ("Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius?") is a covenant defense—he has fulfilled his obligations precisely. The workers' real offense is not miscalculation but begrudging God's freedom to show mercy beyond what is contractually required. The "Evil Eye" and Begrudging God's Grace The final rhetorical question—"Or do you begrudge my generosity?"—contains another Jewish idiom often lost in translation. The Greek literally reads, "Is your eye evil because I am good?" This "evil eye" imagery appears throughout Scripture as a metaphor for envy, stinginess, and resentment toward another's blessing. The landowner's question cuts to the heart: are you cursing me for being generous? This directly parallels Jonah's response to Nineveh's salvation. Jonah had just experienced miraculous deliverance through the great fish, yet when God showed identical mercy to the Ninevites, Jonah's response was essentially, "I knew you were gracious—that's why I ran!" The parable exposes the same perverse logic: those who have received covenant mercy begrudging that same mercy extended to others. For the Pharisees listening to Jesus, this was an indictment of their resentment toward tax collectors and sinners receiving the kingdom. For Christians today, it challenges any sense of spiritual superiority based on how long we've been in the kingdom or how much we've sacrificed. Memorable Quotes Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity? That 'or' is a logical connector—either I'm not allowed to do what I want with my belongings, which is ridiculous, or if I am allowed, then you must be mad at me for being generous. Those are the only options. — Tony Arsenal The grumbling in the Old Testament in this context is a covenantal accusation. These workers aren't just complaining about not getting what they thought they would—they're questioning the veracity of the covenant that was made. — Tony Arsenal Most of us are this eleventh-hour call. It's much better to be in the place of that younger brother who comes in and repents than to be the older brother who is stubborn and finds some reason to come before God with self-righteous grievances. — Jesse Schwamb Full Episode Transcript [00:01:05] Jesse Schwamb: Welcome to episode 488 of the Reformer Brotherhood. I'm Jesse  [00:01:13] Tony Arsenal: and I am still Tony, and this is the podcast where Tony comes back. Hey brother.  [00:01:19] Jesse Schwamb: Hey brother. The band is back together again, man. It's reunited and boy, do you feel it? It feels good, doesn't  [00:01:26] Tony Arsenal: it? I do, I do. I'm excited to come back. It was nice to take a break. [00:01:29] Jesse Schwamb: Good.  [00:01:29] Tony Arsenal: I, uh, I've been, you know, texted with you a couple times. Just it was, I did my best to sort of not think about the podcast because that's sort of defeats the purpose of taking a break from something if you spend a lot of time thinking about it. Um, so I'm back. I'm refreshed. I'm ready to go.  [00:01:44] Break and Work Chaos [00:01:44] Tony Arsenal: I appreciate the listeners' patience. Uh, it's been sort of a weird, crazy busy time at work. Uh, there's a lot going on. I, I lost like. 60% of my staff in the course of like three weeks. And, um, I'm still kind of in the thick of it, but we're coming out of it. So took a little bit of time to just make sure that I was having a, an appropriate space to de-stress from that and take care of my family and attend to worship. And, um, it was really a, a blessing to have that. Uh, sort of sabbatical. Ironically, the sabbatical wars were going on at the same time on Twitter, and Jesse is blissfully unaware of that 'cause he's not involved in in the Twitter. That's true. Um, but yeah, just took a little break and it's kinda like overblown it, to call it a sabbatical. Like this is a podcast, it's a hobby, but, but it was nice to have, uh, a little bit of extra time, you know, couple hours extra week, uh, uh, each week of extra time to just decompress and, uh, play with the kids and spend time with my wife and clean the house a little bit, which was good.  [00:02:36] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, it is always good to have a clean house. You look great. You seem refreshed. The voice sounds good, and I'm like, I don't know, in year seven or eight of my Twitter sabbatical, it's going great so far. I feel like I haven't missed a whole lot. The world still seems wild and I'm sure, or X, right? We gotta go X on this. It's  [00:02:53] Tony Arsenal: always Twitter. It's always gonna be Twitter. I don't care what Elon Musk  says.  [00:02:56] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, I'm listen. I'm totally fine with that.  [00:02:58] Back to Parables [00:02:58] Jesse Schwamb: And I teased this in the last episode, but we can't be stopped. I mean, people should know this by now, we have an inexorable march through the parables of Jesus's true. That will not be stopped. We're always gonna come back until there are no more. And on this episode, we're gonna be hanging out in Matthew 20, talking about laborers in the Kingdom of Heaven.  [00:03:17] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. I'm stoked. I'm, I'm, I'm excited to get back into it. I'm excited to get back into the word together with everybody. I'm excited to clear whatever that was on in my throat out  [00:03:27] Jesse Schwamb: emotion,  [00:03:27] Tony Arsenal: live on the air. Uh, but yeah, it'll be good. I'm, I'm stoked. I mean, I love this stuff and it's good to be back.  [00:03:32] Jesse Schwamb: Listen, you had the rest. Now let's talk about labor. So speaking of labor, it's, it's time for you to work up here, Tony. Are you affirming with or denying against on this episode?  [00:03:42] Tony Arsenal: Uh, I'm affirming something and I'm hopeful, uh, that just a little behind the scenes activity here. Jesse recorded episode 487, like an hour and a half ago. I have not yet listened to it, so I don't know if you did an affirmation and I I did. If you did. I hope it's not the same one.  [00:03:58] Jesse Schwamb: I did not. You're  [00:03:59] Tony Arsenal: safe. Uh, good. So I'm safe.  [00:04:01] Artemis II Hype [00:04:01] Tony Arsenal: So, um, I'm affirming the Artemis two mission. Um, oh, nice. Have you been, I mean, I know you're not on Twitter, but I'm sure there's news elsewhere. Uh, this amazing mission around the moon, um, for astronaut, for astronauts, I think, um, the furthest man space travel, um, since the Apollo program. Um. Pretty intense, pretty amazing pictures, right? The camera technologies amazing. Increased exponentially, uh, since we were there last. Um, this is ostensibly in preparation for an actual moon landing, which who knows when that will be? Um, but as far as I've seen, the mission was a resounding success. There was no right. I think they had, they ran into a few little hiccups early on with some technical things, but nothing crazy. I have not heard. Um, I know they did touch down and they did reentry. Um, I've not heard anything one way or another, but I'm assuming since I have not heard terrible, tragic news that they made it through, did they do the reentry? I'm really, apparently I'm not actually paying as much attention to this as I thought I was. I saw a lot of information about reentry, but I guess, I don't know for sure when that happened or is happening.  [00:05:05] Jesse Schwamb: I mean, by this point, when people listen to it, it'll be old news anyway, right? So  [00:05:09] Tony Arsenal: For sure. Yeah. And either, either it went terribly wrong and I'm gonna feel awful, or it went fine and I'm gonna feel a little silly for. Throwing a caveat that it went terribly wrong out there. But, um, it's cool. It's, it's amazing. I mean, I, I commented to my wife the other day and she's kinda like, yeah, maybe we should like, spend that money on people who are on the planet. I was like, okay, I can, I can buy that wisdom. But, um, there's something very cool and very Genesis, uh, one, ask Genesis one and two, ask about flying out into space and taking dominion over Yeah, for sure. Over a, a little ball of rock, uh, you know, uh, 25,000 miles away or whatever it is. Um. And, you know, I'm like an engineering nerd. I, I don't know anything about engineering, but I love watching YouTube videos that explain stuff like this. And  [00:05:52] Jesse Schwamb: me  [00:05:52] Tony Arsenal: too, all of the videos that have cropped up now about free return and how, like they're able to basically like do minimal burn on the thrusters to get into the right trajectory and then just like meet the moon in the place it's gonna be. And then the, you know, the moon's gravity captures it and whips it back around and then shoots it back towards Earth. And for the most part, they're able to do all of that with relatively minor, um, relatively minor energy output because they're just utilizing physics and gravity and math, um, to fly to the moon and come back. Yes. It's pretty crazy amazing. So, yeah. Amazing. And the photos of like the, the sort of like new versions of the Earthrise photos are really, really phenomenal. Um, they're crisp, they're clean, they're obviously like the best, the best actual pho photographic images we've had of the lunar surface. Um. And the, the far side of the lunar surface, which we get all sorts of like telescopic photos and things of this side of the lunar surface because it's tightly locked and is facing us at all times. We don't get a ton of really great photography of the far side of the moon, which is a big part of what this mission was, so,  [00:06:56] Jesse Schwamb: right.  [00:06:56] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. If you haven't seen the photos, I mean, they're out there, they're amazing. There will be even more available once we get back. You know, they, they're transmitting only the most stellar, amazing ones. Um, and, but they're taking, I'm sure thousands and thousands of photos and, um, so yeah, it's pretty cool. I'm affirming the Artemis two mission. Um. It's just amazing what, what people can do with common grace, you know? That's right. In insight into nature. Um, I don't know anything about the astronauts. I don't know anything about their religious faith or their spiritual life or anything like that. But, um, the people who design this, the people who fly it, they're just tapping into the truth that's present in God's creation. So good on them. Uh, either I'm glad they got home, wish they have a safe home coming, or something along those lines, I guess. I don't know.  [00:07:40] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, you'll be happy to know that NASA is reporting that the four astronauts are an excellent condition after they landed in the Pacific Ocean. So  [00:07:47] Tony Arsenal: good.  [00:07:47] Jesse Schwamb: All, all appears to be well. And it says they have a giant SD card of pictures that's they've been taking. Yeah. And saving. I'm sure. They were just, they were just too big to send to over wifi.  [00:07:58] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Like massive wideness. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure they have a ton that they didn't send because you know Right. Data rates to the moon are pretty high. Yeah.  [00:08:05] Jesse Schwamb: Ex. Yeah.  [00:08:05] Tony Arsenal: This economy is crazy. So  [00:08:07] Jesse Schwamb: Exactly. In this economy. Really In this economy. Yeah, exactly.  [00:08:11] Cosmic Worship Reflections [00:08:11] Jesse Schwamb: I think you're right. This is good. I haven't talked about this at all. It's hard not to get just stoked, even in the amateur way about the science, the technology, the physics of all this stuff, and then even the astronauts just being overwhelmed by what they're seeing. [00:08:24] Tony Arsenal: Mm-hmm.  [00:08:25] Jesse Schwamb: It's hard not to get pulled into that and think about the universe that God has created and find that there is something transcendent just, uh, by observing all of these things. Yeah. Like even casually, which I think shows, again, this is literally the, the heavens and the earth crying out for God, showing his immeasurable power and, you know, immortal nature. It's incredible that we can even see and be a part of some of these things. Just wild.  [00:08:49] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah, and I think it's crazy that they can get signals to the moon. I mean, I drive home from Dartmouth College and I go through half of the spot there, and I don't have a cell signal, but we can get images from the moon. Um, so yeah, it's great. It's great. Check it out if you haven't seen it. If you haven't heard about it, I don't know what you're doing. Uh, this is probably the largest major scientific advancement in our generation. Um, in terms of like big scale scientific enterprise projects. There's been a lot of really amazing technology that's been developed. But this is like the first big. Almost like risky kind of scientific,  [00:09:30] Jesse Schwamb: right?  [00:09:30] Tony Arsenal: I dunno. Gambit or I dunno, gamble that we've done in a long time. Big deal. I mean, big a lot. Deal of things. Deal. Nothing went wrong. Nothing ma major went wrong. Praise God that they all got back to the planet safely. Right. But, um, a lot of things could have gone wrong, uh, and they didn't. So check out the photos, check out the scientific data they're gonna get. I mean, I'm sure they've got all sorts of information about the way the, the, the space ship moved, all of that stuff. It's gonna be really interesting to see kind of how this all comes about.  [00:09:56] Jesse Schwamb: Get some worship on, right? Yeah. I mean this is what a one, a thing to be reminded about how big and how glorious God is. [00:10:01] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:10:01] Jesse Schwamb: And, and to realize, like you said, the risks of this exploration. And this is God again, creating all of this outta nothing. Why? Yeah. Just absolutely wild. Incredible.  [00:10:12] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah, for  [00:10:12] Jesse Schwamb: sure. Blown away.  [00:10:13] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. What about you, Jesse? What do you have for us?  [00:10:15] Bayes and Predictability [00:10:15] Jesse Schwamb: I got affirmation. It's equally nerdy, and actually this is as is always the case. This is why one of many reasons I miss you is it, it dovetails so nicely, so I'm affirming with a book. It's called Everything Is Predictable, how Esy and Statistics Explains the World. It's by a guy named Tom Chivers. I know this sounds super nerdy, but hear me out on this because Thomas Bayes, if you don't know this guy is first kind of like a wild and interesting guy, but this whole theory he put forward is super interesting. And this book is not like a mathematics book. It's like reads almost like a statistical thriller, which as it came outta my mouth, realized it was not maybe more ingratiating. I could have chosen better words than statistical thriller. But Thomas Bayes was alive in the 17 hundreds. And what's interesting to me at least about him, is he was an English statistician, who was a Presbyterian minister actually. He was a non-conformist and his, this whole theorem that he developed was actually published after his death. And the non-conformist part is super interesting. It's all in this book, even some of his different theological ideas. But because he was non-conformist, it basically meant like he couldn't learn. He was kicked out of all the English universities. He had to go to Scotland. Even all of that shaped how he came up with this particular theorem. But the gist of it is. Rather than treating like probabilities, as we think about it as this fixed frequency, you know, how many times does this thing occur? He argued and realized that it should represent a degree of belief and then you would update that belief rationally as new evidence comes in. And I know that sounds super quaint, but this is like what machine learning is based on medical diagnosis. A lot of like space travel is based on this in terms of understanding uncertainty and systems spam, all of that stuff. Here's an example, I think Tony, because we are, we have to carry forward with the top 50 medical podcast thing, right? We've got going on here. Lemme just give everybody an example of why you need this and why you automatically think this way. So. Statistics is really important, especially in medical testing. This was really prevalent in during COVID. So there's two ways that you can describe how a medical test performs you. You know this already, Tony, you're an expert. So one would be like sensitivity. So like how AIG  [00:12:19] Tony Arsenal: not an expert.  [00:12:20] Jesse Schwamb: Oh, you're definitely an expert in testing. Here we go. So one would be like sensitivity. How good is the test at catching people who are sick? So if you're sick, you, you want the test to identify that, that you're sick. That's sensitivity. So a test with a 99% sensitivity is gonna correctly identify 99 out of a hundred people who are truly sick. It always gonna miss one person. It's a false negative. The other half of that coin is something called specificity. So if sensitivity is all about catching the people who are sick, specificity is gonna say, how good is the test at clearing people who are not sick? And so a test with 99% specificity, you might have correctly guessed, is gonna identify or clear 99 out of a hundred healthy people. Now if you have a test. Both of those 99% sensitive and 99% specific, you might be thinking, that is the dream. That's exactly what I want. That that test is gonna be so precise and accurate. How could my intuition fail me? But this is the thing. It actually fails all the time, and here's why. Let's say that. You go out and you screen a group of people, a general population for a rare disease that affects one in a thousand people. One in a thousand people, rare disease. So if you screen 10,000 people from the general population, that means that truly only 10 of them are going to have the actual disease. I'm not gonna do all the math 'cause it'll, oh, this is already making for amazing podcasting. But here's the bottom line. That test, which sounds so good on the face, is going to identify 109 people as truly sick or truly having disease. But the problem is that only 10 of them actually have it. That means that only there's, it only has a success rate of 9%. There's only 9% chance you actually have the disease, but it's falsely identified. The short end of this is Bayes corrects that problem. He fixes it with his theorem so that we get to the right number of people. That's what's called like a base fallacy rate. It's not taking into account that really only 10 people should have this particular disease or this sickness. So I know that's sounds super nerdy, but so much of our lives are based on this. We have a prior belief or a prior set of things that we understand about the world. And then as evidence comes in, we refine that. That sounds so normal and normative, but it's revolutionary in this book actually. Bayes versus what's called like frequentist or frequent, um, probability is like hotly debated. People actually throw down over this theorem. So it's a really fun read. Go check out. Everything is predictable. Al Bayesian statistics explains our world. It really is for everybody. And then you can impress your friends with all the statistical pross you're gonna have when you're done reading it.  [00:14:56] Tony Arsenal: Like the medical administrator hat that I can't always take off is like, why would we screen 10,000 people? Are, are they all symptomatic? Are none of them symptomatic? But suppose it doesn't really  [00:15:08] Jesse Schwamb: matter for the example. That's a great, so generally what happens here is, let's say it's like some kind of rare form of cancer, unless you use Bayesian statistics, what you'll find is you'll get these false positive rates. So these tests do use Bayesian statistics. It corrects, in other words, for this problem. So there might be a lot of people that are gonna screen for this because if you, you wanna know if you have it, but you don't wanna get it wrong and say that you do. So this ensures his approach ensures that you get it. Right. It's wild. Fascinating stuff.  [00:15:34] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, and I would think actually, you know, there's probably, there's other mechanisms as well where they would, where they would sort of screen out. People that shouldn't be tested or help identify false negatives, false positives. Um, but yeah, that's, that's interesting. I probably won't read that book, but it sounds like an interesting read. I just don't have a lot of room on my A TBR shelf.  [00:15:55] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, listen. That, that's fair.  [00:15:57] Goodreads DNF Update [00:15:57] Jesse Schwamb: By the way, here's like a, a side affirmation. I think you and I both share speaking like books and cataloging books. If you use Good Reads, good Reads. Right. Finally adding a list of the Do Not Did Not Finish book. That's fantastic. This, this might be an example for some people, so pick it up and even if you don't have a place for it, guess where you can put it on the did not finish list. Yeah. Good Reads.  [00:16:16] Tony Arsenal: That's finally, that's one of those like, like why didn't they add that 15 years ago? Kind of an updates and you get the email and they're like, we're so excited to introduce the did Not Finish thing. And we're like, yeah. Like of course. Like, duh. It's likes, like, we're proud to introduce that. Your keypad now has a zero on it.  [00:16:36] Jesse Schwamb: Right. So  [00:16:37] Tony Arsenal: yeah. I'm, I'm excited about the DNR, um, the DNF, um, I'm so excited. I can't even remember what it's called. Yeah. The shelf. But, uh, very, very useful. The DNR list  [00:16:47] Jesse Schwamb: is a diff it is a different list. Speaking of medical things, it's a different  [00:16:50] Tony Arsenal: list. Yeah. Yeah, that's definitely a different thing. Usually it's not a list. It's a list of one in most cases.  [00:16:56] Jesse Schwamb: Exactly,  [00:16:57] Tony Arsenal: yeah. You can't put other people on your  [00:17:00] Jesse Schwamb: DNR  [00:17:00] Tony Arsenal: This,  [00:17:00] Jesse Schwamb: I suppose. Yeah, I should clarify that. You can really, you can only really put yourself, or I suppose somebody for whom you have that kind of authority over on that list, but I was thinking that more from like a medical perspective, that somewhere there would be a database in which there might be a list of DNR. I don't know.  [00:17:15] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, maybe. I don't know. I'm not sure. Probably there was at some point, but I think with medical chart technology now, that's probably like a. A moot point. Yeah. They don't need to be able to like cross reference a master list anymore. They just look in the patient's electronic record. We're really like in the weeds here. You can tell it's been a while since I've, I've podcasted. I don't really remember how to do this.  [00:17:35] Jesse Schwamb: This is great.  [00:17:36] Segue to Matthew 20 [00:17:36] Jesse Schwamb: I think at this point we try to make some kind of awkward segue that is mildly successful. Again, probably has statistically like a 20 to 27% chance of being successful and really hitting the mark. Yeah. So do you have anything that's gonna move us into this?  [00:17:49] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, I mean, I feel like you've been podcasting for the last several weeks without me and I've been working hard and now I'm kind of coming in as Johnny come lately and we're gonna get paid the same amount so. Even though you've worked harder for longer and I'm coming in late to the game here. [00:18:03] Jesse Schwamb: Oh man. Ple loved ones. Please tell me you got that. Please tell me you got all of that. That's, that's what you show up for here. Yeah, that was  [00:18:10] Tony Arsenal: a deep cut.  [00:18:11] Jesse Schwamb: That, that was beautiful. And I think leads us right into Matthew 20. So I think we've got at least 16 verses to get through here. Maybe again, if we're gonna keep a statistical theme here, something about engineering and math, all that stuff, we'll let everybody else pick the over under and whether or not we're gonna get through this and how many verses that's going to be. But at this point, we might as well begin.  [00:18:32] Tony Arsenal: Yes. Yeah.  [00:18:33] Read the Parable [00:18:33] Tony Arsenal: I'll start by reading. Uh, we're here in Matthew chapter 20, the first 16 versus this is the parable of the laborers in the vineyard and it reads. For the Kingdom of Heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborer laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into the vineyard and going out about the third hour, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace. He said to them, you go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right, I will give you. So they went, going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. And about the 11th hour, he went out and found others standing. And he said to them, why do you stand here idle all day? They said to him, because no one has hired us. And he said to them, you go into the vineyard too. And when the evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, call the laborers and pay them with their wages, beginning with the last up to the first. And when those hired about the 11th hour came, each of them received a denarius. Now, when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. And on receiving it, they grumbled at the master of the house saying, these last worked only one hour and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat. And he replied to one of them, friend, I'm doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me? For a denarius, take what belongs to you and go, I choose to give the last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you beg, do you begrudge my generosity? So the last will be first and the first will be last. Now I just wanna head this off. I did bite my tongue earlier and I probably am lisping and this is like a running gag. We thought that we'd resolved it. Uh, so if you hear me stumble over my words a little bit, it's just, it's just the struggle bus today.  [00:20:24] Jesse Schwamb: Listen, this is the, these are like the real things we have to deal with when the podcasting, like the real threats, the real injuries. I appreciate you like working through it. Like you just get back up and you walk it off with your tongue.  [00:20:35] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, my, my, uh, my podcasting hiatus was actually just a recovery of the last time I bit my tongue. I just needed a couple weeks to, no, I'm just kidding.  [00:20:43] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, we didn't wanna say.  [00:20:44] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:20:44] Kingdom Fairness and Grumbling [00:20:44] Tony Arsenal: So, Jesse, this is a, this is a parable that follows right on the heels, um, of kind of everything we've been talking about. And I think as we go through these parables and we look at them and we, we sort of pick them up and we look at the different facets of them, we sort of compare them to each other. We kind of, we kind of place them in their context really. They all have basically the same theme, right? Like they're all kind of circulating around these same topics. In this parable, it's circulating around this idea that, um, the, the owner of the vineyard, the master of the vineyard, is allowed to pay the people he employs whatever he wants. And as long as the payment that is due to an individual is received by that individual, then what other people receive and how they receive it and how hard they've worked and how hard they didn't work. That's really not germane to whether or not the, the laborer received a fair wage, uh, in the first place. Right. So we're, we're circling around themes of kind of fairness of, uh, of sort of resentment, I think for resentment at the master's generosity, which has been a big theme in previous ones. So this will be good for us to expand on. There's always little nuggets and kernels of things that are different from other parables, and then it's interesting to always see the ways that they kind of line up and, and tell us similar things.  [00:21:57] Jesse Schwamb: And this parable is unique to Matthew. Yeah. And it does function as this exposition or expansion of what Jesus says in chapter 19 where it says, but many who are first will be last. And the last first, which is repeated with this lovely like inverted emphasis in, at the end of this as you just read. So it belongs to this like interesting cluster of teacher teachings on discipleship and reward nature of the kingdom of God. And we've, we've spoken a lot about that. I think I was just reminded of this as you were, you were. Reading this, I feel like I remember this from some teaching, like this parable is kind of like a unique chiasm that's anchored on the landowner, sovereign generosity, which you brought up. And then there's the complaints of the first hired, which is mirrored by the late comers vulnerability. And then the landowners, two speeches which divide everything, kind of provide sandwich and the like, the theological climax. It does start in that really familiar way, which we've gotten accustomed to thinking about that introductory formula of the kingdom of heaven is like, and it signals of course that what follows is not gonna be a lesson in economics, but it's gonna use all this economic language as theological disclosure for how God's kingdom operates. And it starts again, like you said, with this master of the house, which to me seems. Pretty clearly like a, a God figure himself. Yeah. It's, that's kind of like a reoccurring mathian image. I think. So we've got this vineyard, which of course has all this symbolism, steeply rooted in Israel's covenant imagination and evokes God's people and his redemptive labor among them. So, man, now that I'm saying this all loud, is this thing like super pregnant with all kinds of like imagery and meaning?  [00:23:27] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, it's, it's always good to remember, although parables have kind of some parables, most parables have sort of distinct discreet, symbolic elements where like, this represents that this represents that almost in an allegorical form. And, and in some cases, like purely in allegorical form, where it's like pilgrim's progress where each, each individual, each entity, each location each represents some sort of symbolic value. But we have to remember that when, when it says the parable of the kingdom of heaven is like the master of the house, it's not just like the master of the house. Yes. Right. It's like this whole scenario. Yes. It's, it's like. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like everything that follows, it's like the entire, um, the entire paree here. That's what the Kingdom of Heaven is like. And one of the things that I think is striking about this is the kingdom of heaven is like some people complaining, like the people complaining about, some people are getting the same wage for less work. Um, that is part of what the Kingdom of Heaven is like. So I think we sometimes think of, of. The kingdom of heaven in, um, in the parables, we think of it as though God is just saying, this is what heaven is like. Right? Jesus Just saying like, this is what heaven is like, but the kingdom of heaven, that language is broader than what we normally would say, uh, is. We're thinking of heaven, like in the, the spiritual abode where God lives and the angels live. Um, where, where the departed saints are waiting for the resurrection, the kingdom of heaven is, is also inclusive of the, the sort of like. Time now between the victory of Christ on the cross and the consummation of the kingdom and the last day, the kingdom of heaven is inclusive of that time period too. And so this parable sort of situates us. I think it situates us in that pre consummated state where we're talking about what it's like to be a part of the kingdom of heaven here and now in our fallen state, but still solidly in the kingdom of heaven. 'cause there's not gonna be any complaining or grumbling about God's justice in God's fairness once we're in the final resurrected state. Right? Sure. Nobody's gonna be looking back and be like, yeah, you were way too gracious for that guy. Nobody's gonna be playing the Jonah part when we're all resurrected and we're worshiping for, for all time going forward. So this parable, because there are elements of. Dissatisfaction or elements of grumbling or complaining similar to like the, the parable of the prodigal son. There's this sun figure, the, the older sun figure who like is just a bonehead and doesn't get it. Well, that can't be talking about the people who are in the resurrection kingdom in the final kingdom. It's gotta be talking about people who are still awaiting the resurrection of the body and who are still not yet. Uh, and even in, in that parable, the, the older son doesn't even seem to be a figure who's, who's regener. Maybe he does become regener at some point in the future, but he doesn't seem to be. In, even in God's kingdom, he doesn't seem to be, even among God's people, he's consistently placed outside of the field. You don't even know he exists until Nick halfway through the parable. This is similar in that there are these workers, they're receiving their wages and some of them are, are outwardly dissatisfied and grumbling against the master of the house. Um, so I think if we think about parables as describing heaven rather than the kingdom of heaven, we can lose sight of, of what's actually being said in a lot of them. [00:26:50] Contracts Versus Grace [00:26:50] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, that's really good stuff because it strikes me that there are like, strangely, two groups here mentioned, I, I find this really kind of fascinating. We, I think we should talk about this, like the first group has like the most formal agreement, it's almost a legal contract, right? Various was like a standard day laborers wage sufficient mostly for subsistence. And so that detail seems theologically loaded to me. These workers relate to the landowner on the basis of a contract and what is owed. And so their claim at the end of the day will be exactly that. They're owed something and they know it, and that sets up Then this contrast with a second group, which is mostly all about grace because by the time we get to that third hour, like. Approximately like 9:00 AM then we're beginning this pattern repeated at the sixth and the ninth hours. And crucially, for those workers who go out, go out and get recruited, there's no wage that's specified for them. Only the promise of like whatever is right. And so they enter the vineyard, not on the basis of a contract, but on the basis of like the owner's word and character. And that seems to be like more of a picture of trust and not, not calculation. Yeah. Separate than like the first group. And that marketplace, idleness, as I read this, doesn't imply like laziness because verse seven clarifies like they just had not been hired. Right? They were overworked, they were unemployed. They were marginalized. So it does set up, like you said, everything you just talked about, about the kind of this, I like that. Like the Jonah, the Jonah whiners or whatever, like yeah, they want to complain about this, right? There are, and there are two, two separate groups that have kind of been brought into the fold, not under different terms or pretenses, but differently. [00:28:17] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. And I think too, bear's saying, um. Although there are elements of parables that are very, very directly applicable. Mm. We shouldn't read this as though every, every specific thing in the parable is not a parable. Right. Right. I think we can look at this and we can go, you know, you can read this in a way where, oh yeah, there's some people actually earn their, earn their wage, they earn ary. Right. It's a fair contract. And they work all day and he says, well, I'm gonna give you what's right, what you, what I owe you.  [00:28:45] God Owes Nothing [00:28:45] Tony Arsenal: The reality is God doesn't owe any of us anything. Right? Right. He owes us wrath and judgment and destruction. And so even, even the people who are the hard workers in the kingdom of God don't merit and never could merit, um, to, in a certain sense, in a strict sense and stick with me before you send your, your angry emails in a real strict sense. Even Adam couldn't merit. What was, well, it was guaranteed to him, according to the Covenant of Works, God had to condescend to make the covenant of works in order for Adam to have any sort of fruition of his blessedness. So there there's no natural obligation, strict obligation that God has to reward the work of his creatures because nothing they could do could ever be sufficient enough to obligate him. So the, the obligation of himself, and that's, this is where I do think this is strong, the fact that he obligates himself to these workers to give them their denarius after a hard day's work  [00:29:37] Jesse Schwamb: exactly  [00:29:37] Tony Arsenal: is itself. A covenantal, um, contractual, yes. But I actually read this as sort of a covenantal thing and the, the strange part is that the people don't recognize the sort of semi gracious covenantal nature of this. Yes.  [00:29:50] Grace In The Hiring [00:29:50] Tony Arsenal: I think, um, you know, there have been times when I, where I've been unemployed, um, not for very long. Now, I know some people face unemployment for a lot longer than I ever have, but I know there was times where I was, I was looking for work and someone would say to me like, Hey, you know, my, my, my lawn needs to be mowed. Could you come over and I'll, I'll give you 25 bucks to mow my lawn. It's a small lawn. Um. That's a gracious act in most cases. Right, right. Um, yes, I'm performing a task. Yes, they're paying me, but they didn't have to offer me that work. They didn't have to offer me that job, especially when it's something that like they could have accomplished themselves. They could have just done it themselves. Um, so I think there's an element of that here, that there's, there's a condescension of the master to these workers, to these laborers who are not part of his household. These are not, they're not slaves. These are not people who are part of his household, who are regular employees. These are people that he goes out into the market to, to find and to hire. And as we see some of, some of these mark, like the difference between the ones that are hired and the ones that are not hired until later in the day, the parable's not super clear about what it is. Just that they're not hired, it doesn't say the lazy ones were left there. The ones were exactly, that were ugly or had like limp legs or like just couldn't cut it. It just says like there was some that didn't get hired. Um, so there's a gracious element of this, and that makes the recognition at the end or the lack of recognition at the end by these full day laborers, the, the sort of like recognition, this, this entitled ness, um, that actually makes it all the worst. It's like the people who are outwardly attached to the covenant of grace. Um, I know all the Baptists in our, our group, their heads just exploded, but like are outwardly attached to the covenant of grace, um, who wanna somehow complain about like the graciousness of the covenant of grace that they're outwardly attached to it. It's just sort of like a form of, of theological and temporary insanity, I think. And that's what we see on full display here.  [00:31:40] Jesse Schwamb: It's definitely all grace. You're right that nobody's gonna get injustice right in this parable. And I think that's definitely exemplified the further out you go in this hiring order. [00:31:49] Eleventh Hour Mercy [00:31:49] Jesse Schwamb: So by the time you get to 5:00 PM which is pretty extraordinary, right? Only really like one hour remains before sense, right? It's the end of the working day.  [00:31:56] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:31:56] Jesse Schwamb: You can imagine like these guys who are being hired at the hour probably can contribute very little in the last hour of the day, right? But this owner goes out and hires them and no agreement is stated whatsoever. It's just pure grace. The landowner's question, why do you stand here idle all day? I think to your point, underlies their vulnerability. They were not idle by choice, presumably. And so I think we rightly here in this, like a foreshadowing of those who are called the late in redemptive history, Gentile sinners, the seemingly least qualified for kingdom membership. All of that I think is at play and it's all, it's getting this lovely setup of all these groups to help us understand what that kingdom is actually like.  [00:32:33] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.  [00:32:35] Reverse Payroll Setup [00:32:35] Tony Arsenal: And then we have this, um, this is where the sort of dramatic tension turns, right? The end of the day comes and, uh, the master calls the, the people that he brought last, right? He calls the people who'd only been there for an hour and he starts to go down the list of the people who, the people who were last, and the people who came in next. And the people who came in next, right? And the workers who had contracted at the beginning of the day. Um, they're watching this happen and they're kind of going, oh, this is gonna be good. Like, that guy's only been here for an hour and he got a denarius. You know, the logic is probably like, I'm gonna get 12 denarius, like I'm gonna go 12 days worth of work. Um, because I think there's an assumption on their part, um, that the master's fair that he is, he's providing an equitable wage. Um, of course the master is fair, but he's providing an equitable wage that's commensurate with the work delivered. A delivered, delivered, right? And that, that's the key to this parable.  [00:33:26] Merit Mindset Exposed [00:33:26] Tony Arsenal: I think the expectation that God. Helps those who help themselves. Right? God rewards those who put in the hard work. God. God provides blessing or salvation according to the merit provided by the one who's being saved. That perspective is what's on full display here. Yes. By the people who are, uh, the ones who contracted for the full day. They're not thinking about the covenant that they have with this person or the contract they have with this person. They're not thinking about the fact that they agreed to work for the day in order to earn a day's wage. They're thinking about how this actually is gonna work out great in their favor. They're looking at this as a strictly merit-based kind of a, a thing. And you would think that like when the, the one hour people come in, they get a denarius, and then the three hour people come in and they get a denarius. You'd think they would pick up on it at some point, but then in the course of the payroll, it doesn't seem that they do. They still get to the bottom of the list and think they're gonna get more compared to the other people who all got the same.  [00:34:22] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, that display piece is critical to this. It is like complete setup. Like you can imagine he, the landowner calling everybody together at the end of the day and they're all standing around. Some of them are exhausted because they've again born all their work in the heat of the day on their backs. They're tired, they're dirty, maybe they're exhausted. And he starts in this reverse order. And by the way, we should note that there is something here that's beautiful in that the law, the landowner is law abiding because right evening payment is mandated in the Torah. So we see all this taking place as to fulfill the law in some ways. But the reversal of the order that last of first is like such deliberative and good narrative storytelling and staging, isn't it? 'cause it ensures that the first hired workers are going to witness the payment of those who work the least. And if without that order, if you just did it the other way around, the more a crisis of the parable disc like completely goes away.  [00:35:10] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:35:10] Jesse Schwamb: So this execution of the payment at the owner's will, it just shows that he has. He's completely independent. His sovereignty belong. The sovereignty belongs to the master alone. And so this 11th hour workers receiving a full day's wage for one hour of work, that's like an act of sheer generosity. It's not proportional justice. And I think as reform, people, maybe all of us at some point have had this conversation about predestination and justice and mercy. And again, really I think putting a crowbar between this idea that nobody is receiving injustice, but some are receiving mercy and grace. And here these first hired workers seeing this form, like you said, this expectation that they're gonna receive more, like you said, where that came from. Yeah, it's just them, right? It's purely manufactured in their own reasoning. It's not anchored in the covenantal promise and certainly not witnessed in the grace that they should be receive, like perceiving as the payments get doled out, like sequentially moving in their reverse order toward those who have worked the longest. But their expectation reveals that they have fundamentally misread like the landowner's character. They're still operating in the register of a contract and not grace.  [00:36:16] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. And you know, I think to sort of lock this covenant covenantal frame and sort of like lack of recognition of the covenant into place too, when you look at the language of this parable, um, and especially kind of what it's following up on, it's coming on the heels of this interaction with this rich, rich young ruler who comes in and he thinks that he's gonna earn eternal life by keeping the commandments. Um, and, and he, he has this outward sense or this outward display of pty. He's calling Jesus good. He's saying he, you know, he keeps the commandments, Jesus doesn't even disagree with him actually, that he has connect. Yes. You know, I think it's implied that, well, of course you haven't, but he, he still is graciously trying to like, convince this guy, no, you actually need to abandon your self righteousness and, and pursue and follow me. Um. But this is a parable where like other people are listening, right? There's other witnesses. This isn't like the rich young ruler came to him in the middle of the night, like Nicodemus. This is something that's happened on PO on in the public. So we can anticipate that the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the scribes and the lawyers were all aware of this. They may have been there, but they were at least aware of this happening. And I think there's some language in here that is actually directed at those people.  [00:37:30] Grumbling As Accusation [00:37:30] Tony Arsenal: And, and here's where it comes in, is you get to verse, um, we'll start reading again at verse nine. It says, when those hired about the 11th hour came, each of them received a denarius. Now, when those hired first came, so we're referring to the people who are hired at the beginning of the day. Now, when those who were hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius and on receiving it, right? So this is as, this is, um, uh, just unbelievable as they're receiving the denarius on receiving it, they grumbled at the master of the house. Now, just the way that I read that and said the word grumbled tells you that that word is really important here. Yes. If you look at this Greek word. And you compare it to the, the word, the usage of this word in the, the, um, Sept. Yes. Which of course is the Greek translation of the Old Testament. This word most commonly appears in the wilderness wandering accounts. [00:38:22] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.  [00:38:23] Tony Arsenal: Right. And the, the primary sin of the Israelites during the wilderness wandering was grumbling against the Lord. And this grumbling against the Lord in that context is not just a general complaining, right. It's not just like a, a sort of like a, a general dissatisfaction or like murmuring. This isn't like water cooler frustration about your boss. The grumbling in the Old Testament in this context is a covenantal accusation, right. So this is tied to the, the accounts where Moses first is told to strike the rock, and he does so when the water comes out, and then second is told to speak to the rock, but he strikes it. I won't go into all the details, but the scene that's being, being displayed there is the people come, they accuse the Lord of abandoning them into the wilderness. And this scene where Moses is set up on the rock and he strikes the rock, that scene is a judicial scene. The people have filed a covenant accusation against the Lord, and in reality, it's the people who have been unfaithful. But the Lord standing in the place of the rock is the one who is struck, right? Jesus was the rock in the wilderness from which the water came. Paul says that in First Corinthians, right? So this language of grumbling in this is not just, they're not just complaining about the fact that they didn't get what they thought they were going to, they're questioning the veracity of the covenant that was made. So they're, they're still locked into this merit-based. This merit-based idea even more than it seemed at first, right? There's a logic to the idea that like, oh, if the, the master is actually paying a wage of one denarius for per hour, like there's a logic to that. But it's not just that they're saying, and this is, this explains the response of the master. It's not just that they're saying like, Hey, wait a second, like the wage rate that you're paying is not right. They're saying you have violated the terms of our covenant in the way that you have paid us. 'cause it's upon receiving it that they complain or they grumble and the master says more or less like, Hey. You agreed with me for one Denarius, I'm giving you what you've earned. I'm giving you what you agreed on. Why don't you take it and go. So the answer is not to try to justify why he is free to pay these other people more, or why he's free to pay these people a perceived less. The answer is, again, they're complaining against the covenant. He is bringing it back to the covenant saying, well, here's what the covenant relationship was. You work for the day. I give you Denarius. We're square here, we're on the same page. We've fulfilled our covenant obligations, and you've received your reward for that. So I, I think that's another thing we have to lock in here is this is not just a general idea of like unfairness that's being presented. This is not just a general idea that people are saying the master of the house is unfair. They're saying he's covenantal. Unfaithful. Right? That's a pretty big accusation.  [00:41:09] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, that is, thank you by the way, for completely stealing the whole tugen thing from me. Like I was just going hot to Tugen to find that reference. And now all I can do is add to it. So that is from at least one of those occasions, a number 16, and I just wanna read the verse. This is 16 six. So Moses and Aaron said to all the sons of Israel at evening, you will know that Yahweh has brought you outta the land of Egypt. And in the morning you will see the glory of Yahweh for he hears your grumblings against Yahweh. And what we are that you grumble against us. So I'm totally with you. This is not subtle. The workers first complaint here, the first workers' complaint is like theologically serious. Uh, I think that's what you're hitting us on. Like it charges the owner with injustice. Right. And as I read it, the grievance has like two layers or two parts, I would say. One is this comparative part, which is basically saying, you made us equal to them. Right? And the second be like a meritorious part, they have worked harder and in worse conditions. And that's why they say things like, it's, it's all inflammatory language, isn't it? Like the scorching heat emphasizes like the real bodily cost and their complaint. I think if we're honest, it's not irrational, but it's spiritually revealing at least because Right, they believe their greater effort, mayors greater reward and they resent that grace shown to others. So like you said, they're bringing forward a very serious grievance and it's, it's not just like, Hey, we think maybe could you give us a bonus? Right. But that is a matter of faithfulness. And in fact, like as I'm looking at this tugen here, shout out to logos Bible software. And I'm saying that that verb that we're talking about in Exodus 16 is in the imperfect tense. So this is, they kept on grumbling and it is like an an echo of Israel's murmuring in the wilderness, which I presume like Matthew certainly had intentionally used there or had that view in part casting these workers as the same types of those who relate to God through entitlement rather than gratitude. So it's like insults upon insult here, but it is to emphasize this fact that it's no small accusation, it's not subtle, it's meant to be in your face. They're coming in hot with this and they're making a big deal about it.  [00:43:16] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, and again, I think like underscoring the covenantal nature of this is so key. And I think, you know, when we look at this, we really have to land that this is not just saying. Your wage structure is not right. 'cause and, and we gotta remember, they weren't there when the master went and made this bargain, or, you know, brought these other workers into the vineyard. They weren't there to hear what covenant or contract he did or didn't make. And as we've commented, they didn't, he didn't even make a covenant with them. He basically just said, I'm gonna put you to work and I'll pay you what's fair. I'll pay you what's right. Um, and they went, okay, you need the work and thank you. Like, I think, I think that's kind of like the, the scene here is they're standing there. They recognize they're not gonna get a wage for the day, especially these ones that he's coming in at the 11th hour, they're not gonna get a wage for the day. And as you said, these are subsistence workers. Right. These are people that if you don't get a wage, and this is the, the grounding of the Old Testament, um, the Old Testament command of, of paying at the end of the day is that if they don't get their wage, they're not gonna eat. They're not gonna have food, they're not gonna have the money they need to survive. Um, so he comes in and he basically says like. You don't have a job that's not gonna be good for you. I'll take care of you. I'll, I'll give you a job and I'll take care of you. And the ones who are complaining and grumbling, they have no line of sight to that process. That, that's right. They make a lot of assumptions about the, and this is, goes back to, um. The parable of the talents, which we haven't really talked about yet. The, the, there's a lot of assumptions about the nature of this master that the, the contracted or covenanted day laborers are making that don't turn out to be accurate. Right. They, they assume that he's working, as you've said, that he's working on this one-to-one, you know, quid pro quo. You do this, I do that kind of a, a methodology and he's actually operating on a basis of a much more. Basic, uh, grace principle. Uh, and again, even, even the principle of hiring these original workers and covenanting with them is gracious in the sense that he didn't have to hire them. Right. So, so all along the way they're, they're, it's like the epitome of looking a gift horse in the mouth.  [00:45:24] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.  [00:45:24] Tony Arsenal: They've been hired, and so yes, it is right for them to expect their, um, to expect their wage, whatever that wage might be. But they, they are misinterpreting the idea of what the wages are and how the wages are to be delivered. They're, they're applying, this is actually a lot like job's, friends, right? Their, their logic is not actually all that bad, but they have, they have missing parts of the picture that makes the logic. Apply differently in this particular situation. They think that this, this master works on a strict merit-based. You do X amount of work, you receive X amount of money. And this master is actually more functioning on this covenantal principle of, I'm gonna pay you what's right, regardless of what, what work you've done, which, what work is actually owed to you. And the master makes these, this agreement with these other workers to just say, go into the vineyard and then when the evening comes, I'll pay you. Right. Well, he intended to pay them what they needed to survive, regardless of how much work they provided. Right? So they're all, even though there's a formal contract to say these, this group works for the whole day and this group, you know, and, and they receive one day's labor, at the end of the day, he's graciously providing another day of survival for all of these people, for the work that they're, they're putting forward regardless of how much they actually contribute to his bottom line. [00:46:41] Owner Defends The Covenant [00:46:41] Jesse Schwamb: And we see that in verse 13, where the landowner gives his defense, you know, it says. He and he replied, friends, I'm doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for Denarius? Now the address, because now I'm deep in the Greek Tony. Here we go. So the address I'm seeing in, uh, again, shout out to Locus Bible software, it, this use of friend is not like the warm fellows, but like a more formal or distance term of address. It's used elsewhere in Matthew. But I think the point here is that the owner's first line of defense is this contractual point, which you're saying. I have not wronged you. He's kept his agreement precisely. No injustice has been done. And that's crucial. The owner doesn't re appreciate justice. He actually fulfills it. He obligates himself and he fulfills that obligation. And what the worker receives is exactly what was promised and exactly what is due. And so by the time he gets to verse 14 where he says, take what belongs to you, and go, I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you here. I think this is like the theological beating hide of this whole bad boy. Yeah.  [00:47:37] Jesse Schwamb: The landowner explicitly invokes his will, his sovereign freedom to do and to give as he pleases, which is exactly how God behaves. It's not a negation of justice, but this declaration of something beyond justice, it is grace. He exercises his freedom and generosity to those who had no claim, and the command, take what belongs to you and go is, is kind of like a world dismissal, like, like you were saying. Yeah. We're in the courtroom. He's like, I, I've ruled on this already. Like, bring Brian, bring your grievance. Here's my ruling. Take what you have and go. Their grumbling has revealed that they're not celebrating the kingdom. They're actually grieving it. So yeah, you know, I think original invocation of like Jonah is right on the money. It's basically like, are are you mad enough? Yeah, I'm mad enough to die. Like, how dare you give me, give me this great shade and then take it away from me. Yeah. And in some ways this is even worse because what they have been given has been that were promised to them, was given to them, and they get to retain and God says, go, or the landowner as God says, go now and take what is yours. Take what I've given to you graciously. But your point that like what supersedes that, the antecedent to all of that is still God's covenant keeping, covenant making promise, making, right? That sets the whole thing up. But I love this idea that, you know, I will choose, it's my desire, it's language of divine volition. And of course the reform theology, this single verb resonates with the entire doctrine of election. It's God's free, sovereign, and gracious will to bestow blessing without reference to merit, like praise his name.  [00:49:00] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And then we come to kind of the close of this parable, right? And this is, this really is like the punchline of the parable. Like not every punchline or not every parable has like a real specific, like punchy punchline, but when he says, am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity? Right? That or is a logical connector, right? It's he's saying like, these are the two logical options you have. Either I'm not allowed to do what I want with my belongings, which of course is a ridiculous thesis, right? He's clearly allowed to do what he wishes and they would want him to do that because what he's done is he's provided them with a job and giving, giving them the labor.  [00:49:40] Jesse Schwamb: That's right.  [00:49:40] Tony Arsenal: He says, or if I am allowed to do with what I want with my belongings. Then you must be mad at me for being generous.  [00:49:47] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.  [00:49:47] Tony Arsenal: Right. Those are the only options. And there's kind of a ridiculous, there's kind of, this is one of those like arguments to absurdity, right? Are you really this small and petty that you're gonna be mad at me for being generous to somebody? Right.  [00:50:00] Jonah And Begrudged Grace [00:50:00] Tony Arsenal: This, and this is, this is the Jonah effect. This is exactly what happens in Jonah, is Jonah, um, comes from this, I'm, I'm actually preaching in Jonah too here in a couple weeks. So I've been studying, um, Jonah's prayer in chapter two, and Jonah, Jonah is rescued by the whale, right? We, we think of the whale sometimes as the judgment that God sends, and there may be an element of that. But, but Jonah, Jonah views the whale as a vessel of salvation, right? He thanks the Lord for rescuing him from the deep of the ocean and from the, the bars of the earth and the mountains under the sea. And the, there's a lot of reasons textually to see not just Jonah's prayer, but in, in the actual narrative itself, that the, the whale is the way that God saves Jonah from drowning in the sea, not the way that he punishes. Right. And so he comes from this, this regenerative SVA salvation process, right? He comes outta the whale, he's been praying and praising God in the whale, and he's been thanking God for his salvation, for rescuing him from the deep. And then he gets to Nineveh and he proclaims this message, and then he goes right back to like, I knew you were gonna forgive those chumps. Right? And you can almost see God saying like, am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Am I not allowed to save all of these people and all of these cattle from destruction? Am I not allowed to do that? Or Jonah, do you begrudge my generosity with the implication of, do you begrudge the generosity that I showed you when I didn't let you sink to the bottom of the ocean and drown to death? Or do you begrudge the generosity that I showed you where the whale was a vehicle of salvation that brought you to safety rather than digesting you and killing you? Right? Right. And that, that's the same force I think that we have here at the end of this parable. He's looking at the people and, and there's an element of like. Put yourself in those shoes. It's almost, it's almost like a subtle retelling of the parable of the Unforgiven servant, right? Put yourself in the shoes of the people who needed a day's labor. Were not getting paid, were not being hired, and then all of a sudden, someone generously gives them the very survival that they need for the following day. You're gonna begrudge me. That kind of generosity. If you were that person, you certainly wouldn't do that. Then there's also the, like, you're gonna begrudge me. My generosity with the implication of like, the generosity of having hired you in the first place could have hired anybody else. Um, he's really this, it's really this rhetorical master move. And then again, then this is exactly what Jesus does. The people who are listening to him in many, many instances identify that the parable is told against them. They identify that the parable is actually a form of judgment against them. Right? I have to think that the Pharisees and the scribes, especially the Pharisees, um, and the Sadducees who only had the, only had the, um, the Pentateuch only recognized the Pentateuch. I had to think, I have to think. They're coming out of this, looking at it and going, he just called us the grumbling Israelites. Can you believe this guy?  [00:52:43] Jesse Schwamb: Right?  [00:52:43] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. He did. Like, that's exactly what you are, you are the grumbling Israelites, and, and that's the force of this parable on the heels of this young man who walks away sad. I didn't look at the Greek yet, but walks away disturbed at the fact that he's not going to get the salvation he believes is, is guaranteed to him because of his love of obedience to the law. He's like, I have to do one more thing. I have to, I have to work one more work to get the salvation. I'm gonna walk away sad at that. Well, the answer is that he's begrudging the generosity of the Lord in providing salvation apart from his mar and apart from his works.  [00:53:18] Jesse Schwamb: That's right. That's right. Yeah. That's, that's beautiful. By the way, just so like you said, Tony, we should giving it a warning so people don't like at us or send a bunch of random messages to our inbox, our form brotherhood.com. Uh, we know great fish whale. We're using that interchangeably. Everybody calm down. It's true. Just in case. Could have been a whale. Yeah,  [00:53:35] Tony Arsenal: I mean,  [00:53:36] Jesse Schwamb: one of, doesn't matter. One  [00:53:37] Tony Arsenal: of the, one of the gospels uses the word whale, so I think we're fine.  [00:53:40] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, we're, we're covering all bases there.  [00:53:42] Tony Arsenal: Yeah,  [00:53:42] Jesse Schwamb: I totally agree with you on that. [00:53:44] Last Will Be First [00:53:44] Jesse Schwamb: 'cause the climax of this is like something interesting I think in the orientation of the final statement. So this idea of the, the, so the first, so the last, see I already got it twisted. So the last will be first and the first last. It actually does reverse the formulation that we were just looking at in chapter 19 where Jesus says the first will be last and the last first man say that like six times best. [00:54:04] Tony Arsenal: I know it's tough.  [00:54:05] Jesse Schwamb: So it, but it doesn't complete, it does complete like this kind of a, I inclusio, I guess around the parable. The inversion I think is not merely like a social statement in light of what's unfolding in this drama, but it is so te logical. So those who approach God on the basis of this accumulated merit like you've been saying, or. Religious piety or even like, dare I say, covenant superiority or seniority. We'll find that those calculations are totally irrelevant in the kingdom economy. And those that receive the grace of God with empty hands, the gentile, the sinners, the 11th hour called if you want to, those are gonna stand fully on equal footing before this sovereign owner and the saying then resists any kind of triumphalism or celebrating over somebody else the last, or not exalted because of their lateness, but because of God's great grace, or the owner's great grace. And so I think that's the thing that we get to kind of settle in. Like you take a deep breath at the end of this because really most of us are this 11th hour call. And again, it's, it's like understanding and putting yourself in the place of the humble, the place who is the sinner, because you know, that's. Whom God has come and condescended to save in His loving kindness, like His has said, is for those people who recognize that they're exactly the kind of ones who need that. And so here we find it's much better, like you're saying, to be in the place in some ways of that younger brother who comes in repents than to be the older brother who is stubborn and find some reason, some justification to come before God with self-righteous grievances or what you believe to be self-righteous complaints in his kingdom and in his courtroom, because you do not wanna stand in that place. You know, even, even, I remember there are times like in Israel's history, when they're in the wilderness, where they come against Moses and Aaron, even for like their relationship with like foreign women, and they complain to God and God basically says, stop complaining about. My servants. You know, even there like you must be very careful, I guess. If you wanna come against God with what you think are your self or righteous grievances, you better not miss. Yeah. And so here now saying it's better for you to humble yourselves that he avenges this kind of behavior. He comes hard against those who are prideful, but instead the humble, he lifts up the humble, he comes and he rescues. Like I said, even in Jonah, what we find there is the whale. The great fish is God's formation of Jonah as a loving father who disciplines and chastises not as one who punishes. And so here too, we find some of that echo, that it's better to understand that we don't want to be among the complainers. What we want to be is among those who are willing to recognize and receive God's gracious provision for us. [00:56:33] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.  [00:56:34] Evil Eye And Final Sendoff [00:56:34] Tony Arsenal: And one last, one last little bit of nerdy Greek here that I think underscores this covenantal, um, covenantal aspect of this that we're talking about when he says to them, or do you begrudge my generosity? Um, if the, if the, um, video caught my perplexed look, it's, 'cause I was trying to figure out why the word I was related to this. Uh, the, the phrase here is actually, do you give me the evil eye for my generosity?  [00:57:01] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.  [00:57:01] Tony Arsenal: This is good. Good. And I think what it's getting at here is he's saying like, do you curse me?  [00:57:05] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.  [00:57:06] Tony Arsenal: Because of my generosity. So that does, that ties into this covenantal language. He's basically saying either I'm allowed to do what I want with what I, what it belongs to me. Or are you gonna curse me in a, probably in like a covenantal sense, are you gonna call down the covenantal curses because I was generous to somebody else.  [00:57:23] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:57:23] Tony Arsenal: And it's, it's in this way. That so is not, it's not, therefore it's a demonstrative. So it's in this way, in, in this way where those who are, um, those who receive God's generosity, recognize it. Um, and those who fail to recognize God's generosity are. Are dismissed because of it. It's in that way that the last will be first, right? Yes. The people who, who are sold out to the generosity of God and they trust him, and they, they, yes, they come and they work, right? But the, the response of a day laborer at the 11th hour when someone comes and says, look, I've still got work to do it. It's one of overjoyed response. It's not, it's not thinking they're gonna earn a lot of money. It's not thinking they're gonna, they just get to work and they're thankful and they trust that person. Uh, and, and that's what we see is salvation in the Christian faith is we turn to Christ. We recognize his generosity. We trust that he's going to, he's gonna do what's right. He's gonna take care of us. And in that way, the last will be first, those who are, are late to the party. Those who not necessarily like this isn't necessarily a parable with saying like. You know, like the people who have deathbed conversions are somehow the, the, the first, um, it, it's, it's not temporal in the sort of idea of like those who've been saved for the longest are represented by the day laborers and those who are sort of new converts are represented by the 11th hour people. It's saying those who are, are, um, those who abandoned themselves to the mercy and generosity of God, those people will be first in the kingdom of God. And those people who are so like, tied to and connected to and, and, um, sort of locked into this idea of covenant merit as the primary EE economy of how God operates, um, those people will be last. I'm not entirely sure, you know, like, this is still all operating within the Kingdom of Heaven, within this is what the kingdom of heaven on earth appears like. Um, so I think we, you know, I don't think we're gonna do another episode. I think we, we probably have covered this sufficiently, but it'd be interesting to sort of tease out like, what does that mean for the people who are in God's kingdom? And let's just say it like, sorry, perform Baptist, like in God's kingdom, um, who are not. Apparently not actually sold out to the grace of God here. Um, what does it mean for those people who are in God's kingdom and are now the last? Are they the last, the last in terms of the last who will still be saved? Are these the ones Paul talks about who are saved as though through fire? Or, or is there something else going on here? Um, I would love to hear people sort of theorize and think about that as they've listened to this. And Jesse, how could they do that if they wanted to talk to us about this little question I've dropped? [01:00:01] Jesse Schwamb: Man, that was like so smooth. So smooth. Yeah. Listen, people you already know, do I, I know I don't need to say it, but like I'm contractually ally by way of the podcast obligated to tell you. That there's a little corner of the internet in this messaging app that's called Telegram, where we all hang out. And by all of us, I mean all of us, except for you who's listening right now, that's not in it. Why are you not in it? So here are the instructions on how to find your way there. Go to your browser, type in t.me back slash reform brotherhood t me Back slash reform Brotherhood Do. Link will take you to that corner of the world. And you can see we have a bunch of channels set up where people are conversing from everything to just general topics, to the episode, to prayer requests, to food reviews, to just good plain Christian reform, theological fun. I said, it's just fun. So come hang out, go to t.me/reform brotherhood.  [01:00:50] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. And for those of you who are sick of us promoting the Telegram channel, I'll just ask you, are we not allowed to do what we choose with our airtime or do you begrudge us our free podcast? [01:01:01] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. Listen, do you have an evil eye? And, and do you said that so well, Tony. I love a good Jewish idiom. Like for instance, I love that when we read of God being long suffering, the text literally says he's long nosed.  [01:01:13] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [01:01:14] Jesse Schwamb: And here this idea of the evil eye is like this Jewish idiom, connoting like envy or stinginess or like, uh, miserliness or parsimonious. So because I, I just happen to look that up by Proverbs 28 22 says, A man with an evil eye hurries after wealth and does not know that want will come upon him. That's so good. Yeah. So don't, don't have the evil eye. Come hang out, come hang out with us.  [01:01:39] Tony Arsenal: Well, Jesse, I'm glad to be back. I feel like, uh, I'm back in the saddle or Yeah, you are. I dunno. Back, back in, I dunno. In the field. I dunno what the right analogy is.  [01:01:48] Jesse Schwamb: Backstreet's back.  [01:01:49] Tony Arsenal: I was backstreet's back. Yeah, I, I was trying to figure out whether I was gonna go with a Backstreet back joke or a slim shady joke. Um, in my mind they sort of merged together, like if I had good technical audio skills, I might make a sweet mashup of some really awesome out of date, like white boy semi hip hop or something like that. Uh, but I'm not gonna do that 'cause. If anything is worse than I think so. Well, slim Shady, it's me trying to synthesize slim Shady, so I'm not gonna do that. Uh, but I'm glad to be back and it is the real slim shady. I'm the real slim shady something, something. Um, but yeah, it's gonna be great. We're gonna keep going in the parables. We don't know how long it's gonna take. Uh, we didn't even know we were gonna do this parable tonight. We sat down let's, we were like, what are we talking about tonight? We're like, let's just keep going in the parables. So we're gonna keep at it. So stick with us. Um, pick up a good commentary, read ahead, pick up a good, you know, a good Bible translation and follow along with us. Uh, and join us in the telegram chat so we can kind of keep talking about this and having these conversations long after the episode ends.  [01:02:50] Jesse Schwamb: You got it. Well, listen, everybody's been hearing me say it, but man, are they gonna be glad to hear you say it? Honor everyone.  [01:02:56] Tony Arsenal: Love the brotherhood. 
• Render Unto Caesar: How the Imago Dei Answers Political Traps 13.04.2026 31мин

  In this compelling solo episode, Jesse Schwamb unpacks one of Scripture's most famous—and misunderstood—passages: Jesus' confrontation with the Pharisees and Herodians over paying taxes to Caesar. Far from being a simple political soundbite, Matthew 22:15-22 reveals Jesus' brilliant wisdom in dismantling false dilemmas and redirecting our focus to identity rather than ideology. Through careful exegesis, Jesse demonstrates how Christ's response cuts through political posturing to address the deeper question: Whose image do we bear? This episode serves as both a masterclass in biblical interpretation and a timely reminder that our ultimate allegiance belongs not to any earthly authority, but to the God whose image we carry. Perfect preparation for the podcast's upcoming journey through the parables of Jesus. Key Takeaways Jesus Cannot Be Cornered: The Pharisees and Herodians crafted what seemed like an inescapable trap, but Jesus transcends false dilemmas by reframing the question entirely, demonstrating His divine wisdom and authority. The Imago Dei Is Central: By asking "Whose image is this?" about the coin, Jesus points to the deeper question: Whose image is on you? We bear God's image, making our primary obligation to Him, not Caesar. Civil Authority Is Real but Bounded: Jesus affirms legitimate temporal authority ("render to Caesar") while establishing that all such authority is derivative and limited by God's ultimate sovereignty. Hypocrisy Is Exposed by Action: The Pharisees' immediate production of a Roman coin revealed they were already participants in the system they questioned, undermining their supposed concern for Jewish law. Amazement ≠ Transformation: The opponents "marveled" and left, demonstrating that intellectual defeat or astonishment at Jesus' teaching is not equivalent to spiritual conversion or surrender. Identity Precedes Politics: Before asking what we owe the government, we must ask what we owe God—the answer being ourselves, as those created in His image. The Breath of Divine Life: Our creation bears special intimacy—God breathed life into humanity, making us doubly unique as both image-bearers and recipients of His divine breath, foreshadowing spiritual regeneration. In-Depth Analysis The Imago Dei Is Central Jesus' response to the tax question brilliantly redirects attention from political obligation to theological identity. When He asks "Whose image is this?" about the denarius, He's employing the Greek word eikon—the same term used in the Septuagint translation of Genesis 1:27 for humanity being made in God's image. This isn't coincidental wordplay; it's deliberate theological teaching. The profound truth here is that while Caesar's image on a coin establishes his claim to that piece of metal, God's image stamped on humanity establishes His total claim on us. We are not our own; we were bought with a price far greater than any taxation. The coin metaphor works because it's a physical representation of ownership and authority—but our bodies and souls are the true "coinage" that belongs to God. This reframes every political question as ultimately subordinate to our identity as image-bearers, reminding us that our primary citizenship, allegiance, and obligation is heavenly, not earthly. Civil Authority Is Real but Bounded Jesus' statement "render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's" has often been misinterpreted as establishing a complete separation between sacred and secular realms. However, Reformed theology—particularly Calvin's interpretation—understands this passage as establishing legitimate but limited civil authority within God's sovereignty. Caesar's authority is real and should be respected; Christians are called to submit to governing authorities as Paul argues in Romans 13. However, this authority is derivative, not ultimate. Caesar operates within a sphere that God ordains and limits. There is no zone of existence that belongs exclusively to Caesar, outside God's jurisdiction. The state has legitimate claims on our obedience, our taxes, and our civic participation—but never on our worship, our ultimate allegiance, or our conscience when it contradicts God's law. This creates a framework for Christian citizenship that takes earthly government seriously while never granting it the totalizing authority that belongs to God alone. Amazement ≠ Transformation The conclusion of this encounter is sobering: the Pharisees and Herodians were "amazed" but unchanged. They marveled at Jesus' wisdom, were intellectually outmaneuvered, and had nothing more to say—yet they walked away to plot His crucifixion. This demonstrates a crucial truth for evangelism and apologetics: winning an argument is not the same as winning a soul. Intellectual defeat can coexist with spiritual hardness. Someone can acknowledge the brilliance of Jesus' teaching, be unable to counter His logic, and still refuse to surrender their life to Him. This reminds us that conversion is the work of the Holy Spirit, not merely the result of superior argumentation. Our task is faithful witness and clarity in presenting truth, but we must pray for the Spirit to do what only He can do—soften hearts, open eyes, and bring dead souls to life. Astonishment at Jesus must give way to submission to Jesus. Memorable Quotes "You can never corner Jesus. Of course, you can never catch him off guard. And while those seem like very just trite and straightforward explanations of who he is and what his character is like as the son of God, we should not go away from them too quickly because what we find here is the wisdom and the brilliance of God in providing teaching to cut to the hearts of what is actually in the question." "Caesar can have his coin, but he cannot have you. Not in any ultimate sense. You and I, loved ones, we belong to God." "Being out argued is not the same as being transformed. You can leave someone with nothing to say and still not reach the heart." Full Episode Transcript [00:00:08] Jesse Schwamb: So here's the trap. If Jesus says yes, pay the tax, he completely alienates the crowd of Jewish pilgrims who are beginning to believe that he might be the Messiah who will liberate Israel from Rome if he says. No, do not pay it. He could obviously be reported to the Roman authorities as a seditious rebel. Either answer loses. There's really no good way out of this. At least on the face. Either answer costs him something, his popularity or his freedom, and this is what we call a false dilemma. The Pharisees think that they've got him cornered. But here's the thing, loved ones they haven't. You can never corner Jesus. Of course, you can never catch him off guard. And while those seem like very just trite and straightforward explanations of who he is and what his character is like as the son of God, we should not. Go away from them too quickly because what we find here is the wisdom and the brilliance of God in providing teaching to cut to the hearts of what is actually in the question. And Jesus doesn't play this game. Welcome to episode 487 of The Reformed Brotherhood. I'm Jesse, and this is the podcast for all those with the Imago Day. Hey, brothers and sisters, so let's talk taxes. Now you should know that the Reform Brotherhood is not that kind of podcast, but I suspect that you had one of two responses when you heard that topic. Either it piqued your interest or you thought, I'm just totally gonna skip this episode, and I get that. That's a polarizing topic. It's in part why I said it at the top, but I want us to chat a little bit today about a passage of the scripture where Jesus himself brings up taxes, but not in that way. In fact, he demonstrates some exceptional teaching, showing the wisdom of God in a very difficult and complex circumstance. And so we're gonna spend just a little bit of time hanging out in Matthew 22.  [00:02:17] Why Matthew 22 [00:02:17] Jesse Schwamb: Now, why are we doing this? Why this on this episode? Well, we're about to continue on the podcast, our inexorable march through all of the parables of Jesus as we go into the summer months. It's parable, summer loved ones, which I realize sounds like a horrible name for like a low budget drama. But in this case, Tony and I are about to reem embark or pick up our journey in the parables of Jesus. And what we find in Matthew 22 is this little exchange. It happens. And it actually is in the midst of a bunch of parables that are happening. It's in some ways a response to the parables that Jesus is bringing forward. And also, I just love this passage so much, and since we're doing one more solo episode, before we, we reunite and the band comes back together and we start talking about parables. I thought this is a great way for us to, again, consider the teachings of Jesus. In light of everything that he's saying and teaching in these really lovely stories. And so we find ourselves to think right in Matthew 22, which is a great place to be. So come hang out with me there. Grab a Bible, go stop your car right now and pull up on your phone the Matthew 22 so you can read along with me because this is something fantastic. It's one of the most famous passages actually in the gospels. And also at the same time, it's one of the most misused texts in the history of political theology. Because people on every side of almost every date about this topic, especially taxes since they're mentioned here, have reached for this passage, like it's some kind of Swiss Army knife. So I think the best thing that we can do. Our conversation right now is, let's slow down a little bit. Let's chill out. Let's get easy. Let's read it carefully and figure out what Jesus was actually doing here because it is, I promise you, far more interesting than just like a soundbite about taxes and the way that I beta you. At the top of this episode by saying, let's talk about taxes. [00:04:09] Setting the Scene [00:04:09] Jesse Schwamb: Now, before we get to this particular passage, here's a bit of scene setting, which I think is really important before we get to verse 15, which is where we're gonna pick up. Jesus has entered Jerusalem in the triumphal procession. He's cleansed the temple. He's cursed a fig tree, and he delivered three withering parables aimed directly at the religious establishment. We've got the parable of the two sons. The parable of the Wicked Tenants, the parable of the wedding banquet, which by the way, we're gonna get to all those bad boys. They will all have their own episodes because they're all brilliant and exceptional in each their own way, and they deserve for us to sit in them a little bit. But by the time we reach chapter 22, verse 15, I think at this point the Pharisees have heard enough. They are not stoked about the fact that Jesus is coming after them and coming in hot. And so the response is, let's set a trap. Let's now go back on the offensive. Let's give Jesus a test in front of everybody. So he's gonna be pinned down with something very difficult to explain or to answer. And so that's exactly where we find Matthew writing in 22 verse 15.  [00:05:15] Reading the Passage [00:05:15] Jesse Schwamb: Here's where we pick it up. Matthew writes under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Then the Pharisees went and took counsel together about how they might trap Jesus in what he said, and they sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians saying, teacher, we know that you are truthful and teach the way of God in truth and deferred a no one for you are not partial to any. Therefore, tell us what do you think? Is it lawful to give a tax to Caesar or not? But Jesus knowing their wickedness said, why are you testing me? You hypocrites, show me the coin used for the tax. And they brought him a denarius and he said to them, whose likeness in inscription is this? They said to him, Caesar's. Then he said to them, therefore rendered Caesar, the things that are Caesar's and to God, the things that are god's. And hearing this, they marveled and leaving him, they went away. What an incredible passage. I love this so much in part because we're about to see here this wisdom in the teaching of God through Jesus. It's both spicy. It comes with almost like a clenched fist. It strikes back, but it gets to the root of something that wasn't even part of the original question and unentangle the trap to such a degree that the end result is that. Everybody is left speechless and they just have to walk away.  [00:06:41] Enemies Unite [00:06:41] Jesse Schwamb: And it starts with this idea that the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle him in his words. Matthew actually uses this interesting word here, this idea of they took counsel together. It's a formal deliberate scheme. In other words, they definitely talked about this. It's premeditated, it's not impulsive. It's a confrontation with design. And the Pharisees are doing opposition research. They want to. Trap him, tangle him up. The Greek is to snare or to trap in a net. So they're hunting. They're trying to snipe Jesus, and they're going to send in this least likely combination of collaborators, collaborators, to do this whole thing. It's worth noting here. These groups that we have in the passage, the Pharisees and the Herodians, these guys were natural enemies. The Pharisees were Jewish priests or purists who despised Roman rule, and the Herodians were political pragmatists who basically owed their power to Rome. And so these guys, you can imagine, they agreed on almost nothing except that Jesus needed to be stopped. And when your enemies join forces to come after you. I guess you know, you've been effective. We might think about the own, own, our own times in which we live and the kind of polarized way our societies tend to be bending and tilting right now. And to think what would it take for everybody to come together, unite on common hatred or disagreement about some kind of third element or party? What would it take for that to happen? And so here, there is. The sense in which both the Pharisees and the pros for all of their dislike toward each other, for all their philosophical and religious disagreements, for all of their political conniving against each other, they are completely united in this purpose. And they easily come together to say, Jesus, we must deal with, and it requires all of us, let us come together and reason against him finding a way that we can consolidate our effort and power to such a degree that we leverage one another to entrap him. So there's something here where I think they're demonstrating what the Psalms say that God, when the nation's rage against God, he laughs. He holds 'em in derision. And here's a perfect example of that. In a microcosmic kind of way, we find these two groups who really should never be with one another, finding common ground and unity to try to defeat. Jesus.  [00:08:56] Flattery as a Trap [00:08:56] Jesse Schwamb: And so this delegation arrives and here is their approach to Jesus. They say, teacher, we know that you are true and you teach the way of God truthfully, and you don't care about anyone's opinion. For you are not swayed by appearances. This is some kind of magnificent flattery, and it actually, it's almost entirely true, which just makes this so ironic. There's a confession among the Herodians and the Pharisees, even as I tried to undermine Jesus, you know, that's what makes this so dangerous. They say you don't care about anyone's opinion. You're not swayed by appearances. They're essentially saying you can't be pressured. You'll answer honestly no matter what. And in saying so, they're trying to pressure Jesus, of course, into answering honestly. But it's like a rhetorical judo move. The compliment is the trap spring mechanism. Calvin, in this passage, likes to know that they address Jesus as teacher to feign respect while concealing this animosity, this ho hostility that they have towards him. They want him to be relaxed. Flattered off guard as if it's possible to take the son of God off guard, but notice what they're actually confessing in that flattery. Jesus is truthful. He teaches God's way accurately. He's not a respecter of persons. Every word they speak in false praise is true testimony about who he is, which makes their hypocrisy all the more damning. And this is the thing, for as much as anybody wants to try to blaspheme Jesus for as much as anybody wants to come at him with one particularly. Facet of his character. For instance, he's a good teacher or he seems to teach peace and love and truth and that, and that's it. They compliment him while at the same time confessing themselves short of the true confession of who he is. And so it's ironic to me that these guys. Who in their hearts are holding all of this malice toward Jesus. Say, well, you're not a respecter of persons because you th see things as they are and not merely as they appear to be, while all the time thinking that they're truthfully concealing the fact that they hate him and yet are flattering them with his, flattering him with their tongues. The absurdity of this is absolutely insane. And so I think if you're in this moment, you have to be appreciating. This sense of what is building here? How is Jesus going to respond? The trap has been set. They've tried to flatter him, and of course he's not buying it. But they start with this question. All of that's a set up to say here is like the real punchline. Tell us then, what do you think? Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?  [00:11:36] The False Dilemma [00:11:36] Jesse Schwamb: Now, if you're like me, quite honestly, you might wish that Jesus answered this question differently. This is the trap, the trap. Snapshots on this single question or so they think, I mean, I, I truly believe they think they're being really smart here, that they've come to terms with maybe lots of ideas. I don't know what they did. Whatever the equivalent of using chat GPT was, they said, how can we entrap Jesus? They all got together. They devised a plan. I'm sure they had. Some kind of whiteboard where they're brainstorming ideas and some came up and said, no, that's not gonna work. And others came. I imagine they settled on this because they thought there was no way outta this. And in some ways it's actually a really brilliantly engineered dilemma. The tax in question here is the kenzos. This was the Roman poll tax. A denarius per head paid directly to Rome, and it was incredibly and deeply controversial. Some Jews viewed paying it as completely an act of collaboration with an occupying pagan power, and the zealots called it outright sin, and the HEROs thought it was perfectly fine. So here's the trap. If Jesus says yes, pay the tax, he completely alienates the crowd of Jewish pilgrims who are beginning to believe that he might be the Messiah who will liberate Israel from Rome if he says. No, do not pay it. He could obviously be reported to the Roman authorities as a seditious rebel. Either answer loses. There's really no good way out of this. At least on the face. Either answer costs him something, his popularity or his freedom, and this is what we call a false dilemma. The Pharisees think that they've got him cornered. But here's the thing, loved ones they haven't. You can never corner Jesus. Of course, you can never catch him off guard. And while those seem like very just trite and straightforward explanations of who he is and what his character is like as the son of God, we should not. Go away from them too quickly because what we find here is the wisdom and the brilliance of God in providing teaching to cut to the hearts of what is actually in the question. And Jesus doesn't play this game.  [00:13:40] Coin and Hypocrisy [00:13:40] Jesse Schwamb: Jesus aware of the malice says, why? Put me to the test. You hypocrites, show me the coin for the tax. He doesn't even pretend to take the question at face value. He immediately identifies what's happening. This is a test and you all are hypocrites. Now, for me, I think if you are in the seats or standing in the shoes or the sandals, I suppose, of the Herodians or the Pharisees. I would be like, if I were on the side, I would be like, pull up, pull up, get out, get out. He's onto us just just with Jesus directly coming at them and labeling them as hypocrites. I think that itself undoes all of this. They've been exposed from the very beginning and Jesus doesn't mess around. It's like him coming into the temple to cleanse the temple, and it's as if in his left hand, he has mercy in his right hand. He has that cord that whip. And the word that Matthew uses here for hypocrites is one that Jesus deploys with like surgical precision throughout his this gospel. A hypocrite is someone performing virtue they do not possess. And right away he identifies it. These men are performing concern for Jewish law while actually serving their own political agenda. And I love that the son of God in power does not put up with that at all. And then, and I think this is. Absolutely delightful. Jesus asked them for a coin of all the things he could have said or done. Here's where there is like a little bit of a kind of a parable feel to this. He asked for the physical object, the thing that they're talking about. He asks, and interestingly, he doesn't have one. He's the guest of Pilgrim, the one without a Roman Denarius in his pocket. But, and here's what's interesting. Loved ones, they produce one immediately for him, which means the people who are asking whether it's lawful to use Roman currency are already using Roman currency. Jesus hasn't even answered yet, and hypocrisy is already self-evident. I think that's a considerable fact. The, the instance that they're able to produce the coin promptly, I don't think is a minor detail. It implicates them. They're already participants in the Roman economic system, which. I would say it's not necessarily a bad thing. Their question about whether it's lawful to pay taxes to Caesar is somewhat undermined though by the fact that they're carrying Caesar's money in the temple precincts. In other words, the whole thing just smells a setup. And even Jesus asking for the coin is showing them and others around them that not is he onto them. Not only does he see through them, but he is undermining the complete argument that they're making, showing that the question that they need to have answered is actually not about taxes at all. It's about something much deeper he's about to answer or bring forward the question, rather, whose image is on you. [00:16:29] Whose Image [00:16:29] Jesse Schwamb: And he starts by holding up the coin and saying, whose image is on this? So they bring him a denarius and Jesus says to them, whose likeness and inscription. Is this now the denarius of Tiberius Caesar bore his portrait in the inscription. The inscription, generally historians say, said something like Tiberius Caesar, son of the Divine Augustus, and it was a claim of divinity stamped into everyday commerce. This is why so much of the Jews found it so offensive to participate because it felt as if in every transaction you were affirming in some way the divine authority of Caesar. It was a claim that was stamped on the coin and therefore represented in every kind of transaction that took place throughout the lamb. Every time a Roman coin changed hands, Rome's imperial theology was in some ways quietly proclaimed, and Jesus holds it up and he asks this obvious question. Whose face is on this thing, and the Greek word for likeness here, whose likeness is, this is the word for image. This is the word the SubT uses in Genesis one. When God makes humanity in his image, in the Imago day, Jesus is about to build an argument that depends on this resonance, whether his questioners hear it or not. Whose image is on the coin and whose image is on you. Those are two very different questions with two very different answers. And of course, they lead to this incredibly famous reply, one that's known by most people, but I think not understood by many. So they said, Caesar's Caesar's image is on this coin.  [00:18:12] Render to God [00:18:12] Jesse Schwamb: So Jesus says to them, therefore. Render to Caesar, the things that are Caesars and to God, the things that are God. I think of almost all the places in the scriptures. This might be Jesus at his most dazzling. I say that partly. Subjectively, because I'm captivated by this whole encounter. I'm captivated and drawn in by the son of God and his teaching here. I'm captivated by his ability to see through what's happening here, and I'm captivated by the truth that he delivers. But I think I'm not alone because objectively, when we get to the end of this, we find everybody else marveling. Notice that Jesus doesn't choose between the two horns of this dilemma. He reframes the entire question. He blows up the entire premise because even here, the choice of language is so incredible. The word render means to give back what is owed, to return, what belongs to someone. Sometimes we hear this as give, give to Caesars. What is Caesars? Just give it to him. This seems like a, a secular question you're asking me. So keep this secular nonsense out of what is this sacred life? But instead it's not just give it's give back, render as in this was already his to begin with. So give Caesar back. What has Caesar's image on it? The coin bears his image. The coin belongs to his realm, fine. But when that, but then comes this, this second half, this glorious truth, that's far better, and this is where the weight falls. Give to God, what has God's image on it. And what of course, bears the image of God, you and I, every human being made in the mago de bears the divine image. Caesar can have his coin, but he cannot have you. Not in any ultimate sense. You and I loved ones. We belong to God. And of course, from a reform perspective, this is the bedrock of what we mean when we speak of the Lordship of Christ over all of life. There's no zone of existence that is only Caesar's. Caesar operates within a sphere that God ordains and limits. The state has legitimate authority. Paul's gonna argue that in Romans 13, but the authority is derivative. It's not ultimate Caesar's domain is real, but bounded God's domain is total and unbounded. And so that's why. Calvin insists that Jesus never divides life neatly into sacred and secular. Rather, he is establishing that all of life is lived before God, and within that totality, there are legitimate temporal authorities to whom we owe appropriate submission. The coin goes to Caesar, but the person. The image bearer of God is owed entirely to the Lord.  [00:20:50] Imago Dei and New Life [00:20:50] Jesse Schwamb: I was thinking, again, reading through Genesis, just how beautiful the CR creation narrative is when it comes to mankind, that God is ex ne hill speaking things into existence. He's showing his great command over all things. The spirit hovering over the waters from the beginning. And here's God in this Trinitarian act, bringing into the existence, all the things that you and I know, all the things which are familiar to us that we still marvel at, but are part and parcel peace wise of the world in which we live. And I sometimes forget that when it comes to that day, when God creates man, that he forms him and then he takes a breath and he breathes. The specialty of that type of creation that you and I are derivative and contingent beings, but we're way separate than all of creation because God has breathed his very breath of life into us. And in that way, it's not just that he set us up and said, let me design mankind to be like me, which he does. Let us make mankind in our own image that Trinity says in the scriptures, but also that consummation of life. Comes from the very breadth of God himself. And in that way we find that human beings are doubly special. I would say that one, that God has formed us to be like him to exhibit many of his qualities, but two, that life itself didn't come just from merely speaking, but there's an intimacy. More or less loved ones. He put his lips on ours and breathed into us so that we might be alive. And of course, the scripture itself tells us that the second life, the abundant life, salvation itself is very much like that. In the same way, Jesus didn't come to make bad people good. It came to make dead people alive. And so we need that breath of life again. And when we are surrendered to him, when he comes and arrests our hearts, when he does that incredible surgery of cutting us and removing that heart of stone and replacing it, one with flesh, we are made alive in Christ so that we gain more in Jesus than what we lost in Adam. [00:22:50] Amazed Not Changed [00:22:50] Jesse Schwamb: So what is everybody's response when Jesus explains all of this? Well, I love what the scripture says when they heard it. They marveled and they left him and went away. They marveled the Greek here is, is the word actually for enthusiasm. They were amazed and astonished. It's not actually polite appreciation. This is like draw drop of people who came to spring a trap and watched it spring BRAC on them. There was no follow up question. I love this, don't you? That this is so complete, so succinct, so confronting, so condemning, so damning that they had nothing, they, they left. Imagine maybe they looked at each other with that look of like, does anybody else have anything else they wanna say? 'cause if not, I just want to get outta here right now and notice what Matthew doesn't say. He doesn't say that they repented, he doesn't say that they believed they were astonished. And they left. They walked away. And this is one of those sobering realities of the gospels. Jesus could silence his opponents without converting them. Intellectual defeat is not the same thing as spiritual surrender. The Pharisees went away to a pla to a. Construct a plan essentially of crucifixion of how to kill him. And being out argued is not the same as being transformed. I think for us in evangelism and apologetics, it's a good reminder that winning the argument is not the goal. Clarity is a gift and faithful witness matters, but conversion is the work of the spirit. You can leave someone with nothing to say and still not reach the heart, and this should move us to pray accordingly. So I'm amazed by this teaching because it draws us back to this understanding that what the Pharisees meant to use for entrapment to in the temporal space. To divide Jesus, to make him basically say something that he did not want to say, to put him in a place he did not want to be. Instead, he uses the convey the greatest message of all, and that is we are God's children. And ironically, the ones who are professing to be God's children had missed the point altogether because what they really needed to ask was, whose image is on you? And as a result of that, what ought you to render that is to give back to God, and that is ourselves.  [00:25:00] Takeaways and Application [00:25:00] Jesse Schwamb: So here's some things I would say that we can take away from Matthew 22. A few things I think worth holding onto as you and I go about our weeks first, Jesus can't be cornered. And I, I understand that that's like obvious to say, but don't you love that about the God man? Like every intent to trap him. In this chapter and throughout the gospels now and forevermore results in his opponents looking worse than when they started. And this is how we know that we can trust Jesus, that we can trust his power, that he is for us, that his enemies will ultimately be subdued, that they will be humiliated and made low, that he is the one who cannot be caught in his words because his words are truth. I love that the scripture just tells us the truth about reality, and so we come back to it time and time again because we find it both. Warm, comfortable blankets in which we might cuddle up as it were and find ourselves comforted by God. But also it does have a sharp edge that like a knife cuts against us sometimes to remind us that we serve a holy God and that we are sinful people. It never shrinks away from the truth when that hard edge of the law must be brandished against us, and it also at the same time, never ceases to apply the bomb of the gospel to our lives where we need healing and restoration and comfort. Here's the second thing in my mind, this question, this big question, is it lawful? And what a question by the way, right? Like, you know, you could couch this in lots of different ways. Should we pay taxes? That's kind of how we think about it. But this idea of like, no, no, no. Is it lawful? Which law are we talking about? The law of God or the law of the land Even that is left for this kind of subjective reasoning to entrap. This was a question though about politics. And Jesus answered with a question about identity. I love that. Whose image is this? That is always the deeper question in my mind. And before you ask what you owe the government, we ought to ask what do we owe God? And remember that you yourself are what you owe him because you bear his image. So we start from this place where we don't get it twisted like we do in Romans one, when we're outside of God. That is, we don't wanna change the truth of God for Allah here. We need to remember that Presuppositional, all that we are, all that we have, all that we've been given, all of this is God's. And so in that contingent sense, we are merely pouring back to him that which is already due, his name and his praise. And so that's the place where we start. Third, I think there is a legitimate but bounded role for civil authority in Christian understanding of the world. That's something Tony and I have talked about before. You can go back into the Reform Brotherhood catalog, which by the way exists in reform brotherhood.com. You can find all of the 400 deficits back there. There's a search function, so you can just type in a word and at this point I'm guaranteed some episode will come up. We've talked about this before. How we're not theocrats, we're we're pilgrims. Who hold our earthly citizenship loosely and our heavenly citizenship with everything that we've got. So there is a role in our land for civil authority. Paul, again will argue this very cogently in Romans 13. At the same time, we don't wanna get it twisted. We don't want to have too much focus on that. And too little focus on the fact that our heavenly citizenship is what truly defines us because of who we are. And finally. Amazement is not enough. The Pharisees were amazed and walked away unchanged. We can't just be impressed by Jesus. We must be His. And to remind you, even I think as we engage in the parables that are ahead of us and the teaching that is behind us here in this episode, that it's not just to marvel and say, wow, isn't Jesus. Good because he is, and he is really great with his teaching. He's really great at perceiving all of this. But more than that, he's Lord and Savior of all. He's guiding us not into just like better rhetoric and how to defeat like Pulic argumentation. He's drawing us into the very heart of God, into love for him and for service for one another. And it starts with who we are and how much of our society right now. Has gotten all of this confused such that a lot of our problems is because we do not realize who we are. We are trying to change who we are, change the rules of who God has made us to be, and in this way we shipwreck our lives. And so Jesus calls us back with this simple question, whose image is this? And in that question, our loved ones, I would encourage you all to meditate, to metabolize it, to set yourselves to it. Because the task of answering that question is the task of understanding who God is and who we are in light of who God is. So there you go. Uh, just a little bit of teaching from Jesus that I think is so helpful for us, especially as we move into more parables that he's about to expand. As we go through, I don't know how many that we have left, but there's a lot of 'em, so you're gonna want to continue to hang out with us, I think, because we're gonna go through these, talk about them, process them together, pull in some exegetical chops at the same time, make sure that we're trying to apply these things, because that's the whole point here. There's so much here. I think that could be said. But I'm gonna leave the application to you. So take your time meditating and thinking through this lovely teaching.  [00:30:08] Join the Community [00:30:08] Jesse Schwamb: If you wanna come hang out and do some of this together, which, why would you not wanna do that? We are super fun people. That's what everybody says. Come and join us in the Telegram chat. You've heard me say before, telegram is just a messaging app, and we have a small corner of that app that's a private group of listeners from all around the world who are just hanging out together. We're talking about the episodes, we're talking about life together. We're sharing prayer requests. We're. Tasting things and recording videos of how delicious or not those things are. So if you're curious now about how you can join, it's super easy. Just go to any browser and type in t me slash reform brotherhood, t me slash reform brotherhood. One more time. Everybody in the back. It's t. It's in telegram.me back slash reform brotherhood and then you'll find a link which will take you right to the place where we are all conversing together.  [00:31:00] Closing Blessing [00:31:00] Jesse Schwamb: So that's it on this episode. Come hang out. We're about to jump back into the parables. The band will be back together. It's everything that you wanted and more and, and I hope that you'll come and hang out again. But until you do, you should definitely honor everyone and love the brotherhood. 
• The State of Preaching: A 40-Year Pastor's Diagnosis 06.04.2026 1ч 7мин
• Divine Discipline: Why God's Chastisement Proves His Love for Christians 30.03.2026 59мин
• Suffering and Sovereignty: How God Uses Pain to Sanctify Believers 23.03.2026 1ч 1мин

  In this deeply personal and theologically rich episode, Jesse welcomes his wife Jenn to discuss suffering, steadfastness, and God's sovereign purposes in pain. Jenn shares her ongoing journey with endometriosis—a chronic illness that has led to multiple surgeries, emergency procedures, and ongoing medical challenges. Through candid conversation, they explore how suffering is never condemnation for believers but rather a refining tool in God's hands. This episode moves beyond abstract theological discussion to demonstrate how Reformed doctrine meets real life, offering profound encouragement for anyone walking through prolonged trials. Jenn's testimony reveals how moving from a victim mindset to a steward mindset transforms suffering into an opportunity to comfort others and glorify God, even when answers remain unclear. Key Takeaways Suffering is governed by God's sovereign providence, not random chance - While endometriosis and its complications might appear as medical "bad luck," believers understand that God ordains our circumstances for our sanctification and His glory. God uses suffering to move us from victims to stewards - The transformation from asking "why me?" to "how can I serve others through this?" represents spiritual maturity and reflects God's comfort given to us so we might comfort others (2 Corinthians 1:3-4). Theology must work in ordinary life or it doesn't work at all - Abstract doctrinal knowledge means nothing if it cannot sustain us through hospital stays, chronic pain, and medical setbacks. God never promised to remove suffering, but to be present in it - The Christian life is not characterized by the absence of hardship but by God's sustaining presence through trials, enabling endurance we cannot manufacture ourselves. Honest lament is biblical and appropriate - Following David's example in the Psalms, believers can cry out to God with raw questions about suffering without fear of condemnation. Suffering creates unique opportunities for gospel witness - Non-believing friends and coworkers notice supernatural peace in the midst of trials, opening doors for conversations about the hope we have in Christ. Accepting our circumstances from God enables us to ask Him to use them - Surrender precedes service; once we accept our suffering as from God's hand, we can pray for Him to redeem it for His purposes and others' good. Key Takeaways Moving From Victim to Steward One of the most transformative insights Jenn shares is the concept of moving from a victim mindset to a steward mindset in suffering. This shift doesn't minimize the reality or severity of pain—Jenn's experience with emergency surgeries, a temporary colostomy, and now a nephrostomy tube is genuinely difficult. Rather, this perspective acknowledges that God can be trusted even when circumstances feel overwhelming. The concept of stewardship typically applies to blessings—time, talents, resources—but Jenn extends it to suffering itself. If we truly believe Romans 8:28, that all things work together for good for those who love God, then even our most painful experiences become something to steward faithfully. This means asking God not just "why?" but "how can you use this?" It means looking for opportunities to comfort others with the comfort we've received from God (2 Corinthians 1:4). Jenn's ability to help others facing colostomies or endometriosis demonstrates this stewardship in action—her suffering became preparation for ministry to others facing similar trials. The Sovereignty of God Anchors Us in Suffering Throughout the conversation, Jenn repeatedly returns to God's character and sovereignty as the foundation for enduring prolonged suffering. When doctors told Jesse that only two resections out of thousands had failed—and his wife's was one of them—the natural response would be to feel victimized by terrible odds. Instead, understanding God's sovereignty reframes even statistical anomalies as part of His purposeful plan. This doesn't mean suffering is easy or that pain doesn't hurt, but it does mean suffering is never meaningless or outside God's control. Jenn's starting point in processing each new medical challenge is not her emotions or even her physical pain, but God's trustworthy character. This theological foundation—that God is good, sovereign, and has purposes we cannot always see—functions as a filter through which every diagnosis, setback, and difficult day must pass. Without this anchor, suffering becomes unbearable randomness. With it, suffering becomes a crucible for sanctification, an opportunity to experience God's sustaining grace, and a platform for displaying His glory to a watching world. Suffering Creates Gospel Opportunities One of the unexpected fruits of Jenn's journey with chronic illness has been the opening of conversations about faith with non-believing friends and coworkers. When people observe someone handling devastating diagnoses and repeated medical setbacks with genuine (though not perfect) peace, they notice. Jenn recounts multiple instances of people saying, "I don't know how you're handling this so well," which creates natural opportunities to point to the source of that peace—not personal strength, but God's sustaining presence. This aligns with 1 Peter 3:15's instruction to always be prepared to give a reason for the hope we have. For believers, suffering is never wasted because it demonstrates to a skeptical world that Christian faith is not merely theoretical or confined to good times. The gospel proves its power most clearly when it enables believers to endure what should be unbearable. Jenn's testimony shows that effective evangelism often flows not from having all the answers but from displaying authentic dependence on God through difficulty, which prompts questions from those who lack that anchor in their own suffering. Memorable Quotes "I don't always have to do the fighting. I don't have to fight this stuff. The Lord will do it for me. He'll fight for me. I just have to trust him and be still and he's got it." — Jenn Schwamb "God never said that this was gonna be easy... I often think, well, why wouldn't it happen to me? Like, why wouldn't it happen to any of us?" — Jenn Schwamb Full Transcript [00:00:44] Jesse Schwamb: Welcome to episode 484 of The Reformed Brotherhood. I'm Jesse.  [00:00:52] Jenn Schwamb: I'm Jen.  [00:00:53] Jesse Schwamb: And this is the podcast where two Become one. Hey sister.  [00:00:57] Jenn Schwamb: Hey brother. That's so weird. Did not like that at all.  [00:01:03] Jesse Schwamb: Well, listen, before we get into it, and we're gonna get into a great conversation on this episode about suffering and steadfastness and encouragement, and we're gonna talk about it like you have never heard it talked about on the Reform Brotherhood podcast before. And that's in part or in whole because we got a special guest, the most specialist guest in my view, that we have ever had on this podcast. Why don't you tell us who you are?  [00:01:28] Jenn Schwamb: Um, I'm Jen, your wife.  [00:01:30] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, you are. And we figured it was about time after 10 long years, and it took 484 episodes to get Jen to come onto the podcast. Listen, this is one of the great marriages of all time. That's what people are saying, not me. Other people are saying that about us.  [00:01:51] Jenn Schwamb: I don't think so.  [00:01:51] Jesse Schwamb: And they're absolutely saying it. And it's finally time that we had you on the podcast, and I am super excited. On a scale of like nine to 10, how excited are you to finally do this? [00:02:01] Jenn Schwamb: I'm terrified. I'm so uncomfortable already. This is so weird. This  [00:02:07] Jesse Schwamb: is fantastic. Everybody we're sitting in now, our makeshift Kitchen studio, two microphones at the kitchen table across from each other, just doing what the Reform Brotherhood Podcast does, talking about God. And that's what we intend to do today. But of course, before we get to the topic at hand, you know. Or actually maybe you don't know. You know a little bit about affirmations and denials, but even, even before we get there, there's an important thing we gotta talk about, and that is how many podcast episodes of the Reformed Brotherhood would you have said you have listened to? [00:02:38] Jenn Schwamb: I am pretty sure zero, maybe half. Maybe half of one. Because I do remember, I remember when you and Tony had the idea for the podcast, and I remember you guys starting to record episodes early on, and I feel like I'm certain, I tried to listen to it, but very quickly. So  [00:02:58] Jesse Schwamb: kind  [00:02:58] Jenn Schwamb: very quickly was like, Nope, not for me. [00:03:00] Jesse Schwamb: Listen, we understand we are not everybody else's jammed, so this is why it makes good sense then to start this episode with a quiz about their reformed brotherhood. Oh no. Wow. For you to answer. So I have five questions here for you. And these are all questions about the Reformed Brotherhood, which I think many of these you'll be able to answer just by way of, I don't think  [00:03:19] Jenn Schwamb: so. [00:03:19] Jesse Schwamb: Osmosis all. Are you ready? It's gonna be great. Get excited. Question one. How did the Reform Brotherhood podcast officially begin? Was it a,  [00:03:30] Jenn Schwamb: oh, that's multiple choice.  Okay.  [00:03:31] Jesse Schwamb: Tony accidentally purchased two microphones instead of one and wanted somebody to talk to.  [00:03:36] Jenn Schwamb: Nope.  [00:03:36] Jesse Schwamb: Was it B? I didn't think there were enough Reform Theological podcasts in the world. [00:03:42] Jenn Schwamb: No.  [00:03:43] Jesse Schwamb: Was it C You and my sister went shopping and left Tony and I at a brewery, or was it Dee Tony found someone who was wrong on the internet?  [00:03:52] Jenn Schwamb: Well, I mean, it could be Dee as well, but it was C because we were at Trobe's Brewery when Ashley and Tony were visiting us here, and I don't know how it came up, but you and Tony, well, maybe it came up while Ashley and I were shopping. [00:04:05] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.  [00:04:06] Jenn Schwamb: I couldn't remember if you guys talked about it and then we were like, we're outta here. Or if we had already left and then you, when we came back, you guys were like, guess what? We're gonna start a podcast.  [00:04:15] Jesse Schwamb: We need a sound effect. You absolutely got that correct. Okay. And. I think it officially began once you left us. This is what happens, I'm sure. Okay. When you leave us alone,  [00:04:23] Jenn Schwamb: we all noted,  [00:04:24] Jesse Schwamb: we started a podcast and then at a  [00:04:25] Jenn Schwamb: brewery,  [00:04:26] Jesse Schwamb: 10 years later, here we are sitting across the table from each other recording an episode. Alright, question two. Okay. It's a little bit more difficult.  [00:04:33] Jenn Schwamb: Oh no,  [00:04:34] Jesse Schwamb: but I'm confident in you. Which of the following is not a catchphrase of the Reformed Brotherhood podcast? Is it A, that makes me want to run through a wall. B, Calvinism has the Riz C God does all the verbs. Or, D, salvation is like a cake. Now remember, you're looking for the one that is not,  [00:04:57] Jenn Schwamb: first of all, the fact that you're telling me that. You guys say multiples, like there's more than one of, there's the one that you don't say don't. That's concerning to me. I'm hoping. I'm hoping it's the one where you said Riz. 'cause you and Tony shouldn't be saying Riz.  [00:05:12] Jesse Schwamb: It is not your final answer.  [00:05:13] Jenn Schwamb: Yes.  [00:05:13] Jesse Schwamb: B Calvinism has, you are correct.  [00:05:15] Jenn Schwamb: Okay. Yeah. Good. You guys  [00:05:16] Jesse Schwamb: can't be saying that. Said that in my life.  [00:05:17] Jenn Schwamb: You can't be saying that.  [00:05:18] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, that you're absolutely right. Thanks. Phew. Thanks for calling us out in this hypothetical world that I've created. Alright, question three. This is more difficult still. R Scott Clark is a reformed theologian, theologian pastor, professor and writer who is often mentioned on the podcast. What does the R in his name stand for? Is it a Randy b Rufuss? C Reginald D. Nobody knows. What does the R in R Scar Clark stand for?  [00:05:51] Jenn Schwamb: I've never heard of that person.  [00:05:54] Jesse Schwamb: If you had to guess Randy Rufuss, Regina Reginald, or nobody know  [00:05:57] Jenn Schwamb: I Reginald, but I'm gonna go with nobody knows. 'cause I don't know.  [00:05:59] Jesse Schwamb: You are right on both accounts. Okay. I would've taken both. So the great joke we have is we call him Reginald, but nobody actually knows. So  [00:06:06] Jenn Schwamb: like, actually nobody knows. Like the internet doesn't know.  [00:06:08] Jesse Schwamb: I don't know. I don't think so.  [00:06:10] Jenn Schwamb: Chachi? Bt doesn't know.  [00:06:11] Jesse Schwamb: I don't think  [00:06:11] Jenn Schwamb: so. Oh, impressive Art. Scott something.  [00:06:14] Jesse Schwamb: Clark.  [00:06:15] Jenn Schwamb: Clark,  [00:06:15] Jesse Schwamb: yeah. So really you just cleaned up on that question by getting both. Is he  [00:06:18] Jenn Schwamb: alive  [00:06:18] Jesse Schwamb: of the potential? Yes, very much so.  [00:06:20] Jenn Schwamb: Oh, I feel like somebody could find out what the art stands for. [00:06:24] Jesse Schwamb: The whole fun now is the secretive nature of this whole thing. It's a beautiful thing. It's a, it's a lovely mystery like the Trinity, but certainly not as profound. Alright, question four, only two more left. And you are batting a thousand right now. Phew. You're better at this than I think you thought you were gonna be. I had every confidence. Alright, question four. The podcast was once famously nominated for an award.  [00:06:45] Jenn Schwamb: No,  [00:06:46] Jesse Schwamb: what was that? Thank you for the confidence. What was that award? Was it a top 50? Healthcare Podcasts? B. The top PO 10 podcasts with hosts who look similar. C, top 100 Theo Theology podcasts that won't stop making episodes or D Top 25 podcasts about the weather. Which of these did the Reform Brotherhood actually receive a nomination for?  [00:07:14] Jenn Schwamb: Oh my God.  [00:07:15] Jesse Schwamb: Was it Healthcare? The one were the  [00:07:17] Jenn Schwamb: same one, like they're still making episodes.  [00:07:19] Jesse Schwamb: Final answer.  [00:07:20] Jenn Schwamb: Yeah.  [00:07:21] Jesse Schwamb: Oh, so close. So the great joke is, at one point in time we were nominated as a top 50 healthcare podcast, like nominated in quotation marks. [00:07:29] Jenn Schwamb: That sounds vaguely familiar. Now that. But I don't remember why.  [00:07:32] Jesse Schwamb: Apparently affirmations, denials had put us into a category of healthcare at one point. So,  [00:07:37] Jenn Schwamb: oh, it's like therapy or something.  [00:07:38] Jesse Schwamb: We'll get there. Yeah, something like that. Alright, final question. And at this point, three for four is a really strong showing. I'm very impressed. Here is the last question. Perhaps the hardest of them all. Question five, who speaks the most on the Reformed Brotherhood podcast? Is it a Tony?  [00:07:59] Jenn Schwamb: Yeah. Or just Tony? Based on what I can hear through the floor of our, of our house. I, I am aware of when you're speaking and I'm guessing it's Tony,  [00:08:10] Jesse Schwamb: we're gonna go with a Tony. [00:08:11] Jenn Schwamb: Yep.  [00:08:12] Jesse Schwamb: Everybody knows. Everybody knows. We love Tony. We miss him on this episode, but not as much as I enjoy having my wife with us.  [00:08:19] Affirmations and Denials Comfort Picks [00:08:19] Jesse Schwamb: So let's move in then to affirmations and denials before we get to the topic at hand. You know the drill, and if you're listening for the first time, we do these things called affirmations and denials because we're coming alongside the reformed tradition where it would come and say, I affirm with these principles, or deny against these things. And we've taken that to use in our own conversations as, here's some things we really, really like, or here's some things that are really not that great. So, Jen, I ask you on this episode, are you affirming with or or denying against something?  [00:08:49] Jenn Schwamb: Affirming.  [00:08:50] Jesse Schwamb: What are you affirming  [00:08:50] Jenn Schwamb: with? Oh, I have to go first. [00:08:52] Jesse Schwamb: Yes, you're the best.  [00:08:53] Jenn Schwamb: I don't even know how you guys do them. 'cause I've never listened and I don't think you had affirmations and denials when you first started.  [00:08:59] Jesse Schwamb: No. This, that was, who  [00:09:00] Jenn Schwamb: knows when that started. There's one episode that I maybe listened  [00:09:02] Jesse Schwamb: to. Yeah, that's a great question.  [00:09:03] Jenn Schwamb: Um, well welcome. I decided I was gonna affirm because it was the first thing that came to my mind when you told me I was gonna have to do something. Uh, and I don't know, maybe you've affirmed it before, but it is the brand of clothing re, which I am decked out in right now. Specifically their joggers and their hoodie sweatshirt.  [00:09:20] Jesse Schwamb: Alright. But you gotta tell the people like why you like this. There's so much you call them, they're,  [00:09:24] Jenn Schwamb: oh, well, what I call, and not just me, but my friends and my car. I've never heard  [00:09:28] Jesse Schwamb: anybody else say this.  [00:09:29] Jenn Schwamb: These, these specific sweatpants, which are the VUI performance joggers. Uh, we call them butter pants because they feel like butter. They're really soft, they're really comfortable. I will say the brand is not particularly cheap. They're a little on the pricey side. I do not normally spend this amount of money on clothing. I shop at thrift stores, but when it comes to my athleisure, I like to be comfortable. And so these are my favorite. I'm wearing right now, the performance joggers and a hoodie, and I'm never been more comfortable.  [00:10:04] Jesse Schwamb: And we really should be sponsored by Vori at this point.  [00:10:06] Jenn Schwamb: That'd be great.  [00:10:07] Jesse Schwamb: That's a, I mean, that would be great for  [00:10:09] Jenn Schwamb: what if you got a sponsorship for Vori after the one episode that I was on. [00:10:14] Jesse Schwamb: This is gonna be the definitive Vori episode. I also do, I have a pair of these? Did you get me a pair of pants?  [00:10:20] Jenn Schwamb: Uh, I got you a pair of pants once you tried 'em on. And we were both like, no. Oh, that's a good, that was not a good choice.  [00:10:25] Jesse Schwamb: It was a fit though.  [00:10:26] Jenn Schwamb: Yeah. Not a good choice for you.  [00:10:29] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.  [00:10:29] Jenn Schwamb: That particular swim, they were comfortable. You have. Something  [00:10:34] Jesse Schwamb: nobody knows.  [00:10:36] Jenn Schwamb: Oh, there's, oh, maybe you don't.  [00:10:37] Jesse Schwamb: No,  [00:10:37] Jenn Schwamb: I got your rabbit stuff. That's true. You like to wear the rabbit brand. Also affirming that very good brand  [00:10:42] Jesse Schwamb: Yes. Of athleisure. So you're looking for something that's super comfortable and if whatever reason you've ever thought to yourself. These pants are slightly more rough than I would like. Is there something that would feel like somebody put butter on my legs, then there's good news.  [00:10:56] Jenn Schwamb: Mm-hmm.  [00:10:56] Jesse Schwamb: That's a really strong affirmation.  [00:10:57] Jenn Schwamb: They're out there.  [00:10:58] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. I think that's great. Alright, so I'm gonna also affirm with on this episode, and it's has to do with you 'cause it's something you just brought home and I'm enjoying now. I did just buy that right before we started coughing. We, we, the background is we've had a little sickness in our household, A little flu, a little cold action, which we were pretty good in convalescing from. And then all of a sudden we decided, why don't we set up some microphones? And both of us had never wanted to cough more in our entire lives. [00:11:24] Jenn Schwamb: I never wanted to cough more than right this second.  [00:11:26] Jesse Schwamb: Yes. That's how it goes. It's like when something funny happens in church and you've gotta keep it together. Same principle play here. So, but you brought home and I'm enjoying this non-alcoholic beer, which has been my jam recently. I'm really just enjoying. Having the treat of beer but without the alcohol, which is nice. And this is a brand I haven't had before, Bero, BERO,  [00:11:47] Jenn Schwamb: I think that's how you say it.  [00:11:48] Jesse Schwamb: And I am trying the double tasty West Coast style IPA because it's fun and it's, it's actually delicious. So I think it used to be that when you had non-alcoholic beer, you knew you were having it because it tasted funky. Just bad.  [00:12:05] Jenn Schwamb: Yeah.  [00:12:05] Jesse Schwamb: I dunno why I'm asking you, but  [00:12:06] Jenn Schwamb: I know you're looking at me like, you know when you've had all that non-alcoholic beer  [00:12:10] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.  [00:12:10] Jenn Schwamb: For so many years.  [00:12:11] Jesse Schwamb: For as much alcoholic beer as you've had as episodes, you've listened to the podcast.  [00:12:14] Jenn Schwamb: Exactly.  [00:12:14] Jesse Schwamb: What did you think? But this is fantastic and I've had a couple recently and they're just so good. I wouldn't be able to tell. So it's really nice.  [00:12:21] Jenn Schwamb: It looks like a beer.  [00:12:22] Jesse Schwamb: It does. It has like the head of a beer. It has a little bit of that lacing on the side of the glass. But also more than anything, I wanna cough so bad right now, so this is like  [00:12:31] Jenn Schwamb: delicious. Do you wanna tell people why I think that beer to buy or do we not wanna say that? And by beer, I mean non-alcoholic beer.  [00:12:36] Jesse Schwamb: Is there a secret?  [00:12:37] Jenn Schwamb: Because Tom Holland's affiliated with it somehow and he's Spider-Man that, and I love a Marvel movie. I movie know. That's how I found out about it. He talked about it like on a late night show or something, and he, I don't know if he created it, if he's a partner in it, if he, I don't know, he's sober. And one, it was looking for good. I remember him talking about looking for good non-alcoholic beer. It didn't feel like there were many out there. So he had some sort of involvement in that  [00:13:00] Jesse Schwamb: and thought so he just made it himself.  [00:13:01] Jenn Schwamb: I don't know. I just knew he's affiliated and I hadn't seen it anywhere. And then this morning I saw it, so I had to get it. [00:13:07] Jesse Schwamb: It's really good. I feel a little tingly this, these are all kinds of jokes Tony would love right now. Ugh.  [00:13:13] Jenn Schwamb: I can't wait for Tony to listen to this.  [00:13:15] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, neither can.  [00:13:16] Suffering and Endometriosis Journey [00:13:16] Jesse Schwamb: It's gonna be a joy for everybody and I think it really will be because I've, you and I have talked about doing a podcast for quite some time, having it on the podcast, not this type podcast. That's true. All we have had all kinds of ideas. But when it came time for me to think about people that I would like to talk to in this season of the podcast, honestly, you were the first one that came to my mind. And in part that's because we've got some stuff going on in our lives and you in particular, and for a while you've been on a journey of sorts. And I think that the one thing that Tony and I try to bring into all our conversations is that. If the, if your theology doesn't work in the course of normal life, then it just doesn't work. So it doesn't matter how much we know and how much we process, what we can even recapitulate or regurgitate in terms of profound theories and philosophies and big words, if it is not the kind of thing that draws us close to our Lord Jesus Christ, that enables us to serve him, to love others more and to have the kind of firm faith that he desires for us in this life as we live it abundantly in the way that he's given it to us, then what does it matter? And you have a profound amount of theology in your life and in practice, and that's something I very much admire. And so we chose this topic because we thought it'd be super fun for everybody. Let's talk about suffering and let's talk about steadfastness. And we've talked so much in the past, and this is what makes it special. We talked so much in the past about how suffering exists because of the fall, but it's govern governed by, governed by God's sovereign providence. And for believers, suffering is never a condemnation. You and I've talked about that quite a bit. Because Christ has made a way through all of that. He's paid for that fully on the cross. The mortgage in our soul has been paid in full. We talked about that actually in the last episode. Instead, though God doesn't remove this suffering, he uses it to sanctify, to harmful, to refine, to preserve his people. And that steadfastness is the grace enabled endurance of faith through trial, sustained by the word, through the prayer, through ordinary means. All the things that are part and parcel that you hear people say in reform theology. But really only matter when we impound them in our journey and we are anchored in them by the promise that after suffering comes glory. And so in all of that, Julia thought about you. So I think maybe a good place to start is maybe talk a little bit about your journey. Why? Why you're even one that I want to talk to you about this topic.  [00:15:38] Jenn Schwamb: Well, I don't know why you wanna talk to me about this topic. You've certainly heard enough of it. Um. I guess I don't know where to start. So I guess I'll start with the end, which is I, uh, suffer from a chronic illness called endometriosis. Um, specifically I deal with, um, an aggressive form called deep infiltrating endometriosis, which means that mine likes to infiltrate all sorts of organs that it does not belong in. Um, it's an illness that affects women, uh, it affects a lot of women. I was actually just telling Jesse that I just discovered this morning, I think on Facebook, that it's Endometriosis Awareness Month. Who knew? And that it said something on there about, you know, one in 10 women suffer from endometriosis. Wow. Which was shocking to me because, you know, think of 10 women. You know, at least one of them is probably dealing with this. So I have endometriosis, have had it for a long time. Um, it's very painful. Um, it's very awful. There's a lot that goes into that and I'm not really sure where to start in that story. Um,  [00:16:48] Jesse Schwamb: and this is something that, like you said, you've discovered a little while ago was gonna be part of your life. And we should say that this is why we're one of the top 50 healthcare podcasts or you're about to be  [00:16:59] Jenn Schwamb: now. [00:17:00] Jesse Schwamb: So on this episode, there is gonna be a little bit of medical talk, I think. So just take that as a fair warning on the conversation. Why don't you explain a little bit like, can we call it Endo? I know that kind of like Yeah, we  [00:17:10] Jenn Schwamb: can call it endo  [00:17:10] Jesse Schwamb: makes it sound cool, but it's not cool. Not cool, but like basically just generally what it is. [00:17:16] Jenn Schwamb: So what it is essentially is, I was gonna say I don't, dude, I'm guessing most of your audience is dudes.  [00:17:23] Jesse Schwamb: Get ready guys,  [00:17:24] Jenn Schwamb: um, about to say the word uterus a bunch of times. So buckle up. Um, essentially endometriosis is uterine like tissue. That is outside of the uterus. And so it causes all sorts of problems because it gets inflamed, it causes bloating, and it responds, um, in a variety of ways. That's very frustrating and awful for some women. Um, it's mostly impacts them during their menstrual cycle. For other women, it impacts them every day of their life. All the time. They're in pain constantly. We discovered that I had it, I'm trying to think, probably 16, 17 years ago, um, as a result of, um, Jesse forcing me to go to the emergency room after he found me, I think crying on the floor of our house, um, and telling him, no, it's normal. It's just cramps. This is just cramps. This is what girls go through. Spoiler alert is not just cramps and that's not normal amount of pain to be in. So we discovered it then, uh, after a trip to the hospital and discovering that I was littered with fibroids, um, and then had surgery for that, which is where we uncovered the endo. Um, 'cause often endo is diagnosed via like a laparoscopic surgery. It's not, it doesn't show up on MRIs or other imaging, right? So the way to confirm that you have it is via like an exploratory surgery. Uh, so that's when we found out that I had endo, but it made a lot of things make sense because I had been dealing with what I just thought was just really painful cramps for probably most of my, I dunno, teen years into adulthood. Um, had never heard of Endo before. As far as I know, nobody in my family also experienced it. So it is common if, if it's in your family, like you might also have it, but not for me. Yeah.  [00:19:12] Jesse Schwamb: So let's talk about then, 'cause this is all important in getting to this point of how this has impacted you and how this, how you understand theology and your servanthood in this and you're bearing up underneath this. But maybe you want to just say briefly, after finding out that that's part of your life, what are some things you've been through because of this?  [00:19:30] Jenn Schwamb: So when we found out about it because of the fibroids, I had had surgery months, I think probably after that to have the fibroids removed and some endo excision, uh, or ablation at the time. 'cause I didn't know the importance of excision then, um, to have it removed and felt a lot better for a little while, maybe for a couple of years. Um, and then have experienced all sorts of things, um, as a result of endo largely besides the pain and all of that stuff. Um, I don't know if Jesse's talked about it on the podcast before, but one of the main things with endometriosis is very common for people to suffer from infertility as a result of endometriosis, which has definitely been our story. Um, but on top of that, I've had. I don't even know so many surgeries. Yep. Um, I've had some surgeries that didn't go the way that we thought they would go and things that we didn't even know were possible. Right. Um, so probably, I guess it was eight years ago now, nine years ago, in 2018, I had had a surgery to remove more fibroids and to remove endometriosis. And what I remember about that surgery was that I think it was supposed to be four hours long. So when I woke up, it was supposed to be noon. And I, that was what I remember going to sleep and thinking when I wake up it'll be like lunchtime. And I remember waking up and the surgeon sitting next to me, which was unusual, and I remember her saying, Jennifer, it's five 30 or something like that. Right. And I just remember thinking, that's not. Right, right. What happened? Um, and a lot of things had happened that I found out within the hours after that. And essentially in that surgery, they had determined, they had come to Jesse and asked if they could move me into open surgery from the laparoscopic to get better access to it. In the open surgery, discovered that the endo had infiltrated, like I said, uh, my colon, uh, they needed to bring in another surgeon to do a resection of my colon, all with Jesse's permission. So he's just like in the waiting room saying like, I guess, go ahead.  [00:21:29] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:21:30] Jenn Schwamb: Do what you need to do. Right. Um, so when I woke up from that surgery, essentially I found out that it had infiltrated my colon and that they had done a resection. They had taken about six inches, I think of my colon out, put it back together. So all was well we thought. Um, and then while I was in the hospital recovering from that, I was in the hospital. I think it was like day seven I was being discharged. I remember vividly you tying my shoes. Yes. That's the part I remember. I had just gotten dressed. Jessie had just tied my shoes. We had just signed the discharge paperwork and I remember saying, I don't feel really good. And Jessie said, get back in the bed. And I said, no, no, no. I'm just nervous about going home. Uh, I think that's why I don't feel good. And then everything after that was a blur because the next thing I remember is that I was in the bed, that there were a lot of people around me. I remember people covering me with bags of ice.  [00:22:21] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.  [00:22:22] Jenn Schwamb: Um, and I don't remember a whole lot after that, but the short version of that long story is that I ended up having another emergency surgery, turned out my resection had not taken. I was leaking, going septic. Um, and so I had to go into emergency surgery and came out of that surgery with a lovely colostomy bag  [00:22:41] Jesse Schwamb: Mm. [00:22:41] Jenn Schwamb: That Jessie had to tell me about. Mm-hmm. He had to live That's right. To deliver that news. I forgot  [00:22:45] Jesse Schwamb: about that. Um, so that was a whole traumatic and just dramatic situation, wasn't it? I remember when the doctors were putting all that ice on you and you were spiking like an incredible fever. I remember calling everybody I knew just to ask that they would pray and. That's another example I think that's we'll get to is God being good to us in that journey in very difficult times, always showing up even when everything felt like it was, it was falling apart. And so you went in for a surgery that was supposed to be outpatient, right? As wild as that was supposed to go home. Remember that home? Yeah. Then it took an extra, like five hours. Then it was possible that, uh, what happened basically is that that resection didn't fuse properly through nobody's fault. In fact, the doctor who did that surgery, who since did my gallbladder surgery Yeah. This past year.  [00:23:35] Jenn Schwamb: Yeah, that's right. Same guy.  [00:23:35] Jesse Schwamb: He was such a kind doctor. Really? God brought us to him and he was so beside himself with grief over that it didn't work. And I remember when I spoke with him. And he come out after that second surgery and said, I'm so sorry, but, but she's gonna have to have a temporary colostomy. And he was just devastated by having to have done that, even though he, we all knew it was a possibility. And so I said to him, well, well, how many of these have you done? He said, thou, I've done thousands of these. And the resections, I said, how many of them have had a problem where it didn't take? And he said, including this one. I said, yes. He said two. So, I mean, talk about how, how do you think about something like that when. Everything around you is like telling you, well, this is just really bad luck, or you've just been really given, you've drawn the really short straw. But instead, you know, our perspective is, is very, very different than that. And, and I wanna get to that, but now you're kind of up against something else, right? There's more things on the horizon. Yeah.  [00:24:33] Jenn Schwamb: Now we're, now we're back to it. Um, so it had the colostomy, like Jesse said, it was temporary, had it for five months, had another surgery five months later to have it reversed. It all went well. It was great. Um, I had a few years, a number of years there where I was feeling pretty good. Um, last few years could tell things were ramping up again. Maybe not doing so hot. But to be honest, um, I was really putting off any sort of surgery conversation. 'cause the last one wasn't great. Right. So really didn't, wasn't eager to do it again. Um, but recently, um, I had been having a lot of pain in my back and my like right. Right hand side of my back, particularly during my cycle. And I just would tell Jesse, oh, it's just normal endo stuff. It just comes with a territory, right? It's what you, what you gotta deal with. Um, and then, um, back in October, that pain that normally I could kind of get to go away with a bunch of medication and some icy hot patches would not go away. Uh, it just would not relent. And I was texting some of my medical professional friends and they were like, you should just go to the hospital just to make sure that it's not something more serious. Um, so went through that whole process, went to the er. Um, turns out, um, the, my endo that likes to infiltrate things has now infiltrated my ureter and was blocking my ureter, which was causing my kidney to be swollen and angry, which was what was causing the pain. Um, when I was in the hospital for that, they kept me, did a procedure, I forget what it was called, but essentially tried their best to remove  [00:26:04] Jesse Schwamb: the blockage.  [00:26:04] Jenn Schwamb: The blockage. They didn't know it was endo. I knew it was endo. Right. Um. They removed it, put in a stent. Um, I had the stent for about a month, all while still in a lot of pain, still communicating with the doctor that something doesn't feel right, I think something's wrong. Um, went back to the ER about a month later. Turns out stent had failed. So now I have this lovely thing called a nephrostomy tube that is in my back. It's a tube that is directly into my kidney. Um, comes outta my kidney, outta my back, and is attached to a bag that is strapped to my leg. And that's, I have basically a, what I call a urine water balloon attached to my leg all over the time. [00:26:46] Jesse Schwamb: Go. So another catchphrase  [00:26:47] Jenn Schwamb: for the  [00:26:47] Jesse Schwamb: podcast.  [00:26:48] Jenn Schwamb: So, um. It's, I'm, I've gotten to experience, I feel like, uh, the gamut of, I've had the colostomy bag and now I have the nephrostomy bag. Uh, this should be temporary. That's the hope and the plan. I'll have this until I have surgery again, which is scheduled for in May. Um, at which point I will have a total hysterectomy and a bunch of other things and a repair of my ureter. They'll have to kind of do what they did with my colon. They'll have to do a resection of my ureter, take out that portion where the endo is, reimplant it in my bladder, possibly move my bladder up. I don't know. It's very whole, they, it's a lot of things. It's  [00:27:26] Jesse Schwamb: be a whole  [00:27:26] Jenn Schwamb: zoning out. When the urology, urologist was telling me, 'cause I just was like, I don't know what you're talking about.  [00:27:31] Jesse Schwamb: It's gonna be a party in that or loved ones. That's, that's what we keep saying.  [00:27:35] Jenn Schwamb: Yep.  [00:27:35] Jesse Schwamb: That's what's ahead. So I should stop there and say, I pray for Jen. Pray for us if you would, that is coming up in a couple months. If you're listening to this, it's, and it's before may, we definitely cover your prayers. This is the big one.  [00:27:48] Jenn Schwamb: Yeah,  [00:27:49] Jesse Schwamb: right. This is the big one.  [00:27:50] Jenn Schwamb: This is the one.  [00:27:50] Jesse Schwamb: It's a lot  [00:27:51] Jenn Schwamb: we didn't wanna have.  [00:27:52] Jesse Schwamb: It's a lot. Yeah, it's a lot. And it's difficult and it's hard. And you're probably hearing from us like this is real stuff. And that's why I was so grateful that Jen would be willing to talk about this, because I think there are people that need to hear this, need to hear, there's encouragement in this, that there's others who are experiencing this type of thing. But I think the best place to start is something that you and I have talked about a little bit before, which is how, how, maybe that's the best place. Just how I think, especially for teens. I  [00:28:19] Jenn Schwamb: don't know.  [00:28:19] Jesse Schwamb: It's difficult to understand, but you've been through a lot of things, and I know that you've experienced the depth of some of those things, especially after that first surgery with the colostomy. But what has, what has God brought you through? Like what is it that when it is hard that you, you find yourself going to God for?  [00:28:42] Jenn Schwamb: Yeah, so. It's hard. I don't wanna say it's hard to talk about 'cause it's not only, it's hard to talk about. I'm an open book. I'll tell anybody anything. I just don't often talk about this. I don't bring it up because I also feel like when you get me talking about it, I think it's, I'm very tempted to say it's not a big deal. It's really not that big of a deal, right? When other people are like, no, it isn't a big deal. I'm like, there's really not. 'cause I think about like so many women or men that go through such just way worse things. And there are a lot of women, particularly with endometriosis, that are in pain every single day. And very, I'm very fortunate that that is not always the case for me. I'm not in pain all of the time.  [00:29:21] Colostomy Learning Curve [00:29:21] Jenn Schwamb: Um, but to your point, when I was dealing with the colostomy in particular, that was a really, really hard time. It's amazing what time does 'cause over time, I look back at that and go, oh, it wasn't so bad. And you're like, remember it was really bad. It was 10, but you know, as time goes on, you're like, no, it was okay. It was all right. Um, but I do remember. Having a really, really, really hard time with it. I remember journaling a lot. That's how Jesse knows I'm really going through something is if he sees my journal out, he's like, oh no. Uh oh. Um, because that is often how I'll, like when I'm going through something really tough, I'll journal my prayers. I'll write to God in the journal when I'm thinking. And I just was really struggling with that. 'cause spoiler colostomy is rough. Yes, it was hard to learn. It was a big learning curve. And they just send you home with a bunch of stuff,  [00:30:12] Jesse Schwamb: right.  [00:30:12] Jenn Schwamb: And a lot of instruction, and you're just reeling and you're like, I don't understand how this works. And I have to eventually go back to work and I have to have this, and what do I do? And what if something leaks? Like it was just, it was a lot to deal with, even though I knew it was temporary. So I remember in those times just journaling a lot, praying a lot, asking God to. Make it clear why? I just kept asking, I think I was asking why, like why do I have to have the colostomy  [00:30:37] Jesse Schwamb: right? [00:30:37] Jenn Schwamb: There has to be a reason. I know there's a reason. Could you tell me the reason? I would like to know the reason. I'm waiting to hear the reason, you know, like I just remember being like, what is it you're, I know you're looking at it. I know you can see right the path ahead. Um, and I remember reading a book at the time. I wish I could remember the name of the book 'cause I would love to tell you, I don't remember what it was. I do know it wasn't about suffering.  [00:31:03] Jesse Schwamb: Was it by ars Scott Clark?  [00:31:04] Jenn Schwamb: No, I'm pretty sure it wasn't. Also, I'm sure Jesse's never talked about this on the podcast, but it is shocking that I was reading a book because not really a big reader. [00:31:14] From Victim to Steward [00:31:14] Jenn Schwamb: Um, but I was reading something and I remember one of the quotes in the book was something along the lines about, it was about like accepting your circumstances from God, knowing that like God could be trusted and that he knows best and has your, you know. Best in mind and kind of getting to that acceptance of your circumstances and then moving from that acceptance, like, if you can get to the acceptance of your circumstances, you can then ask God to use those circumstances to glorify him. And if you can get to that point, then you're mo it was something about like moving from victim to steward. Mm-hmm. That's the part that really stuck with me,  [00:31:54] Jesse Schwamb: right?  [00:31:54] Jenn Schwamb: Was that movement from not no longer being a victim and being a steward. And I just remember asking God to help me be a good steward of the situation. I don't like feeling like a victim. That's partly why I don't like talking about the stuff, is I don't want people to feel bad for me.  [00:32:10] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:32:10] Jenn Schwamb: Don't feel bad for me. It's fine.  [00:32:13] Jesse Schwamb: I feel great for you.  [00:32:13] Jenn Schwamb: Good. Great. I don't want people to feel bad. Um, and I, I don't wanna feel like a victim. I'm not. I just, I don't, you know. And so I remember asking God just, could you help me be a good steward? Like, what, what would that look like? And I remember asking God that like he would just gimme opportunities to talk to other people maybe that have to eventually have colostomies. I didn't know if I ever would. Spoiler. I did get to, which was crazy. Um, and I mean, during those times too, I had a lot of family and friends that would reach out and share passages and verses. I was just thinking, I've had people I remember very distinctly too, during that time, my sister, uh, Stephanie sending me a text. It was like shortly after I was home, and I don't remember the exact reference. It was somewhere in Exodus and it was the, it was, uh, the Lord will fight for you. You need only remain silent. You need only be silent or still, or something like that.  [00:33:05] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.  [00:33:05] Jenn Schwamb: And I remember the time being like, why would she send me that? Like, I don't even know how that fits. What, come on Steph, come, what, what does this mean? But then I remember really kind of sitting with it and thinking about it. And I've had friends in my recent circumstance send me that same thing. Wow. Out of nowhere. Also named Steph.  [00:33:22] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.  [00:33:22] Jenn Schwamb: A friend named Steph Wow. Has sent me that passage and just kind of, you know, thinking about that, that I don't. I don't always have to do the fighting. I don't have to, I don't have to do it. I don't have to fight this stuff. I just, the Lord will do it for me. He'll fight for me. I, I just have to trust him and be still and he's got it.  [00:33:41] Jesse Schwamb: So how has, like some of this stuff, maybe everything you've been through, but something in particular changed how you view God or how has going through those things changed your relationship with him because you've been through some stuff together. 'cause I'm, I'm with you. We, we look at the scriptures and we see this amazing example from David who is saying to God all the time, why and how long and what are you doing? So we know like we're standing on, in like the shadow of those who great heroes of the faith have come before us and understand that God can hold up to our questions and our time about suffering. I feel like it's maybe the most honest thing we can do is to just cry out. And no doubt you were doing a lot of that. I remember that. So having cried out to God, maybe move from victim and steward, how has that changed your relationship with him? How you view him?  [00:34:29] Jenn Schwamb: Um, I'm trying to think of how I wanna like, say that. I mean, if anything, I think it really, in those hard times, in the continued hard times, it certainly makes me rely on God more, have more conversations with him, have be more candid. I'm a little bit more like candid in my approach to God and how I talk to him, whether that's in my journal or verbally or out loud or while I'm driving. Um, because he can take it, right? He can. I don't have to be like, pretty please or say things a certain way. I can just say, what is happening? Why are you, why is this happening to me? Um, but again, that's another reason that's hard for me to talk about because I often think, well, why wouldn't it happen to me? Like, why wouldn't it happen to any of us? Like, God never said that this was gonna be easy.  [00:35:14] Jesse Schwamb: Yes. That. So that's really interesting and I, I've thought about that too, is why, why flip it that way?  [00:35:21] Jenn Schwamb: I don't know. It just, I, it just, I, I think that's why I'm just like, of course, like I'm. I guess maybe I'm just less surprised. That sounds really terrible to say.  [00:35:32] Jesse Schwamb: I know. Yeah.  [00:35:33] Jenn Schwamb: It sounds really pretentious. Be like, of course it's happening to me.  [00:35:36] Jesse Schwamb: No, no, no, no. I, I think, I think what, as we've talked about it, what we're reflecting on is that the world is broken. Like you and I have often joke that like endo is the most foolproof, that our bodies are totally depraved. That like sin is in our world because like it cells that should hang out in one part of the body going wherever they want, unruly and unchecked and causing massive pain and disruption to everything else. And I don't think anybody could look at that situation and say, this is not how it's supposed to be. Like, every doctor we've ever talked to has been like, it shouldn't be like this. And we wanna say, we're always like, yeah, we know.  [00:36:11] Jenn Schwamb: That's true. That's like the overarching phrase I feel like that I've dealt with my, a lot of my adult life is it's not supposed to be this way.  [00:36:17] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:36:18] Jenn Schwamb: Because it's not  [00:36:19] Jesse Schwamb: right. [00:36:19] Jenn Schwamb: It isn't supposed to be this way. Um, and I, it has opened up a lot of. Uh, conversations for me with my friends, with loved ones, with coworkers, because I can kind of start at that point and be like, yeah, this sucks. And it's not supposed to be this way. This isn't how our bodies were supposed to be. Um, you know, there's, there is brokenness. There is suffering. And that, you know, people that know that we are believers, I think often can, sometimes from the outside think that, you know, life is easy and we've got it all together and 'cause, you know, things can look more peaceful. And it's like, no, it doesn't always go that way. And I think you and I often talk about, I don't, I can't imagine going through this without God. Like, how do, how do people do that?  [00:37:03] Jesse Schwamb: For sure.  [00:37:03] Jenn Schwamb: How's that even possible?  [00:37:04] Jesse Schwamb: For sure.  [00:37:05] Jenn Schwamb: How do you explain anything,  [00:37:08] Jesse Schwamb: right? How, how do you even process it?  [00:37:09] Jenn Schwamb: How do you process it? How do you know where to go? How do you have hope that things will improve or if not improve, that there's a reason for it, that God is doing something. In your life for you, for others? I don't, I don't know how people do it.  [00:37:25] Jesse Schwamb: I agree. It, it seems hopeless, and in fact it probably is because suffering is such a deeply personal, intense process, and I think it's particularly difficult when it feels like it doesn't go away. Right. When it's like day after day after day, and you've certainly been in a lot of those circumstances, is there something that sticks out for you that helped move you from that victim mindset to the stored mindset? [00:37:52] Comfort Others Through Suffering [00:37:52] Jenn Schwamb: Well, I think probably just God has given me some opportunities to be there for other people in very similar circumstances, which then helps me with that stewardship mindset of like, oh, okay, like I can help other people through this. Um, I remember asking that God would just give me, you know, help me to be a good steward of the situation. I didn't know what that meant, um, what it meant. Uh, most immediately after the colostomy surgery was that at some point after my reversal, I had met a woman through, I think running through a running group. And then she had joined a bible study that I was leading at the time. And then while in that Bible study, she had discovered that she had, like, I think it was a relatively early stage of colon cancer and that she was gonna have to have surgery and that she was gonna have to have a colostomy. And, um, this woman who I did not know that well, I was now getting to know really well, right? And was visiting her in the hospital and was, I don't wanna say excited, but I was, I was happy that I was gonna get to like, share what I had learned. 'cause I had learned so much about a colostomy and colostomy bag in my experience. And I just wanted to be able to make it easier for somebody else and say like, here, this is what you're gonna need. This is how this works. This is what you can expect. This is normal. This is not normal. Here's the best supplies to buy. Here's where you should buy them from. Right? Um, because it was nobody's fault, but I didn't have that. Nobody was doing that for me. We were just figuring it out. And so I've been able to do that more recently at work. Um, somebody's grandmother was going through some stuff and she needed to have a colostomy bag. And I think this colleague mentioned it to me and I was like, funny you should mention that. I've also had a colostomy bag. Let me tell you what I know. Um, I was not just going around work talking about Colostomies. It had come up in conversation. Um, and so while I've not interacted with her grandmother, I was able to tell her a lot of information that she was able to pass on to her grandmother and her mom. Um, and so, um, yeah, just being able to talk to other people that are going through it. I'm in a number of Endo Facebook groups and things like that, um, where girls are often putting, you know, asking for advice. I don't typically give advice, but I might like DM somebody directly and just say, you know, I don't give medical advice, but I might give product advice. Here's, here's, I went through something similar. Here's the brand I thought was most successful for me. Not a doctor.  [00:40:13] Jesse Schwamb: Right. Yeah, we've said that too though. But again, it's our 50 healthcare podcast. One of the things that I admire about how God has led you in those times is that emphasis on moving into service. I think you said it best, like the idea, it's a steward, something that God has given us. We generally reserve that kind of words for like the blessings. And I think you and I have talked about this, you kind of said it in some of what you were talking about, where we're not quick to just be like, let's call everything a blessing, because like especially sometimes when it hits us, we don't feel that way and I'm not sure it's, it's helpful to try to run right into that space, but God often lovingly and gently moves us into that space so that we can be a blessing to others. I wanna read from second Corinthians and uh, the first chapter, this is Paul writing to the church in Corinth. Right off the top he writes, Paul, an Apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God and Timothy, our brother to the Church of God, which is at Corinth. With all the saints who are throughout Achaia grace to you in priests peace from God, our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. And hearing you say that, I immediately, my mind jumps there. And in fact, like I know, like if we're in any group setting, like we're hanging out with other people and like the colostomy word comes up, I know your ears are gonna be like, I know I'm gonna hear your voicemail. I  [00:41:49] Jenn Schwamb: don't know how that's coming up,  [00:41:50] Jesse Schwamb: but did you say colostomy? And I think it's because like you have, I've seen you taking this theology of comfort, that receiving comfort from God, even if that's comfort in this really tremendously horrible experience. And it's not like whistling in the dark or trying to turn it around or make it better than it actually is. It's that the joy of going through it is the joy of being able to comfort somebody else. That's, that's what I see. How would you describe it?  [00:42:19] Jenn Schwamb: I don't know how to describe it. I just, I don't know. I have this just overwhelming feeling of, through all of that. I just, I mean, I just wanna help other people. I just want to make other people's experience better. And I remember seeing a, a tweet when Twitter was a thing somebody had written about, um, you know, if you want, if you want God to use him, or if you want God to use, you don't tell him how.  [00:42:47] Jesse Schwamb: Mm-hmm.  [00:42:48] Jenn Schwamb: And I remember, like, that also often is in my head where I'm just like, you know, asking God, just do whatever you want. I, I'm not gonna tell you how, I don't get to tell you how.  [00:42:56] Jesse Schwamb: Yes, that's  [00:42:56] Jenn Schwamb: right. But just use me, use my circumstances. Bring up colostomy in conversation so that I can talk about it or now nephrostomy.  [00:43:07] Jesse Schwamb: Right, and that's happened too, right? Since you've had this process, I know there's been others that you've talked to about that. [00:43:12] Jenn Schwamb: Yeah.  [00:43:13] Jesse Schwamb: And it's interesting because I do think use this not as like a platform, it's like every conversation you have ends up in this place, the conversation we're having right now. Now, to be  [00:43:22] Jenn Schwamb: clear, it does not.  [00:43:22] Jesse Schwamb: Yes. However, I have seen powerfully the way in which this example and your testimony has provided an amazing influence on our friends who are not believers. How, how has this been something that has helped you talk about what it means to be a Christian?  [00:43:51] Jenn Schwamb: Um, it's hard. I'm, I'm trying to think of how to talk about that, because that's often. Uh, not how I think about it. I, you know, I don't, I'm not thinking about it as, you know, this situation gives me a way to talk to these people about,  [00:44:09] Jesse Schwamb: uh, or that gospel proclamation text. [00:44:10] Jenn Schwamb: It's just, I don't just, I don't know. It just happens. Like, it's just part of  [00:44:13] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, I'm with you.  [00:44:14] Jenn Schwamb: You know, the conversation. Um, the people that I know, that I work with, that I'm friends with, uh, know us, know us well, know our feelings, know our relationship with God. Um, and so, you know, I I, it has open conversations where people will ask me or say things to me, which are hard for me to hear because I don't understand it, but they'll say like, I don't know how you're dealing with this. You're so peaceful. You're, you're handling it so well. Right? And I think you're crazy. I'm not handling this well at all. This is terrible. I hate this. But, and that's why I don't like talking about it because I'm just like, Ugh, this is not. I'm not handling this well. Um, so that will open a door where I'm often like, well, if it seems like I'm handling this well, let me tell you why that is, because there's a reason for the hope that I have. And there's, you know, I know that, that God has a plan for all of this. Even if I don't understand it or can't see the end, um, I know that he's doing a work in me for me. Um, and, you know, can also share about, you know, just by being a Christian doesn't mean that life will be easy and that it will be without suffering. [00:45:23] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:45:24] Jenn Schwamb: Um, because that's, I think a lot of people just think that that's the case. Those Christians have it all together, right? Their life is so easy,  [00:45:33] Jesse Schwamb: right?  [00:45:34] Jenn Schwamb: They don't go through anything hard.  [00:45:35] Jesse Schwamb: Some do come hang out, and the Lord say everybody, yep. You'll see it's, it's the real deal because like you said, God doesn't promise to spare us from these things, and that's what makes this whole conversation about suffering like it turned on its head. Because as we said at the open, all this stuff doesn't get removed. God is redeeming these things. He's implanted us in these things. He's doing something for us. Like what you said, he's with us. I mean, what great encouragement, again, that is not available to the unbeliever,  [00:46:00] Jenn Schwamb: right?  [00:46:00] Jesse Schwamb: So the person who just thinks the world is a dead and ugly place, without reason, without recourse, but instead, one of the things that really hit me with what you were saying was it sounds like you're starting with not the pain you experienced first. Not even like the emotions you experienced first, but you're talking about the character and the sovereignty of God first. That everything gets filtered through that. It's like the sve in which you try to pass through everything. Because when it feels helpless, if we not start with the root of character of God first, then everything is gonna be lost. It's gonna be like suffering's gonna feel like it's, it's random. That it's without purpose, that it's meaningless, that it's for our destruction that's meant to, to. Bring us down instead of to lift us up under the power of God. And I see that in the example. I think that's what people are, are coming to you and saying, because it shouldn't look, can I say it this way? Like it shouldn't look this easy what you're doing. And I know it's not easy and, and you're not like putting on heirs to somehow make it seem like it's something that's not. However, like when you get up to go to work on a day, that's hard. I know it's because you're receiving power from God to do the things which he's called you to do because you've processed it in this way. Is that fair?  [00:47:10] Jenn Schwamb: I guess it guys, it makes me even uncomfortable to hear Jesse say that because I'm just like, I don't think that I'm doing anything special or spectacular or amazing because I'm not like, I just am like, I'm just. Doing the thing. Life is hard sometimes and it's a lot harder for a lot of other people, and so  [00:47:34] Jesse Schwamb: that's true. [00:47:35] Jenn Schwamb: But, but  [00:47:35] Jesse Schwamb: it's one of those things where I'll use the catchphrase, like God does all the verbs. I think that's, that's what I hear you're saying too, is that you have to move forward, but you're doing that because you believe God has called you to Tuesday meetings and to being with your friends and to being at church and to serving in women's ministry and to leading bible studies, and that he will provide a way for you to do that even in the midst of things that seem pretty horrible. [00:47:59] Jenn Schwamb: Yeah.  [00:48:00] Jesse Schwamb: In that, in that, in the midst of all that horribleness that God is still doing like a work that's greater than that stuff  [00:48:07] Jenn Schwamb: that bigger. Yeah. He's always given me you, but I can only speak on my, my own behalf. He's always given me the strength to do the thing if I step out to do the thing. Right On. Um, even on those days that are hard and that I'm feeling really bad physically, uh. I know enough, I've been through enough with God to know if I just, if I just keep going, he's gonna gimme the strength, he will. Mm-hmm. It'll be fine. I'll be okay. And so far, I always have been, you know, and so even as we go into this surgery that neither one of us is looking forward to. Right. Uh, probably Jesse's dreading it more than I am. Uh, we both also know that, like, on the other side of it, like he's gonna see us through it all. We, there's no doubt in my mind. That's right. That's right. Like, I know that, but I also know it was gonna be hard. It's, it's probably not gonna be easy. It's probably not gonna be pain-free, but it will be good and it will be. Amen. Better. And that's real faith. We'll get to talk about it with people. Yes. Maybe more than they would like to do about it. You probably all are sick of hearing about it by now. I don't know how long we've been talking about Endo, but it's hours probably too long.  [00:49:21] Jesse Schwamb: Four hours. Longest episode ever. So I think that's a good place to, to kind of wrap up our conversation. And I wanted to give you the opportunity. You've, you've already mentioned this a couple times, you know, that you, you have a heart that's sensitive to people going through things. I think just like Paul writes to the Corinthians here, if you've been through some stuff, you want to be with the people who are going through that stuff. You have a heart that gravitates. Mm-hmm. It just moves, it tilts, it goes in that direction. And so for people listening, and I think there're gonna be people listening that are gonna really resonate with this, or they're gonna send it to somebody who's going through exactly what you're talking about. [00:49:57] Final Advice and Wrap Up [00:49:57] Jesse Schwamb: What's like the one thing you'd want them to know?  [00:50:01] Jenn Schwamb: Oh gosh.  [00:50:02] Jesse Schwamb: I know it's tough, but it's my podcast so I get to ask the questions. [00:50:09] Jenn Schwamb: I mean, oh, that's hard. 'cause there's a lot of things I wanna say. Oh, you  [00:50:12] Jesse Schwamb: can tell. You could say punch. We got  [00:50:14] Jenn Schwamb: all  [00:50:14] Jesse Schwamb: the world. Go ahead.  [00:50:15] Jenn Schwamb: I mean, the one thing that I'd want them to know, which we already talked about is that. God sees them and is with them in this situation. They are not alone. Even if they feel like they are alone or that nobody understands what they're going through, God does. But the other thing I want them to know specifically, I don't know how many women listen to your podcast.  [00:50:37] Jesse Schwamb: All right sisters, here you go.  [00:50:38] Jenn Schwamb: But, uh, on the just medical side of things, if you are in any amount of pain during your cycle or outside of your cycle connected to your cycle, that is keeping you from going to work or doing your daily activities or just keeping you from living life, that is not normal. And I thought it was normal for years because doctors just tell us as women is fine. You're fine. Cramps hurt. That's, they shouldn't hurt that much. That's not normal,  [00:51:11] Jesse Schwamb: right?  [00:51:11] Jenn Schwamb: Um, and you should talk to somebody. You should talk to your doctor and you should keep talking to your doctors until you get. To see the right one that will figure out what's going on. That's the thing that I like to talk to women particularly about the most because we tend to explain our own symptoms away because we're just used to that. Right. And going, it's fine. I'm fine. Everything's fine when it's not. So I just want people to know that it's okay to say this hurts a lot, and I don't think it's normal. [00:51:44] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. I remember we've talked a lot about, for both of us, like pain and experience and we sometimes wanna say, well, somebody probably has it worse, and that'll always be true.  [00:51:53] Jenn Schwamb: Yep.  [00:51:54] Jesse Schwamb: But one of the things that you've taught me very well is that God does see our pain, whatever it is, like whatever level it is. Mm-hmm. That's, that's how big and loving he is. And I remember we used to have, it came in like a placard at some point, like a stock card. It says something like, your pain matters here, or Your pain is relevant here. And I think that that this idea that that's exactly how God sees us, he loves us so deeply and so desperately. All things he would talk about as we've gone through all these parables that he comes for us to be with us in our greatest hour of need. And not only that, but he already did that in our great hour of need, which is when we needed salvation. So when in Isaiah 53 we, we read that Jesus the Messiah is the one who's well acquainted with suffering, who just knows what it's like, and then it's gonna carry and bear our burdens. That for me has like made all the difference. Even as you and I kind of walk through some of this together, I was thinking of, of this journey that we've been on when our pastor, well, I'll give him an attribution for this 'cause he said this in the sermon last week, pastor Steve Wiggins, he said something to the effect of your greatest spiritual breakthrough, the one that you desperately want, the one that's ahead of you. That breakthrough is going to come only when you understand and realize that Jesus has everything for your current and present need. That he is all in all. But he's all in all for you right now in the thing that. Feels like it's so intractable, so difficult, so beyond you. Only when you come to him and submit and surrender yourself to him and say, you are everything that you I need for all in all right now, in this particular instance that really, that breakthrough is beyond that place. And I guess we just had a lot of breakthroughs. So times like there's, there's been different levels of kind of coming into that realization. Um, we didn't talk about that quote. I did. I don't know how, how it strike  [00:53:49] Jenn Schwamb: you. I don know what you're talking about. The, the card or something that you were talking about. [00:53:54] Jesse Schwamb: I don't know. It showed up like in the mail or something like maybe as part of like mm-hmm. But how, how does that strike you in terms of has this, has this process brought you spiritual breakthrough in at various times?  [00:54:07] Jenn Schwamb: Yeah, I think so. I think certainly at various times, I mean, yeah. Where again, I feel like I'm just repeating myself and saying the same thing in maybe slightly different ways. [00:54:18] Jesse Schwamb: That's what Tony and I do. It's about jam.  [00:54:18] Jenn Schwamb: Is that what I'm missing on the podcast most is you guys just saying the same thing over and over again?  [00:54:22] Jesse Schwamb: Sure.  [00:54:22] Jenn Schwamb: Um, you know, it's just taught me that, um, I guess it's just like, I'm trying to think of how I wanna say it. Just, I've learned, I feel like the same thing over and over again where it's like you, you forget because you start to feel better, right? And then you don't feel good again, and you're like, oh, that's right. You know, and that you just, it's been a good reminder to have that, those conversations with God about, like, he gets it. I'm not talking to somebody that does not understand what suffering is, what that feels like, how hard things are, um, that he gets it and that he. Only wants what is good for me, even when it, the thing I'm dealing with doesn't feel like it's good for me.  [00:55:06] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:55:07] Jenn Schwamb: But I know that it is because he's allowing it. [00:55:10] Jesse Schwamb: Right?  [00:55:11] Jenn Schwamb: So it has to be  [00:55:12] Jesse Schwamb: that preaches. Amen. I don't think there's any other better place to stop than there. Thanks for being willing to talk about this. I know it's a strange thing. It's a hard thing, but I, I think there's so many people that we blessed and encouraged by what you've shared, and I think that we're just gonna have to have you as a regular guest on the podcast. Now we don't talk about that. Don't think people want talk about this stuff.  [00:55:35] Jenn Schwamb: Sorry, everybody, that this was the first, my first appearance. 10 years. Let's talk about endometriosis.  [00:55:42] Jesse Schwamb: So what have we learned on this episode of the Reform Brotherhood? Well, we've learned that Endo is definitely proof that the fall is real and that sin is in the world and in our bodies. But I think you've also taught us. That there is so much within all of our suffering that God gives to us, to steward, and I really love that idea of picking up our stewardship and not just saving our stewardship for our blessings, but perhaps more so if Romans 8 28 is for real. I mean, if we actually believe that in our places of most profound disappointment and pain and discomfort, that all things, all the things, everything and all the things to repeat myself, work for good, for those who are called according to God's purpose and love him, then why should we not say that we should steward all the things as well. So thanks, Jen.  [00:56:40] Jenn Schwamb: You're welcome  [00:56:40] Jesse Schwamb: for coming on this podcast,  Jesse.  [00:56:42] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, we're just gonna back up the mics and go about our day as if this ever  [00:56:46] Jenn Schwamb: happens. If nothing happens. This is super weird. Write in about what you want, Jesse and I have talk about next that isn't so serious  [00:56:54] Jesse Schwamb: and he just totally took over the podcast right there. [00:56:56] Jenn Schwamb: Yeah.  [00:56:57] Jesse Schwamb: That was pretty well done. I love it. You're, you're a professional already, so you heard it from Jen. Loved ones. If you'd like to have her back on, you know how to find us. The best way to find us is to go to T Me slash Reform Brotherhood. That is a link that you can put into any browser, t Me Back slash Reform Brotherhood. It will take you to a Telegram Link. Telegram is a messaging app. You use Telegram?  [00:57:19] Jenn Schwamb: I do use Telegram.  [00:57:20] Jesse Schwamb: Are you in the Reform Brotherhood Telegram group?  [00:57:22] Jenn Schwamb: No, I'm not. I think I only recently learned that you had one and I was like, why?  [00:57:29] Jesse Schwamb: What?  [00:57:30] Jenn Schwamb: Who's in that?  [00:57:31] Jesse Schwamb: Listen, I'm so glad you asked. It's like you're setting me out. Why? Because it's an amazing little corner of the internet where people who are listening to the podcast and love the Lord Jesus Christ come together to interact, to hang out. To share information with each other, to share memes, and there's like taste tests happening in there. I mean, you're missing out all kinds of stuff. [00:57:48] Jenn Schwamb: Oh, well, I do love a taste  [00:57:49] Jesse Schwamb: test. Yes,  [00:57:50] Jenn Schwamb: we do those at work.  [00:57:51] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.  [00:57:51] Jenn Schwamb: Often. But I'm not joining your group.  [00:57:54] Jesse Schwamb: Yes, you do need to say that.  [00:57:56] Jenn Schwamb: Sorry,  [00:57:57] Jesse Schwamb: while we're recording,  [00:57:57] Jenn Schwamb: I mean, I'll definitely join it. Just send Jesse your telegram questions.  [00:58:04] Jesse Schwamb: All right. I'm happy to access the go between  [00:58:05] Jenn Schwamb: for me if you want to do. Taste has something  [00:58:08] Jesse Schwamb: in addition. I want to say thank you. I know Jen does too, for everybody who listens, who gives financial aid to make the podcast possible. That's why this little makeshift kitchen recording studio happened and why we could get Jen on and why her voice sounds so MOUs and so good. It's because people give a little bit to make sure that a lot happens so that it gets posted and published and processed and all that good stuff. It does cost money to keep it going, and thank you so much for joining us. If you want to join in on that, you can just go to patreon.com/reform brotherhood. So that's it. I'm gonna put you on the spot one last time. Is there any, any famous last words you wanna say? For what? About anything? Oh, this is your chance? Oh, no. After all this time, is there anything, is there a message you wanna give to Tony?  [00:58:53] Jenn Schwamb: Is there a message I wanna give to  [00:58:54] Jesse Schwamb: Tony? Tony, he's, hes gonna specifically,  [00:58:56] Jenn Schwamb: he's gonna,  [00:58:56] Jesse Schwamb: he's gonna process this.  [00:58:57] Jenn Schwamb: No, I don't have a message that I wanna give to Tony. I'll give a message to your entire audience, which is, you all should give Jesse a hard time about the number of classic movies that he has not seen. This  [00:59:07] Jesse Schwamb: seems  [00:59:07] Jenn Schwamb: like, 'cause that has been a topic of conversation recently. So why don't you light up his telegram with asking him why he hasn't seen movies like Forrest Gump  [00:59:18] Jesse Schwamb: Never  [00:59:18] Jenn Schwamb: Seen Or The Mighty Ducks.  [00:59:19] Jesse Schwamb: Never  [00:59:20] Jenn Schwamb: Well, or the Ghost. Well, you've seen Mighty Ducks now because I made you watch it.  [00:59:22] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.  [00:59:23] Jenn Schwamb: And can we  [00:59:23] Jesse Schwamb: just talk about how. I or  [00:59:25] Jenn Schwamb: Ghostbusters  [00:59:26] Jesse Schwamb: didn't realize, I've never seen it. Ha. I did not enjoy the My Ducks as much because the sheer number of penalties that are not called  [00:59:34] Jenn Schwamb: by the rest during That's true. Jesse. The entire movie while I was making him watch, it was just telling me about why that couldn't happen. That would never happen. That's not allowed. And I was actually waiting for Keenan Thompson to show up because I thought he was in the Mighty Ducks, but he was in D two, which we then also watched. I was just waiting for Keenan.  [00:59:51] Jesse Schwamb: Not to mention it's just nonsensical. I don't understand how it went from like it's such a  [00:59:55] Jenn Schwamb: good movie. [00:59:55] Jesse Schwamb: No, but it went from Peewee hockey to like the national, like you teen battling  [01:00:00] Jenn Schwamb: Iceland.  [01:00:00] Jesse Schwamb: Yes. And then I, I didn't see the third one. Did you watch it? One?  [01:00:04] Jenn Schwamb: We didn't watch it yet. Should we watch that after this it yet? Yeah. I have to watch that. It's on the Disney Plus watch list. And you haven't seen Sandlot? No. It's a baseball movie.  [01:00:15] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. But  [01:00:15] Jenn Schwamb: there's a whole list of movies listeners that Jazzy Hass not seen. And I don't know why  [01:00:19] Jesse Schwamb: I've seen all the Star Wars movies. Do we need to, we  [01:00:22] Jenn Schwamb: haven't seen all those  [01:00:22] Jesse Schwamb: Explore the Rings.  [01:00:23] Jenn Schwamb: Yep. Nobody cares about  [01:00:24] Jesse Schwamb: about those. Do you need, see, have you seen Lord of the Rings  [01:00:26] Jenn Schwamb: a long time ago? [01:00:27] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. Now this is just turning into a conversation.  [01:00:30] Jenn Schwamb: This is just, we don't need, is this the podcast you all want? Is this what you're waiting for? I'm just saying write into Telegram about the movies that Jesse should definitely see and he'll let you know whether he's seen them and I'll make 'em watch them. [01:00:44] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. Well, you'd have to join the Telegram to know.  [01:00:46] Jenn Schwamb: No, well, all Tony will tell me.  [01:00:49] Jesse Schwamb: That is, that is true. Well, I'm so glad we finally got to this point because after, this is the encouragement, apparently everybody was looking forward. At least I was. So, I'm so glad you finally joined us. Let's not go another 10 years though, without, well,  [01:01:05] Jenn Schwamb: we'll see. [01:01:05] Jesse Schwamb: Without having gone the really,  [01:01:07] Jenn Schwamb: oh, we'll see what I don't, I think people are gonna listen to this and be like, please don't have her back ever again.  [01:01:12] Jesse Schwamb: Well, on that note, honor everyone  [01:01:15] Jenn Schwamb: love the brotherhood or sisterhood. 
• Gospel Forgiveness: Fruit of Salvation, Not Grounds for Justification 16.03.2026 49мин

  In this powerful solo episode, Jesse Schwamb brings Matthew 18 to a close by unpacking Jesus's parable of the unforgiving servant. As Tony Arsenal begins a well-deserved sabbatical after a decade of faithful podcasting, Jesse explores the radical nature of kingdom forgiveness and its role as evidence—not grounds—of our justification. Drawing on Reformed theology and Puritan wisdom, he demonstrates how the immeasurable debt we owed God should revolutionize how we forgive others. This episode challenges listeners to examine their hearts for harbored bitterness and calls them to embrace forgiveness as the family likeness of those adopted by grace. A must-listen for anyone wrestling with the difficult work of forgiving from the heart. Key Takeaways Forgiveness is evidence of salvation, not its grounds - We do not forgive to become forgiven; we forgive because we have been forgiven. This distinction is essential to Reformed theology and prevents works-righteousness. The parable contrasts debts to highlight gospel logic - The servant owed 10,000 talents (an unpayable sum representing our sin debt to God) versus 100 denarii (representing offenses against us). This jarring contrast is intentional and reveals the absurdity of unforgiveness. Unforgiveness is wickedness, not mere hypocrisy - Jesus calls the unforgiving servant "wicked," not just inconsistent. Refusing to forgive denies the logic of grace and demonstrates an unchanged heart. Sin is never purely private in its effects - Even personal unforgiveness damages the community of faith. The watching servants' grief shows how sin bleeds into fellowship and requires righteous intervention. True forgiveness must come "from the heart" - Jesus elevates the law beyond external compliance. Heart religion, not mere strategy or politeness, is the standard of kingdom forgiveness. Forgiveness as "resisting revenge" - Thomas Watson's definition helps us understand that forgiveness means actively fighting against revenge, seeking the offender's good, and praying for them. Regular self-examination prevents spiritual danger - We should daily audit our hearts, asking "Who am I refusing to forgive?" as part of ordinary Christian piety and confession. Key Concepts Forgiveness as Evidence, Not Grounds The Reformed tradition carefully distinguishes between the grounds of our justification (Christ's righteousness alone) and the evidence of genuine faith (good works, including forgiveness). Jesse emphasizes that Matthew 18 does not teach that we earn God's forgiveness by forgiving others—that would be works-righteousness. Instead, a forgiving spirit is the inevitable fruit of having truly received mercy. As Westminster Larger Catechism 194 teaches, we cannot satisfy our sin debt; forgiveness comes through Christ's satisfaction applied by faith. When the Holy Spirit regenerates a heart and opens our eyes to the magnitude of what we've been forgiven, that heart naturally extends forgiveness to others. The warning at the end of the parable isn't threatening to unjustify the justified, but revealing that persistent, unrepentant unforgiveness indicates a heart that never truly embraced mercy in the first place. The Radical Disproportion Reveals Gospel Logic The numbers in Jesus's parable aren't arbitrary—they're shocking. Ten thousand talents was an astronomical sum, roughly equivalent to 200,000 years of wages for a common laborer. It was literally unpayable. By contrast, 100 denarii was about four months' wages—significant but manageable. This jarring disproportion forces us to see our sin debt to God versus others' debts to us in proper perspective. Jesse notes that this is "the logic of grace"—grace received creates a new "ought." The servant's wickedness isn't just in being ungrateful; it's in fundamentally misunderstanding what happened to him. He treated his forgiveness as a transaction cleared rather than as a display of astonishing, undeserved mercy. When we truly grasp the immeasurable nature of our forgiveness in Christ, human offenses shrink. Nothing softens resentment like fresh astonishment at mercy. Forgiveness and Community Toxicity Jesse makes the important observation that the fellow servants in the parable grieve and report the unforgiving servant's actions to the king. This isn't tattling—it's recognizing that unforgiveness damages the entire fellowship. Sin between believers is never purely private in its effects. It bleeds into relationships, worship, witness, and unity. The Reformed understanding of the church as a covenant community means we're interconnected; one member's unrepentant sin affects the whole body. This is why church discipline exists and why Matthew 18 begins with instructions for confronting sin. The community of faith should be marked by astonished mercy, and when one member harbors bitterness or refuses reconciliation, it introduces toxicity that grieves the Spirit and hinders the church's mission. Forgiveness, then, isn't just personal virtue—it's essential to the health and witness of Christ's body. Memorable Quotes "The Kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. It's not even one thing, it's this whole process... it's about this whole process of a king who wished to settle these accounts with his slaves." "Forgiveness from the heart is a spirit-wrought mark of those who are truly pardoned. This is exactly the kind of evidence, not ground—it's evidence of reasoning that the Reformed tradition uses." "The King's free pardon creates a people who forgive from the heart. We don't have to manufacture it. We don't have to pull ourselves up by our spiritual bootstraps and try to be the kind of forgiving people that we think we ought to be. We are the beneficiaries of a King who has pardoned us."
• The Unforgiving Servant: A Picture of the Unregenerate Heart 09.03.2026 1ч

  In this theologically rich episode of The Reformed Brotherhood, Tony Arsenal and Jesse Schwamb continue their journey through Matthew 18 by examining the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant. Building on their previous discussion of church discipline and reconciliation, the hosts explore how this parable reveals the shocking nature of divine forgiveness and what it means to live as forgiven people in the kingdom of God. Through careful exegesis and systematic theological reflection, they unpack the staggering contrast between the infinite debt we owe God and our comparatively minor grievances against one another. This conversation challenges listeners to examine whether their approach to forgiveness reflects genuine heart transformation or merely external compliance, ultimately pointing to the free justification that comes through Christ alone. Key Takeaways Context is crucial for understanding parables - The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant cannot be properly understood apart from the preceding discourse on church discipline, humility, and pursuing the straying in Matthew 18. The 10,000 talents represents an infinite, unpayable debt - This astronomical sum (equivalent to 200,000 years of wages) symbolizes the magnitude of our sin debt before God—a liability so vast it can never be repaid through human effort. The servant asks for time, not mercy - This reveals the natural human instinct to seek self-salvation through legalistic means rather than recognizing our complete inability to satisfy divine justice. God's forgiveness doesn't diminish Him - Unlike human forgiveness which requires absorbing a cost, God's infinite resources mean He can freely forgive without being harmed or changed by our sin. Kingdom forgiveness is habitual, not sporadic - Jesus' answer of "seventy-seven times" establishes that citizens of God's kingdom are characterized by a settled posture of forgiveness, not calculated limits. The unforgiving servant represents the unregenerate heart - His response to being forgiven reveals he never truly received or understood the king's mercy, demonstrating that forgiven people naturally become forgiving people. We don't forgive to be forgiven; we forgive because we've been forgiven - This parable illustrates the Protestant understanding of the "practical syllogism"—holy living evidences salvation but doesn't earn it. Key Themes The Impossibility of Self-Salvation The servant's request for "more time" to repay his debt exposes a fundamental misunderstanding of both the magnitude of his obligation and the nature of salvation. When the servant says "I will pay you everything," he demonstrates a staggering level of self-delusion—he genuinely believes he can somehow accumulate 200,000 years worth of wages. This mirrors the natural human tendency toward works-righteousness, where we imagine that with the right formula, enough time, or sufficient effort, we can restore ourselves to God's favor. Like Martin Luther's desperate bargaining on the road to Erfurt ("Save me and I'll become a monk"), fallen humanity consistently underestimates the severity of sin and overestimates our capacity for moral restoration. The parable exposes this thinking as not merely mistaken but absurd—revealing that our spiritual insolvency is so complete that only divine intervention through free justification can address it. God's Ability to Absorb the Cost of Forgiveness A critical theological insight from this parable concerns God's capacity to forgive without being diminished. The king's ability to casually dismiss such an enormous debt reveals his extraordinary wealth—he possesses resources so abundant that forgiving this impossible sum doesn't threaten his solvency. This maps directly onto the doctrine of divine impassibility and God's self-sufficiency. When we sin against God, we don't injure Him or reduce His glory; therefore, His forgiveness doesn't require Him to recover something He's lost. This stands in stark contrast to Roman Catholic theology, which requires meritorious exchange and suggests God somehow benefits from our good works. The Reformed understanding, illustrated perfectly in this parable, is that God forgives from a position of infinite sufficiency—His mercy flows from abundance, not need. As Isaiah 55 teaches, His thoughts and ways are higher than ours precisely because this kind of lavish, free forgiveness is so otherworldly that we can barely comprehend it. The Fruit Test of Genuine Conversion The shocking reversal at the parable's conclusion—where the forgiven servant brutally demands repayment of a tiny debt—reveals that his initial pleading was not genuine repentance but self-preservation. His actions expose that he never truly received or understood the king's mercy, making him a picture of the unregenerate heart. This serves as a sobering warning that external religious behavior can mask an unchanged heart. The parable teaches that forgiven people naturally become forgiving people—not perfectly, but characteristically. This reflects the Reformed doctrine of the "practical syllogism," where we increase our assurance of salvation by examining the fruit of sanctification in our lives. Habitual unwillingness to extend forgiveness, especially when we claim to have received divine forgiveness, calls into question whether we've genuinely experienced God's transforming grace. The kingdom of heaven creates a community built on "astonished mercy"—people so overwhelmed by what they've been forgiven that extending forgiveness to others becomes their settled disposition. Memorable Quotes "It is good to waste a little time every day... just appreciate and stop for a second, even if it's in like just this mundane task." - Jesse Schwamb "Forgiveness and reconciliation are not the same thing... but being a forgiving person is not how you become a forgiven person. It's what it looks like to be a forgiven person." - Tony Arsenal "The servant asks for time, not mercy... and that's the logic of self-salvation: Give me a little space, let me know what I have to do, give me more time and I'll fix it." - Jesse Schwamb Full Transcript [00:00:08] Jesse Schwamb: And what I find interesting is something that you just brought up and I think we should tease out, which is there's a flawed plea and this diluted promise, I say that because the servant, asks for time and not mercy. Which I think is a helpful distinction. And then he tries to promise what he cannot perform. So that's like the logic of self salvation, which is, give me a little space. Let me know what I have to do. Give me more time and I'll fix it. And I think the critical observation is the servant's words expose that. I don't think he understands the nature of his debt. He underestimates what he owes. He asks for the wrong thing, that's exactly what we do. We wanna know how we can fix it instead of understanding that it's unfixable, that only God himself can again be just and justifier through his son.  [00:01:01] Welcome and Matthew 18 Setup [00:01:01] Jesse Schwamb: Welcome to episode 482 of the Reformed Brotherhood. I'm Jesse.  [00:01:09] Tony Arsenal: And I'm Tony. And this is the podcast with ears to hear. Hey brother.  [00:01:14] Jesse Schwamb: Hey brother. So it turns out, not surprisingly, that Jesus is giving us an absolute masterclass in Matthew 18, and I think everybody, if they're just jumping in now, like you gotta go back and listen to some of these other episodes because I think we jumped into Matthew 18 thinking. We talk a little bit about this community life discourse that Jesus brings to us. He talks about humility in the first six verses. Then he gets into the seriousness of sin, the pursuing, the straying, the church discipline reconciliation. That's where it gets that famous passage about wherever two or three gathered, and we promised we wouldn't go there, and then we exactly went there in that last episode together. And then. Then I think there's still more left. There's this culmination where Peter asks a question, and it's not random. It's this natural follow up to everything that Jesus has said in this little partition that's Matthew 18, the call to gain your brother through patient pursuit and restoration, and it all comes to a head. So I say all of that. It is true pro gamina because. I think we've gotta appreciate that. That's where we're going in this conversation, but we're going there for a reason because the path has already been laid out for us. It's not just an isolated parable that we're getting to on this particular episode. It's really embedded in all of this stuff. Yeah, there's all this drama, there's all this dialogue, there's all this subtext, and Jesus is gonna give us a parallel to round it or parable to round it all out.  [00:02:41] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.  [00:02:42] Parables Need Context [00:02:42] Tony Arsenal: I think what I'm learning as we work our way through these, um, and I've commented on this before, that I love when we start on these series because it feels like we have, you know, we have like some preliminary conversations when we're figuring out what we wanna do and we have like an idea roughly of where we think we're gonna go. And then I always end up learning or latching onto something, or a theme kind of organically develops either. Like explicitly on this, on the podcast are just sort of in my mind as, as I'm preparing and what I'm. Impressed by, and I think this is one of those things like I always had in the back of my head when I would think about the parables. Um, but what's really coming to the forefront, especially in these last couple episodes, is how much these parables exist in context.  [00:03:29] Jesse Schwamb: Right?  [00:03:29] Tony Arsenal: I think a lot of times parables get taught as like these sort of timeless, abstract, allegorical. Teaching truths that stand on their own completely absent from anything else. And there's obviously, there's certain elements of each parable that is rooted in a timeless truth and can, can stand on its own. But more so these parables are all coming. Christ is teaching the people in front of him something. Through the parable that's related to the context they're in. So I'm excited, um, to keep exploring that through the rest of the parable series. But then especially, I think it's gonna be great. I think this conversation's gonna be great tonight because it really is gonna open up. I think a lot of what we were seeing in the last one carries on into this, uh, into this parable in ways that I hadn't anticipated. So it's gonna be good.  [00:04:14] Jesse Schwamb: It's gonna. It's gonna be real good. Yeah.  [00:04:16] The One With Unforgiving Servant [00:04:16] Jesse Schwamb: I realized that maybe we missed an opportunity with this whole series. I was recalling that famously, sometimes titles have really focused on, again, like what, what explicitly was going on in a particular like small conversation or episode. So, for instance, I think I liked Sherlock Holmes. It was always like the adventure of Sherlock Holmes and the Scarlet Thread, or the hundred Oscar bills. Right? And then also maybe equally famously. Not quite with the same prestige that sitcom series friends titled everything. Like the one with the  [00:04:45] Tony Arsenal: one with, yeah.  [00:04:46] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, exactly. So if you're wanna use that as your rubric for today, then this is the one with the unforgiving servant. So that's what we're gonna be getting to in Matthew 18. Yes. Is 18 starting in verse 21? You can go hang out there just ahead of us, because for a second we gotta talk.  [00:05:02] Affirmation Pour Over Coffee [00:05:02] Jesse Schwamb: Affirmations. Denials, we didn't forget. We never forget.  [00:05:06] Tony Arsenal: We never forget.  [00:05:06] Jesse Schwamb: We never forget. So, Tony, are you affirming or denying against,  [00:05:10] Tony Arsenal: I'm affirming tonight. It's a, a pretty straightforward, uh, let's do it. Affirmation. Um, I, uh, feel like maybe I'm way behind the, the curve or the timeline. I don't know. Like, I'm way late to the show here. Um, I just recently, uh, like today it arrived from Amazon and I made my first cup. Of like traditional pour over coffee. Oh, nice. Um, which, you know, I, I was a drip coffee person for a while before like Keurigs were a thing. And then we've had a Keurig for many years and we're trying to save some money and, and cut some costs. Um, and Keurigs are nice. They're super convenient and there was certainly a season in life where that convenience was, was. I suppose I couldn't say it was a necessary convenience. 'cause then it's not a convenience, but it was a convenience that was worth the financial output that it took. Um, you know, when you've got kids and you're all of a sudden you're up at like three in the morning to not have to stumble around and wash a filter out and all that junk, but. But we're not in that phase right now. We're trying to save a little bit of money. So we kind of said like, should we do a drip coffee or should we just go pour over? I did my first pour over and I like immediately could tell the difference in the flavor and the way that the, the coffee tasted. Um, takes longer. But there's kind of a, there's sort of like a,  [00:06:25] Jesse Schwamb: there's a joy in that.  [00:06:26] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, there's like a joy and like a zen moment. I'm looking forward to tomorrow morning when I wake up of like actually like. Starting. One of the things I've heard about Drip, about pour over coffee is there's almost like a ritual element to it. Yes. Of brewing your coffee and getting it right and taking the time to do it. So I'm just affirming, uh, pour over coffee. Uh, we got like a relatively inexpensive, I think it was like a $30, $35 kit on Amazon that has everything you need. It's got like a metal filter. Um, so you don't have to buy filter paper, I guess the metal filters. Yes. Have more of the oil makes its way into the coffee. So it has like a, a richer flavor than when you use the paper. I don't, I'm kind of not a coffee snob. I don't, I wouldn't be able to tell a difference probably, but, um, but yeah, so I'm affirming pour over coffee. It was delicious. Uh, I made way too much of it. Uh, it's gonna take a little while to figure out like what the proportions are and stuff, but that's kind of the fun of him, right? Yes. Like you have to figure out your own particular kit.  [00:07:22] Jesse Schwamb: It is, it seems to me like, and we have pour for coffee as well. Actually, I just made something the other day and was thinking about how bespoke a process it is and how if you go online or use the AI as super fun for this and you ask it like the best recipe, everybody's got their high conviction. Yeah. On how much coffee. The proportions of coffee and water, the temperature, the swirling, I dunno if you have a gooseneck kettle for this whole purpose. It is a super fun process, but it was striking me that I think like what's Samsung and Google phones are to the mobile world. So also is Pourer coffee because it's like this pilot, customized, do what you want. Kind of process. And I have an iPhone and I love it. There's nothing wrong with that, and that's maybe like the Curee or the Nespresso or whatever you have, but there is something fun about being able to customize the entire process. Yeah. And basically do whatever you want. I also, it's funny you bring this up because I was just reading something about Japanese, it ceremonies, I don't know. The internet happened to me and I got in this rabbit hole and. They were talking about how it's a process and how like Americans struggle with that because they sense that they're like, I, I want the drink. I don't care about the ritual. And this person was saying it is good to waste a little time every day. [00:08:37] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:08:38] Jesse Schwamb: And I think what they meant by that is exactly what you're saying is like just do appreciate and stop for a second, even if it's in like just this mundane task. To appreciate that it takes a little time. It's okay to wait and to let there be a kind of meditation and for us, like a more productive one while you're doing this thing. Yeah. Pour of a coffee is a great way to do that. I mean, it takes like, what, like maybe three when I do it, like three minutes. 'cause I have a timer. I said and we, I tried. I try to let it bloom. There's also, blooming is fun. Like how many things do you get to let bloom?  [00:09:05] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:09:05] Jesse Schwamb: Like there's a whole process. It's, but it's fun. You're right.  [00:09:08] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Well, and you know, like. You buy a pour over coffee kit and like you, when you look on Amazon, like there are some that are very utilitarian looking. Yes. Like they're very almost industrial. Um, most of them look like you're brewing a magic potion. Like it's a, it's like a glass, like beaker and it has, the one we have has like a cork collar, so you can grab it and not burn your hands. It's like tied with a leather strip and it's like. It's kind of fun to have this and like you do, like you have to pour it a certain way and Right. I'm sure the coffee would taste fine if I just dumped the water in and didn't care about it. But, um, there is a whole process and I, I think, I think you're right. I like that phrase, like it's, it's a good thing to waste a little bit of time, and whether that's on like this or whether it's on a hobby that you're doing or even just like. Even if you have a Keurig, right? Even if you have a Keurig, just stand there and wait for it. Right? Like it's hard to do that, especially with as busy as our lives are. And I know for me it's often at like four 30 in the morning and I'm like, I've got, if on a good day, I have an hour and a half before the kids get up and I gotta make every minute count. But I think there's something in that idea that like. The, the minutes of waiting and just being peaceful and, and just sort of stopping those minutes count too. Like we agreed. We need to get away from thinking about those minutes as though they don't count. So yes. Um, affirming pour over coffee. It was delicious. The process is fun. Um, again, I feel like. I mean, I'm 43 years old. I feel like I, I probably should have done this at some point earlier in my life. Um, I texted my wife with a picture of it. She was out, um, she was out doing some shopping while I was brewing the first cup, and I texted her, I think, I think we're hipsters now. I'm not sure.  [00:10:53] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. Oh yeah, definitely. That's like classic on the hipster card. You gotta, and it's not just that, it's, you show it and it's like you, then you have the debate about how you make yours. Yeah. Like once you do the ratio of gram's water to coffee.  [00:11:06] Tony Arsenal: I don't, I just, I just did whatever Google Gemini told me to do. I think it was like seven and a half  [00:11:11] Jesse Schwamb: if you want. Have a fun, fun time. And again, we're speaking about time and it's lack of our lack of ability to really harness it really, because there's so much going on. But please. Next time we have a second go on YouTube and search for this because there's so many amazing, some of them are really good, uh, but everybody has their own recipe and I keep trying different ones and seeing what they taste like. And my palate is probably not refined enough to differentiate between most of them. [00:11:37] Tony Arsenal: I feel like, uh, if you think theology fights are wild, that this is probably a whole different frontier. Yes. Of, of not that, Theo, this is gonna sound weird, but like, of just dumb things to fight over. Right? Theology is not a dumb thing to fight over. Like it's important for us to sometimes even do a little bit of combat over a, a theological error or something like that. But this is probably a whole different level of like, yeah, it's fine. However you want your copy to taste. It's totally fine. Yeah. There's no moral element involved in how you brew your, your pour over coffee, but I bet you there are people out there who would say, I'm wrong, so.  [00:12:09] Jesse Schwamb: That's, and that's why this is the food equivalent of genealogies. [00:12:13] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. There you go. That's, that's great.  [00:12:15] Affirmation Generous Guitar Gift [00:12:15] Tony Arsenal: Well, Jesse, what are you affirming or denying tonight?  [00:12:18] Jesse Schwamb: I'm gonna keep it positive. Go affirmation as well and keep it light. I hope. Let me explain the situation briefly and then you'll just know the affirmation at the end 'cause it's more fun that way. Uh, I was at a practice for. Worship music this past week and blessed again just by our church and the number of lovely musicians that we have. And actually, one of the things I do appreciate is that we're always trying to work ourselves out of a job, and that is we're trying to, especially recruit younger people into playing. We have people of all skill sets and abilities who are. Like really volitional about setting their hearts right on worship through music. And really the instrumentation comes alongside of that. And oftentimes it's secondary to that, of course. And so we have a couple of college students that are joining us while they're studying locally. And one of them in particular is, is playing guitar. And she plays quite well, but she's growing into that role of playing and it's a whole different challenge to play in this capacity. And so we, because we have a lot of people with a lot of instruments and experience, one of the other guitarists who is an older gentleman who is very experienced, he took on, he, this is also fantastic by the way. He took up playing the bass because we just need a bass. I mean, he was a guy who was like, I play guitar exceptionally well. I see there's a need. I don't know how to play bass. I could probably learn. I don't own a bass, but I'm gonna make all that happen. And he is just fantastic. And so it turns out that because this young woman, she had a nice guitar or reasonable guitar, beginner guitar. It was having some problems with our sound system, so. On Thursday, he brought another guitar for her to play and she didn't know he was gonna do that. And so he brought this very nice guitar, like multiple. I don't wanna get into exactly pricing, at least from what I discerned, but if you know, you know, it's a breed love guitar. So this is, this is a very nice guitar. So he said, I just want you to be able to play it like, and have something to play here that, and see what you think and how it sounds in the system. So she played it. And I know he was just taking such great joy in seeing that, um, you know, we mixed it properly. It has EQ on it. So we set the whole thing up and she's like, wow, it feels very nice. Like, I really appreciate playing it. So at the end of course, he turns to her and says like, how, what do you think? How does it sound? How do you, how does it feel? And she said, it feels really nice. And he says to her, take it home. It's yours. [00:14:28] Tony Arsenal: Wow.  [00:14:29] Jesse Schwamb: And you know, he says to her, I know that you love to worship the Lord in music. Use this to do that and to lead yourself in others. And so the affirmation is. I don't know how often we get to just be witnesses to some kind of great private generosity. And the only reason I was, I was witness to it is because I, in the arrangement, on the stage we were practicing, I was just between the two of them. So I felt like a little awkward, like this whole moment was happening and I was like just trying to awkwardly like moonwalk my way back out of that. So like they could just have this moment, but instead I got to witness it. So I. I don't know what it would look like for each of us to do something like that. Not that necessarily the size of the gift in this case, but the thoughtfulness of it was exceptional. It was just a beauty to behold the family of God supporting and loving one another in a way, and this was no doubt. A sacrifice for him. I just couldn't, I said to him afterwards, I was like, that was incredible. And uh, you know, he of course is very humble about the whole thing and was wanting to support musicians, but it's more than that. Of course, this was about gifting someone a tool to help them lead and to worship God more passionately. And I just have been thinking about that ever since. Like, well, how can I do that for others? What, what are some spaces where I can do that, where it doesn't necessarily cost maybe even anything except my. Unwillingness to seek that out. So  [00:15:49] Tony Arsenal: yeah,  [00:15:50] Jesse Schwamb: if you see it, acknowledge it and hopefully we get to see it from time to time, but maybe we can be also the people that do it.  [00:15:55] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, that, that kind of gift, the value, like the monetary value is almost not relevant. [00:16:01] Jesse Schwamb: Exactly.  [00:16:01] Tony Arsenal: And like a guitar, this is gonna be super like woo woo, but like. Anyone who plays guitar and has owned a guitar knows that like a guitar is kind of like a personal thing. Yes. You can have the most generic beater, like hundred dollar Epiphone acoustic guitar, and that's still your guitar. And to just give that away to someone is actually kind of like a, it's sort of like a weird, intimate feeling. Um, and I think there are probably lots of things like that where we have a tool that is part of our craft, part of our trade, whatever it might be. Um, you know, like maybe you're a carpenter and you've just got your favorite. Here's, here's a dumb example. I, I started working at the hospital as a scheduling secretary in February of 2015, so I'm, I'm just past 11 years now, and there was this stapler at my desk when I first started. And, uh, I've kept that stapler with me through, through 11 years in like several different job transitions in several different departments. It's the only thing that I've brought with me, and it's funny because I used to share an office with a nurse. And I went on vacation. When I came back, um, she had swapped my stapler for another stapler of the exact same model stapler, like it was an identical stapler. And I could tell the difference in the waiting and the feel of the stapler. Um, like that, that kind of thing. Although, like I struggled to think how I might gift that stapler to someone in, in the same meaningful fashion, but like right. There are trade, there are tools of your trade and tools of your craft that you use to serve the Lord in particular ways. And I think a musical instrument is like an obvious example, but maybe you're a carpenter and you have a favorite hammer that just, it feels right in your hand, it's the right weight, it's the right size, um, and someone else needs a good hammer. Like I think there are ways. Similar kinds of things that could happen. And that's a really lovely, thoughtful gift. And it's a way that you can honor the Lord. Yes. Like it's not, it's not just being nice. It's a way that you can sort of pass on that blessing that God has given you in that, in that physical implement to someone else to make use of it. Um, and I can tell you I've been the recipient of similar kinds of gifts. [00:18:09] Jesse Schwamb: Me too.  [00:18:10] Tony Arsenal: I don't have anyone that's given me like a guitar. But, um, there's been times where I've, I've, uh, like I have a set of commentaries that was gifted to me by someone who, they were well loved, well used commentaries, and they were just at a point in their, their academic career that they just weren't using them anymore. And they gifted them to me. And I'll tell you like. I have never read through those in, in their entirety, but every time that I go to reference them, there's a warm spot in my heart when I think about what these commentaries have contributed to the kingdom in terms of that person's ministry. And then now my ministry, my my preaching Pul supply ministry, this podcast. Um, so that's a special gift. That's a cool story. And I think. Your exhortation is great for us to think about ways we can, we can do that. I suppose there's some ways we've done that as a podcast. Like we've helped other podcast start. True. We've, I mean there's been equipment that we've grown out of, that we've passed on to other people who are getting started. Um, you know, so I think there's lots of ways we can think about how that works and how we do.  [00:19:09] Jesse Schwamb: And we ourselves, of course, are ongoing beneficiaries of that kind of love.  [00:19:13] Patreon and Audio Update [00:19:13] Jesse Schwamb: And this sounds like it's a plug that I intended, but I didn't when I started the whole affirmation. And that is we have people that give to the podcast through patreon.com. [00:19:22] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:19:22] Jesse Schwamb: So after they've satisfied all of their other responsibilities, they have decided, you know what? The podcast, the conversations have blessed me in some way, and I wanna make sure that they keep going. And so. There's a place where people are giving even just little gifts, either one time or regularly. And it does keep things going, like, uh, this is all practical. Now. For instance, many of our listeners noticed that somehow you developed a lisp over like the last Yeah. Two episodes, which it turns out Tony is healthy and well, his like. Speech is fantastic. I I hear it. I've always heard it in this clear, crisp mo voice kind of way. And it turns out we tried to go with a cheaper solution that will remain unnamed.  [00:20:01] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:20:01] Jesse Schwamb: Um, and it turns out, for whatever reason, it, it  [00:20:06] Tony Arsenal: just wasn't gonna cut it. It  [00:20:07] Jesse Schwamb: just didn't work. And so we were trying to save a little bit there. But I'm so grateful for those who, who along with us, help us to cover these costs so that we could return to a solution that costs money. [00:20:18] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:20:18] Jesse Schwamb: But is actually better for sound quality and less distracting for people that want to listen to us talk. So that all happens because many have gone to patreon.com, back slash reform brotherhood and said, I'd like to contribute. So I see that generosity and I wanna say thank you.  [00:20:33] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. [00:20:35] Reading the Parable [00:20:35] Tony Arsenal: Well, Jesse, we should probably get into the parable tonight.  [00:20:37] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, let's get into it.  [00:20:39] Tony Arsenal: So we are gonna camp out tonight. Uh, we're we last, not last week because, uh, last week I was, uh, preaching and so, uh, you were, uh, the sermon from the, the church I was preaching, I was put into the feed, but the week before that. We were camping out in the first half of Matthew 18. We were talking about the parable of the lost sheep and how it is positioned differently in Matthew than it is in its parallel in Luke, and that that positioning in that context sort of shades the meaning and and changes how we think about what the parable means. We're gonna finish out the second half of chapter 18 here with the Parable of the Unforgiving Servants. And what I, what I think we're gonna find is actually like, in, in a similar way to how the Parable of the lost sheep and the Parable of the Lost Coin and the Parable of the Lost Sun all sort of stack up to be sort of like a mega parable. This parable continues the same themes, um, and in many ways is, is like an. A next level question on the theme that Christ is teaching regarding, uh, people, you know, coming to the faith, people who sin against each other, and how we should think about church discipline. This parable really kind of continues that line of thought, so I'll go ahead and start reading here in verse 21. We will go ahead and just read out to the very end of the, uh, end of the chapter here. So starting in verse 21, it says, then Peter came up and said to him, Lord, how often will my brother sin against me? And I forgive him as many as seven times. Jesus said to him, I do not say to you seven times, but 77 times. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wishes to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him 10,000 talents. Since he could not pay his master, ordered him to be sold with his wife and children and all that he had and payment to be made. So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him half patience with me, and I'll pay you everything out of pity for him. The master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. But when the same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him and hundreds inari and seizing him. He began to choke him, saying, pay what you owe. So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, have patience with me and I will pay you. He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. Then his master summoned him and said to him, you wicked servant. I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me and should not. You have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you. It is anger. His master delivered him to the jailer until he should pay all his debt. So also my Heavenly Father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. [00:23:34] Peter's Forgiveness Question [00:23:34] Jesse Schwamb: Maybe I'm the only one, but Peter is my spirit animal. He just is because like, it's not just that the question he starts with is like brutally honest, but I find out brutally practical. Yeah, I know there's a lot been said about Peter. He, he gets a lot of shade about this idea of him trying to set like, what's this generous limit? How often should I forgive? But in some ways isn't the this, like the thing, if I were there, I'd be like, I'm thinking this too, which is, yeah, about how far, Lord, you know, how much, where, where do I be? When do I become the doormat? And so I have a sense, I think even in my own life, still don't want to quantify mercy. Actually, I know this to be the case. I could think of a situation in particular. Where I was just talking about with my wife, where I was essentially doing this same thing. And in reform terms, I think like this is of course like the sinful heart's instinct to convert obedience into some kind of manageable policy, and that's where I'm like, yeah, I hear this. Because if. Even quote unquote, like advanced disciples often want righteousness by measurement. Yeah. It's easier. It appeals to our human nature rather than righteousness by likeness to the father. And so it makes sense to me that after all this talk about discipline and about going after your brother, that I think honestly the logical thing is to say yes, but how far right? And that's like the whole setup for this thing.  [00:24:52] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And I think there is a certain logic to. Peter's question, right? Yes. I I think you're right. Like we, we sort of bag on Peter to be like, what a dummy. Like, and, and I, I don't love, um, I don't love sort of the extrapolation that people make where they like, sort of like add that crisis, like exasperated by the apostles, right? There are certainly places in the scripture where it, it just straight out says like, crisis. It, it basically says like, crisis frustrated with his apostles and, and he expresses like. I was reading the other day where they're like, who brought him, who brought him bread to eat? Like, and, and or the one where they're like, beware the ye the yeast of the, uh, of the Pharisees. And they're like, oh, we forgot the bread. And he's like, I wasn't talking about bread you guys. Like, I don't, I don't actually get the sense that that's what's going on here. Like, I think this is a rational, logical question that Peter asks, right. Um, in many ways.  [00:25:50] Kingdom Forgiveness and Repentance [00:25:50] Tony Arsenal: He's actually like catching the drift of what Christ is getting at because the, the prevailing thought in, in sort of like the ancient world, forgiveness was not really something you offered, like there was offense and then the offense had to be repaid and Christ is presenting this sort of radical new way where like all that needs to happen for the offense to be resolved is actually just repentance. Like, it, it was not the norm. Peter isn't quite getting as far as Christ is pushing him yet, but he's not asking a dumb, selfish, stupid question. And I think we, we tend to sort of position Peter here as though he is, and I think the radical nature of this is that Christ answer is as many times it's, it's, he puts a number on it, but it's this number that has this symbolic value of like as many times as he repents. And I think when you go back to the church discipline passage that we just came out of. The, the question basically is like, how many times am I gonna get to step one before I can just skip to step two? And the answer is, as long as there is genuine repentance, reconciliation should move forward. Right? Um, now again, like. There are a lot of situations where rec, and I know the prevailing way of talking about this is like forgiveness and reconciliation are not the same thing, and they're, they're not. Um, but I also don't think reconciliation always means full restoration of a relationship as though nothing happened. And, and so I think this, this teaching that Christ is going into here. Is not only designed to sort of like answer Peter's question, but providentially, it actually continues to extend the lesson of the last parable that you continue to seek your brother and you continue to forgive them and rejoice over that forgiveness and over that rest restoration as long as repentance continues to occur. Um, now we don't need to get into it. But there are certainly times where a person might outwardly say like they're repentant of their sins and their behavior demonstrates they're not. That's not the scenario that Christ is addressing here when he is encouraging Peter to forgive 77 times. Right? He's not saying, just like you said, he's not saying you become a doormat and you just accept. For, and you accept repentance on face value despite evidence. To the contrary, he's saying that when there is genuine repentance, there is no limit to the number of times that you should forgive a person.  [00:28:17] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, that's right on. It's not like Jesus is mouthing forgiveness here. Yeah, it's more of this emphasis, like you've said already, that gospel is creating a people who forgive habitually, not sporadically. And so forgiveness becomes, I think we said this before, like a settled posture because the believers live from this kind of idea. Settle the mercy. And so Jesus ties, and this is wild again, incredible, limitless. Forgiveness to the nature of the kingdom,  [00:28:43] Tony Arsenal: right?  [00:28:44] Jesse Schwamb: So the parable is not mainly about some kind of interpersonal etiquette here. It's about what it means to live under God's reign and in God's household. And that should be a demonstrative focus and emphasis in how we go about our lives because. What's practically applicable to all of us is that people are gonna hurt us. The same people will continue to hurt us, and we'll come back and seek some kinda reparation. We'll seek forgiveness. And Jesus says, like you said, extend it. There's this idea that there's this. Kind of almost in this like a comment upon the Lord's Prayer in that fifth petition. Like we ask forgiveness as we forgive, right? So then there's not like behavioral or modification here.  [00:29:21] Forgiven People Forgive [00:29:21] Jesse Schwamb: We're trying to perform in such a way, well, if we forgive, then we will be forgiven, and we get that twist. It's all the other way around in reverse, which is because of course we've been forgiven, therefore we ought to forgive freely, liberally, unreservedly, not sporadically, but all the time, every way, any way you can, right? So that's what leads then to this, all this hyperbole about. Debt, which again I love as an expression of what it means to incur sin, to be under the weight of sin, to be in, you know, rebellion against God. And so I love that that's where Jesus moves because like presumably there could have this, could have gone lots of different ways. There are lots of different metaphors. This is just one of several places where debt comes in the picture. And I know, I know it's your jam as well. Like I know that you love this in terms of how this like drama unfolds next. [00:30:11] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, this is a, this is a, um, I kind of alluded it to a last time, I won't get into specifics, but there's been a, a number of situations in my life, um, and Jesse knows which situation I'm, I'm thinking of most specifically, but a number of times that I've been in situations where, um, e either I see another person who is refusing, who, who claims the name of Christ, but is absolutely refusing to. To extend forgiveness except on sort of like really specific elaborate conditions.  [00:30:43] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:30:43] Tony Arsenal: Um, I, I am not entirely set on the fact that forgiveness can't have any sort of condition in terms of what, what is expected to demonstrate that repentance is genuine. I think there are times where, um, especially if sin is an ongoing, you know, a person's sins against you in the same way, many times I think it's fine to say like, well, repentance in this situation looks like a right. If a person is constantly talking about you behind your back and is gossiping about you, then repentance at a minimum is stopping that sin, right? For sure. At, at i, I would say in that situation, it might even look like that person needs to go. Take some steps to restore your good name in the, you know, in the people that they've slandered you against or slandered you with. [00:31:30] Kingdom Life and Debts [00:31:30] Tony Arsenal: Um, but the, the main point of this, and the reason I bring it up, is that this parable is, um, uh. It's connected to the previous parable with this church discipline passage in the middle. In that what we see here is a picture of, of the unforgiving servant is not just the unforgiving servant, he's the unforgiving servant. [00:31:55] Jesse Schwamb: Right?  [00:31:55] Tony Arsenal: And I think that's really key is that this. This parable, right? We always want to pay attention to what the parable is compared to. And so this is the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wishes to settle accounts with a sermon. So yes, it's true that this tells us about what a. Forgiveness and reconciliation and what being forgiven and what that does if all of that's true and it's presented here, but this parable is really telling us what life in the kingdom of God looks like.  [00:32:26] Jesse Schwamb: Right on.  [00:32:27] Tony Arsenal: And what it looks like is not holding, not holding debts against someone in light of the fact that God has not held our debts against us and. I think you have to be careful when you teach this passage because it can very quickly become you earning forgiveness by being forgiving. Um, and it's actually like the, the exact opposite. Forgive being a forgiving person is not how you become a forgiven person. It's what it looks like to be a forgiven person. This is the classic Protestant kind of like, um, what's it called? The my brain is losing me. Uh, the practical syllogism, right?  [00:33:09] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.  [00:33:09] Tony Arsenal: You, you know, you're forgiven by the fact that you live, you're living a life of holiness. But it's not that, that life of holiness is somehow generating your forgiveness or causing it. It's, it's the opposite. The life of forgiveness, the life of being forgiven is driving this gracious disposition that should mark every Christian. So I think as we unpack this a little bit, we get through this. That's what we have to remember. Yes, there are practical on the street concrete things that we should do in light of this teaching, but ultimately this is teaching us about what it looks like to live as a forgiven person in the kingdom of heaven, not just some general principle of what it means to understand forgiveness or something like that. [00:33:50] Jesse Schwamb: Right? Yeah. It's bearing that fruit. Again, this is all about the community hermeneutic, the community of the family of God, represented in the kingdom of God, and that's what.  [00:34:01] Sin as Infinite Liability [00:34:01] Jesse Schwamb: Propels us into this idea in verse 24, these 10,000 talents, this incredible debt, which is of course really hyperbole. Just pick the number that is impossible for repayment in your mind. It's meant to feel infinite, and it's a picture of our guilt before God's justice. And I mentioned this before, but I think this bears repeating. It's a real liability. Right. What we have here in this picture is not sin merely as mistake. We we're quick to talk about sin as missing the mark, and this is true of course. Sometimes though, with that, we can get the sense that the missing of the mark is kind of innocuous. It happens and it's suboptimal, and your life would be better otherwise, and it does wrong and hurt God, and we can embrace all those things without realizing that all of this missing the mark is creating a real liability. God has a claim over and above us for restitution of that because that's what his justice demands. And so here we have this explicit identification of sin as debt. It highlights this inevitable reckoning like you can debt, you have to deal with, you have to deal with it in some way or another. And  [00:35:04] Tony Arsenal: yeah,  [00:35:05] Jesse Schwamb: so too, here we have these two different servants and they both have this irreconcilable debt, this real liability that's represented in the form of this king having a claim over them. [00:35:17] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. And I think, um, you know, we've commented in the rest of the parables that there, the, one of the beauties, the beautiful things about a lot of these parables is there's so much systematic theology actually baked into them.  [00:35:30] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah.  [00:35:30] Tony Arsenal: And one of the things, I don't think, um, because of the way translations work and because the translations are not, um, they're translating the words and not necessarily the concepts in direct ways, in, in this context, in this situation. Um. This is a picture of the, the sin debt that we have, but we lose the sight of the magnitude of it, right? So a talent was 20 years worth of wages for a worker in, in this era. Now that's 10,000 of those. So like the idea that you could spend 10,000 times 20 years worth of wages. Like, that's unreal. Like that's crazy. That's unreal. Um, I can't even imagine what that would look like to spend and to, to somehow go into debt 10,000 times, 20 years worth of wages. Um, and that's the point is that it's, it's painting this picture. I think sometimes we, this parable is taught and the comparison is primarily between the 10,000 talents, which is this, uh, like. Unimaginable vast quantity of money versus a hundred denari, which is not a small debt, but it's an imaginable debt. It's an understandable debt. That's the contrast most people, most people make when they're teaching this passage, but before you even get there. We've talked about how the parables sometimes have this element of like shock where like the, the, the people listening would be listening and be like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then all of a sudden there's something in the parable that's like, whoa, wait, a, like, slow down a second here. Like the idea that the younger son could ask for his inheritance and then the father would just give it to him. That's a shock element that would make the, the audience sit up and go. Something is a little different here. The shock element here is 20, it's, it's 20 times. 10,000 years worth of wages,  [00:37:27] Jesse Schwamb: right.  [00:37:27] Tony Arsenal: So there's so many elements of that. Like, first of all, how do you spend that much money? Second of all, who lets you go that far into debt? Right? And how did you even do it? Third, how did this king have, even a king ha wouldn't have that vast quantity of wealth. Um, this would be like all of a sudden, uh, like. Elon Musk has let me spend his entire, his entire net worth, and I've gone into debt in that. Um, it's this unimaginable situation, and this is a picture of the sin debt that we incur when we have sinned against God. And so the gravity of our sin. Is on full display here. The debt that we've incurred against the Holy God is not just, uh, it's not just a debt that we can't repay. It's a debt that is un repayable. This is supposed to be a picture of an infinite death. Yes. Or infinite debt. Right. There's, there's no real way, like the, the, the ancient world didn't really talk about infinite or infinity in the same way that we do. Like mathematically, that wasn't a common concept. This is supposed to be a picture of a debt that is so vast and so large that it is, it is beyond. Like beyond rational numbering.  [00:38:42] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.  [00:38:43] Tony Arsenal: That is the picture of the debt that we owe God when we are still in the midst of our sin. And so this, this person comes. There's a certain kind of like audacity that would, should actually be offensive to the king when he says like, I will pay everything. You're gonna pay everything. You're gonna pay 10,000 times, 20 years worth of wages.  [00:39:02] Jesse Schwamb: Right,  [00:39:03] Tony Arsenal: right. Like, yeah. Right,  [00:39:04] Jesse Schwamb: right.  [00:39:04] Tony Arsenal: That's, that's the audacity of this servant. Um, he wouldn't have been able to believe he was gonna do that. He's coming, throwing himself, hopefully, throwing himself on the mercy of this. Uh, king that something could be done to allow him to, to change his estate. It's not all that different than what we talked about with the son. In the parable of the, uh, lost son, where he is coming back to his father, he's expecting his request to be made. One of the servants is going to be granted with a positive, favorable answer. Right? But his concept of what he even. Could imagine to ask for is like too small. It's too, too narrow in scope, and it, it's not presuming on his, on God's mercy or the father's mercy, it's actually like undercutting what the, the father or in this case, the king is capable of in terms of mercy, which I think is something we miss a lot of times with this par. [00:39:59] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, we certainly see that the servant's inabilities is total, or at least we're meant to see that. And of course that aligns with all the things you and I regularly talk about, the human inability to satisfy divine justice by works. That's what's on display here in this idea of the kingdom. And the scene, to me at least, is like courtroom economic. There's justice, which requires satisfaction. There's insolvency and judgment, and it happens beautifully in the context of this relationship where there's, there's debt, there's money, there's a claim over one. That must be satisfied. And while you were speaking, what really struck me is it's the king's right to claim it. And he does. Right? Right. He, he brings it forward and says like, here's the debt. I'm just reporting back to you the real liability that is before you. So how are we gonna settle this bad boy?  [00:40:42] Time Not Mercy [00:40:42] Jesse Schwamb: And what I find interesting is something that you just brought up and I think we should tease out, which is there's a, a flawed plea and this diluted promise, well, maybe I'm being right. Not very generous. You tell me. I say that because the servant, and I think this is what like test this loved ones. I think this is what the natural man does. What the servant does, he asks for time and not mercy. Yeah, which I think is a helpful distinction. And then he tries to promise what he cannot perform. So that's like the logic I think, of self salvation, which is, give me a little space. Let me know what I have to do. Give me more time and I'll fix it. And I think the critical observation is the servant's words expose that. I don't think he understands the nature of his debt. He underestimates what he owes. He asks for the wrong thing, right. That's exactly what we do. We wanna know how we can fix it instead of understanding that it's unfixable, that only God himself can again be just and justifier through his son. And so we have this amazingly, like off the reservation, missing the whole point adventures in Romans one, where instead the natural man is prone to like, well, give me the legalism that I need to make restitution on my own. And it's just impossible. So we're gonna see that that moves us, like you said, into compassion, into Mercy. But it absolutely floors me that this person says instead like, well, if you could just give me a little bit more time. I mean, I think there's like panic in that response. I think there's self-promotion in that response. I think there's wanting to, if this can be true in some way, well intentionally wanting to make it right, but to do so on their own. And it's just an adventure in missing the point.  [00:42:20] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And I, I think, um. What we learn, you know, spoiler alert. I guess what we learn by the end of this, uh, parable is that this unforgiving servant, uh, represents the un unregenerate person. Yes. Right. It's, it's, it's the person who never actually received the forgiveness that was extended to them. And I think we. We think that that punchline only comes at the end where the king throws him back into prison at the end and, and forces him to, to pay or, or keeps him in prison until the debt is paid, which of course, the, the underlying text is that the debt is never paid. Um, but really this is actually the beginning of that, of that implication.  [00:43:01] Jesse Schwamb: For sure.  [00:43:01] Tony Arsenal: Right? He, he doesn't ask for forgiveness. He doesn't believe that the king is going to forgive him entirely. Um, he, he comes and he thinks he's going to pay off this unimaginable debt. Um, and again, there's a certain absurdity to these parables that is intentional. It's part of the teaching mechanism. Um, but he comes and he says, exactly as you're saying, gimme some time to pay this off. He doesn't, he doesn't think he's not gonna be able to do it. Right. I don't think he, um. I don't think he comes thinking he's gonna somehow trick the king by asking for time and then he's gonna like flee to another land, right? Like there's no implication of that. He thinks. By all indications, he thinks with a little bit more time, he's actually gonna scrape together 10,000 times, 20 years worth of labor. Right. He thinks that's gonna happen. And that is like when we come to the way that this is like the kingdom of heaven is when we, when we come to God saying like, just gimme a little time. Or gimme a little space or tell me what I need to do and I'll make it right. Um, you know, you think of like Luther on the road to, to wherever he was going. Like, um, you know, if, if, if you save me, I'll become a monk. Right. You know, Saint Anne's save me. I'll become a monk. Like we, we think that if we can just. Get the formula right, that somehow we're gonna be able to, to restore ourselves into God's graces. And so this is a picture of the Unregenerate man trying to flee the wrath of God somehow out coming out from underneath it by their own labor. And I. Again, like the absurdity of the, the, the servant's thought process here is exactly, uh, the absurdity of the person who thinks they're gonna somehow make up for their sin, debt against the holy God. It just is, it's just not real. And it's, it's a level of delusion that can only come, you know? Yes. Sin and our fallen estate comes with a certain kind of insanity that comes with it. Yes,  [00:44:55] Jesse Schwamb: that's right.  [00:44:55] Tony Arsenal: That we, we are. We're not human, but we're sort of corrupted subhuman. And our rationality, our ability to understand spiritual things is totally just, it's totally damaged. Um, so we couldn't even get to the right answer even if we wanted to.  [00:45:10] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, so I think maybe one of the first.  [00:45:14] Pardon Not Payment Plan [00:45:14] Jesse Schwamb: Several of the gasps from those listening would be in verse 27, where the king has this compassion on them. He exacts a pardon, but not a payment plan.  [00:45:23] Tony Arsenal: Right?  [00:45:24] Jesse Schwamb: And it really is an act of sheer mercy. Of course, it's rooted in the king's compassion. And I would say like in the categories again that we talk about, it resembles this concept of free justification. God's acquitting, the guilty by grace and not by installments. And again, I, I had to look it up because I knew it was somewhere, but I couldn't find it off the top of my head. But this connects to like the Westminster Larger catechism, which was the fifth petition. And I love this language. We're confessing that we cannot satisfy the dead and we ask God to acquit us through the obedience and satisfaction of Christ applied by faith. Right. That is phenomenally good news. In some ways, this is, I don't wanna say this is a problem for God, it's not, this is what he delights to do, but I hope people can hear me on this in that it's a problem in the sense that. If God is a compassionate God, if this king is truly compassionate, then he has to take care of this in some way, right? Like it is, it is a concern. It is legitimate quantity. If this is a real liability that must be dealt with. It's a bit like saying, there is this old saying in banking where something like if you owe the bank a hundred thousand dollars, that's your problem. If you own the bank, a hundred million problems, that's the bank's problem.  Yeah.  [00:46:30] Jesse Schwamb: And so here there's this massive weight. That must be dealt with. It can't just be like swept under the rug. So even behind this compassion, we know that the rest of scripture enumerates how that compassion takes place. It is free justification at the cost of God's one and only son applied to us again by faith as the confession gives us that language. And so this is. Shocking. Even that is shocking. And I think to your point, Tony, it's shocking because I do believe, like you're saying, that the audience would've picked up on this guy being off the mark and is saying, well, he's somehow getting granted. He asked for more time. That's ridiculous. Yeah. And he is gonna be given forgiveness instead. And so what's, what's going on? And I wanna point out, this led me to think about. Isaiah 55, and I'm embarrassed that I often read Isaiah 55 completely divorced from the context in which these very famous words appear, which is, this is the whole, my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways. My ways declares Yahweh, whereas the heavens are higher, higher than the earth. So are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts? And for somebody like me, I was like, I always appreciated like, listen, God is of course abundantly my intellectual superior in every conceivable way. I mean. Talk about an understatement, but he's just so brilliant. He works all things out for his glory, that the, the majesty and the creativeness of the world in which he spoke into existence proves that he's genius. And here's maybe everybody, you're ahead of me on this, but here's where that passage. Here's like the antecedent verses right before that. This is Isaiah 55, beginning verse six. Seek Yahweh. While he may be found, call upon him while he's near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return to Yahweh and he will have compassion on him. And to our God, he will abundantly pardon for my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways. My ways declares Yahweh, for as the heavens are higher than the earth. So are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts? The higher than your thoughts. So in other words. How do we know that God is like this, that his thoughts are heart? Because the sheer act of this kind of forgiveness is so otherworldly that we cannot comprehend it, that God is saying the proof of the pudding is in the eating here. Here's how you know I'm so different than you, and the way I think, and the way I act and the way that I know things is because this kind of forgiveness, which I offer to my people is so extraordinary and unbelievable. That you will not even be able to comprehend the essential first principle of what they mean, which is why we have to receive the instruction as it's set forth before us in this parable.  [00:49:07] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.  [00:49:08] God Can Absorb the Cost [00:49:08] Tony Arsenal: And, you know, we'll, um, we'll have to come back. We're not anywhere near finished with this. We're at the end of the time here, but talking one of, one of the things, um, that I think, you know, that, that passage in Isaiah, but this passage too, um. You cannot forgive a debt unless you have the. Capital to have that not sink you. Right.  [00:49:31] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:49:31] Tony Arsenal: So if, if, you know, like that's part of why like banks and, you know, like the hospital like that I work at anywhere that is collecting fees and bills. Like they, they can't allow someone to go so far into debt that they will never recuperate. That. That's like, that's where it's like bad debt comes in like at some point. You just let it go and you just stop giving them money. But you don't, you can't get the money back, but you can't forgive a debt if you don't have the resources to survive forgiving that debt. Right. And I think where this plays into in term, again, this is like another systematic theology point that comes outta this parable. This king is apparently so fabulously wealthy and so fabulously, uh, rich in resources that he can just say, yeah. 10,000 times, 20 years worth of an, of an average labor. Like, don't worry about it. It's no big deal like that is, that has to be a king who is so fabulously wealthy, unimaginably so that that is not gonna hurt him. And this is where the, like the omnipotence and the, uh, the impassability of God becomes so important is that we have a God who is, is able to forgive us. Right? I don't have the passage right in front of me, but. There's a passage in job where it's basically like, if, if I was to, to do something righteous, what benefits is that to God? And if I was to sin against God, what does that hurt him? Right? Right. And like when we sin against God, it angers him. Um, there's not a change in his disposition. Uh, there, there, there might be a, a change in our experience of God. Um, because, you know, God in the presence of wrath is ex, I guess, is experienced differently than God. Or God in the presence of sin is experienced differently than God, absent sin. Um, so when we're forgiven, we're experiencing, we're still experiencing God. Um, God is still oriented towards us, but he's oriented towards us graciously versus oriented towards us, non graciously. That's not a change in God. That's a change in our status, a change that God renders in us. By applying Christ to us and Christ's benefits to us, but when we sin against God, it doesn't hurt him. It doesn't change him. It doesn't somehow make him less and, and that's a glorious thing. Because if it did somehow make him less right. Um, I'm a big fan of Anselm and I'm a big fan of ran of um, uh, satisfaction theory, right? 'cause that led into penal substitution theory. And I think there's a lot of truth to satisfaction atonement theory. Um, one thing that I think we have to be really cautious of with that is this idea that somehow God's. Honor, like is impugned and that he has to respond in a particular way, otherwise it somehow degrades his character and some wouldn't go that far. But I think it's an implication of his, his theology is that's really a problem, right? That can be problematic because if God is somehow changed or harmed or injured by our sin, then then forgiving us. Becomes a problem because there has to be some sort of restoration to his being. And that would now put, you know, put a weird dynamic on the, the atonement that isn't, isn't biblical. So just like in this parable, the, the king can forgive the servant, sort of almost like. Almost casually, right? Like right. The servant doesn't even ask him to forgive the debt. And he is like, oh, don't worry about it. Like, I don't mean to be flippant about it, but like there is this element of like, it's almost a non-issue for this king to just say like, your debt is erased. I'm not, I'm not concerned about that. Um, he sees the. Outward disposition of this servant of Des apparently desiring to be able to pay this debt off and, and committing to what it takes. And he takes that step of mercy that wasn't even being asked of, but that's not possible if the king is somehow, uh, in a position of injury because of this debt. Right. Um, he, he really doesn't seem to care about the debt. He, he just lets it go. And we have to, we have to then map that up to what God is like and what the kingdom of heaven is like. The kingdom of heaven. Um, it doesn't hurt God to forgive us. It doesn't hurt God or change the kingdom of heaven. It doesn't cause a diminishment in the kingdom of heaven for him to freely forgive our sins. I mean, we could get into it, but like that, that's like totally flies in the face of Roman Catholic theology entirely,  [00:53:57] Jesse Schwamb: right?  [00:53:57] Tony Arsenal: Where like there has to be this, this exchange between the sinner and God, a meritorious exchange on some level in order for forgiveness to happen well. That only works if God is somehow benefiting or gaining from your, your, um, your good works. He's accepting it in some way that actually benefits him. Now, that may be like a, a relational benefit or something like that, but it's still benefiting him. This parable seems to just fly in the face of that.  [00:54:25] Jesse Schwamb: It does, and we see justice is still at play here because we get at least some sense of what, like the equality of this debt, what it equals, what it costs. Because we're told that when he comes before the king, the king says that he's commanded to be sold along with his wife and children and all that he had. So we know at least like that that would've been, in other words, this debt equals enslavement. That would be the only other way to even hope. To have some kind of restitution for, right. Even that would be woefully insufficient. You're right. And so we still get a sense here, but that, that we're talking about livelihood, belongings, the persons themselves not being worth enough to really repay, but that is what would be required. Even just to begin that it's true that the minimum wages of sin is death and that's what the least of which our payment should be. And so you're right that here we have one coming with all of the solvency that's required is not, not hurt by having to expend this, but must do. So I think that's like the subtext is behind there. It's not explicitly said, but it's clear like you're saying, Tony, that that's what's required of the one forgiving the debt. It isn't just like, oh well. Well, maybe you'll do better next time.  [00:55:37] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:55:37] Jesse Schwamb: But instead says, no, this again, if it's a real liability that stands, it doesn't just go away in its own. You can't just snap it out of existence. I think that was a Thanos reference that I didn't Look at me. Look at me. He  [00:55:49] Tony Arsenal: only gets rid of half of your debt. [00:55:50] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, look at me. Yeah. I guess that's a joke. Jokes on you. Um, yeah. Uh, only half by the way. I know what you saying. That reminded me one time of somebody ribbing me after I'd run a half marathon. I was like, oh yeah, I ran the half marathon. And they're like, well, that's great. What other things do you only do halfway? Um, and so, you know, like I, you're right with this, like at most this would kind of get you like maybe halfway and that's like being generous. And so here the greatest is generosity.  [00:56:17] Next Gasp and Wrap Up [00:56:17] Jesse Schwamb: And the shock that we're gonna see next is, first there's the gasp at, you know, maybe even Peter asking out loud, how many times do I have to forgive him? And then there's this gasp at here's this incredible sized debt. And like you said, how did one accrue that? Yeah. How did that go on for so long? It's just impossible. And then the gasp of maybe him saying like, just gimme more time and I'm gonna make it happen. And then the gasp of this forgiveness, and there's a bigger gasp that's coming, I think next, which is, yeah. Just from one shocked expression to the next, but I think we gotta call it there.  [00:56:50] Tony Arsenal: We do. Yeah. I, I'm, I'm looking forward to this too, because this is basically, uh, this parable is the parable of the lost son. In a different register. Like it's, it's the same basic dynamic, but the characters are flipped around a little bit, which is really, I think is really interesting and fascinating and, and fun to tease out. So we'll, uh, we'll put a pin in that now. Uh, I'm super, super stoked to continue this. Like I said, this is a, this chapter, um, chapter 18 of Matthew has been really sort of. Out Sizely formative in my life and my thought process about the nature of the church. So it's, it's fun for me and meaningful for me to kind of tease out some of these specifics and come to it and learn some new things. I think this is the beauty of the scriptures, right? When we sit down and we're serious and we take time to think through these things. God is faithful to always. That's right. Continue teaching us, right? Every day is a school day, but when you sit down and study the scriptures, if you let the scripture study you, you're gonna come away with it with, at a minimum, a deeper understanding of what you already had. But I think most of the time when we're serious, we actually come away having learned something, maybe not entirely new, but something different than what we expected.  [00:58:05] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. So since every day's a school day, what have we learned on this episode? Well, I think we've learned that this parable is teaching us that the Kingdom of Heaven is a community built on astonished mercy. And the king's free parting creates a people who forgive from the hearts. And like you said, that means that that is the fruit of righteousness in our life. By the blood of Christ applied to us through the Holy Spirit, and that means we don't forgive to be forgiven. We are forgiving people because we have already been forgiven in the best and the greatest of all possible ways. Getting rid of that debt that was so large, we couldn't hope to get out from underneath it. I think we've also learned, Tony, that you finally have become a hipster, and I'm so happy that you've arrived with the rest of us. And I hope we've inspired other people to go out and pour water over their own coffee. It's delicious.  [00:58:55] Tony Arsenal: That might be the only actual hipster thing. Right now I'm wearing a, a zip up sweater that is, uh, is from when I was in seminary like 15 years ago. I still, I still own and wear clothes. Uh, that are like decades old. Uh, this is gonna like fall off my body at some point, but I am never getting rid of it, so, yeah. Yeah. I'm stoked to keep going. Uh, please come back and join us next week. We'll be finishing out the parable. Uh, we'll, we'll talk through, you know. The difference between 20,000 years worth of debt or 200,000 years worth of debt, I'm not even good enough at math to figure that on the fly versus like a hundred days of debt. Uh, it's, it's a totally different register, uh, and it just continues to add to the absurdity of this thing. So until we do that, until next time, Jesse, honor everyone.  [00:59:46] Jesse Schwamb: Love the brotherhood. 
• Biblical Unity: Thinking the Same Thing in Philippians 02.03.2026 1ч 6мин

  In this profound exploration of Philippians 1:27–2:11, Tony Arsenal unpacks Paul's urgent call to gospel-centered unity in the face of both external persecution and internal division. Preaching to Christ Community Church in Plainfield, NH, Arsenal demonstrates how the Philippian church's brewing conflict between two prominent women threatened their witness and weakened their defensive posture against genuine opposition. The sermon's theological centerpiece—the Christ hymn of Philippians 2:5-11—is presented not primarily as a doctrinal treatise on the incarnation, but as the supreme pattern for Christian humility and sacrificial service. Arsenal challenges believers to assess their own conflicts, embrace sober self-esteem that esteems others higher, and embody the mind of Christ who emptied himself, becoming obedient even to death on a cross for our sake. Key Takeaways Unity is a Command, Not a Suggestion: Paul commands the Philippians to "think the same thing" and be "of one mind"—language far stronger than mere harmony or getting along. This unity encompasses doctrinal agreement, practical cooperation, and relational reconciliation, all essential for presenting a united front against opposition to the gospel. Internal Division Undermines Gospel Witness: The conflict between Euodia and Syntyche (Philippians 4:2-3) was not peripheral but central to Paul's concern. When believers are divided by petty squabbles or unresolved conflicts, they distract from the gospel message and allow the true enemies of the faith to gain ground without resistance. Humility Means Esteeming Others Higher: Biblical humility is not self-degradation or denying the gifts God has given you. Rather, it's having a sober, honest assessment of yourself while deliberately choosing to recognize and celebrate the giftings in others as more significant than your own accomplishments. Christ's Humiliation is Our Pattern: The incarnation and Christ's entire earthly life—from conception through crucifixion—constituted a sustained act of humiliation and obedient suffering. This was not merely God accommodating himself to our understanding, but the incarnate Son actually experiencing weakness, pain, persecution, and death as our example and substitute. Suffering for Christ is a Gift: Paul presents suffering for the sake of Christ not as evidence of weak faith or divine abandonment, but as a privilege granted by God. This suffering serves as a sign both of the eventual destruction of God's enemies and the certain salvation of his people. Practical Unity Requires Concrete Action: Unity is not achieved through vague commitments to "love God and love others" but through specific, agreed-upon practices—how the church handles requests for help, who makes decisions, how conflicts are resolved, and whether members are working toward the same vision. Reconciliation Cannot Wait: Jesus prioritizes reconciliation with an offended brother or sister even over worship at the altar. If you know someone has something against you—or if you're the one harboring offense—make it right this week, because coming to worship while unreconciled places you in opposition to God himself. Key Concepts The Military Metaphor of Standing Side by Side Paul's instruction to "strive side by side" (Philippians 1:27) deliberately evokes the image of ancient military formations, particularly the phalanx used by Greek and Roman soldiers. In this formation, soldiers would stand shoulder to shoulder with large shields overlapping, creating an nearly impenetrable defensive wall. The strength of the phalanx wasn't in individual prowess but in unified cohesion—when soldiers stood together, pressure from enemies actually reinforced rather than weakened their defense. Paul applies this tactical reality to the church: Christians facing opposition must present such a united front that external pressure only strengthens rather than fractures their fellowship. This requires not just agreement in principle but actual coordination of thought, spirit, and action. When believers are divided—bickering over personal preferences, nursing interpersonal grievances, or pursuing selfish ambition—they break formation, leaving gaps through which spiritual enemies can attack. The Philippian church, facing real persecution in a Roman colony, needed to grasp that their internal conflicts were tactical vulnerabilities that could prove fatal to their witness. The Incarnation as Sustained Humiliation The traditional Reformed understanding of Christ's "humiliation" encompasses his entire earthly existence from conception to burial, not merely his passion and crucifixion. Arsenal emphasizes that when Philippians 2:6-8 describes Christ "emptying himself" and "humbling himself," Paul has the whole trajectory of incarnate life in view. From the moment the eternal Son took on human nature in Mary's womb—experiencing the compression of birth, the skinned knees of childhood, the weariness of labor, the sting of rejection from family and friends, and ultimately the agony of crucifixion—every moment constituted an act of voluntary humiliation. This was not playacting; Christ genuinely experienced human weakness, limitation, suffering, and mortality. He "learned obedience through what he suffered" (Hebrews 5:8), meaning the incarnate Son actually underwent a process of human development and moral formation, though without sin. This comprehensive view of Christ's humiliation serves Paul's ethical argument: if the eternal Son of God willingly embraced such comprehensive lowliness for the sake of others, how much more should believers embrace inconvenience, discomfort, and self-sacrifice for the good of fellow Christians and the advancement of the gospel? Sober Self-Esteem vs. False Humility Arsenal challenges a common misunderstanding of Christian humility—the notion that godliness requires constant self-deprecation and denial of one's gifts and abilities. He argues that such "worm theology" actually dishonors God by refusing to acknowledge the work of the Holy Spirit in sanctification and the gifts distributed by the Spirit for the body's edification. True humility, as Paul describes it in Philippians 2:3-4, consists of having an honest, accurate assessment of yourself—recognizing your genuine gifts, calling, training, and spiritual progress—while simultaneously making the deliberate choice to recognize and celebrate others' gifts as more significant than your own. This is not a zero-sum calculation where acknowledging others requires diminishing yourself. Rather, it's an abundance mentality: "I'm genuinely good at X because God has gifted me, and I thank him for that; but when I see someone else gifted in Y, I'm even more excited about their contribution than my own." This perspective prevents both false humility (which can mask pride) and competitive jealousy (which destroys unity). It creates the conditions for genuine collaboration where believers work "side by side" without jockeying for position or recognition. Memorable Quotes "We certainly face real pressures to conform to the patterns of this world rather than to the pattern of Christ—that is the real enemy that Paul is encouraging and commanding the Philippians and therefore us to stand against. And we cannot do that if we don't have a united front." "Our salvation, both as individual Christians and also as the church as a whole, corporately, it actually brings about the destruction of our enemies. In the last day, when Christ makes all things right, he's not just taking the saints to heaven and then putting all of the wicked off in some other place. He descends with the voice of an archangel, he slaughters all of his enemies, and through that destruction of his enemies, he saves those who are his." "God is not calling us to think of ourselves as trash. He made us in his image. He's called us for his glory. He's empowered us by His Holy Spirit and we insult him when we don't acknowledge the gifts that he's given us. But what he is commanding us to do is to see the giftings in other people and to esteem those as higher than our own." Full Transcript [The complete, unedited transcript of the episode is provided above in the source material.]
• Matthew 18 and Luke 15: How the Same Parable Teaches Two Different Truths 23.02.2026 1ч 3мин

  In this episode, Tony Arsenal and Jesse Schwamb explore one of Scripture's most fascinating puzzles: the parable of the lost sheep appears in both Luke 15 and Matthew 18, yet teaches dramatically different lessons depending on its context. In Luke, it defends Christ's mission to seek the lost and exposes Pharisaic self-righteousness. In Matthew, it becomes a pastoral manual for church discipline, humility, and restoration. This conversation challenges the common assumption that parables have only one meaning and demonstrates how the same story can illuminate multiple theological truths. The hosts unpack the scandalous grace woven throughout both accounts while wrestling with practical implications for church life, confrontation, and the celebration of repentance within the covenant community. Key Takeaways Context transforms meaning: The parable of the lost sheep appears in both Luke 15 and Matthew 18 with similar wording but vastly different applications—proving that parables can have multiple valid meanings depending on their literary and theological context. Matthew 18's audience is internal: Unlike Luke 15, which addresses outsiders and critics, Matthew 18 speaks to disciples about life within the kingdom community—focusing on humility, care for "little ones," and the church's responsibility toward vulnerable or straying members. The parable sets up church discipline: In Matthew 18, the lost sheep parable (vv. 12-14) directly precedes and theologically grounds the church discipline passage (vv. 15-20), teaching that confrontation should be motivated by pastoral rescue, not punitive justice. "Little ones" matter to the Father: The phrase "little ones" refers to children, new believers, and those vulnerable within the church—Christ warns sternly against despising them and insists it is not the Father's will that any should perish (v. 14). Restoration is the goal, not excommunication: Verse 15's language of "gaining your brother" frames confrontation as recovery. Even final excommunication (v. 17) should be carried out with ongoing hope for repentance and return, not with triumphalism or relief. Christ's presence empowers difficult work: The promise that "where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them" (v. 20) is not a general prayer meeting verse—it's a specific assurance of Christ's authorizing presence during the judicial and painful work of church discipline. Divine intention shapes church posture: The statement "it is not the will of my Father...that one of these little ones should perish" (v. 14) must color every step of the discipline process, ensuring the church never loses sight of God's restorative heart. Explanatory Paragraphs Context Transforms Meaning One of the most significant insights from this episode is the recognition that the parable of the lost sheep serves distinct theological purposes in Luke 15 and Matthew 18. In Luke, Jesus tells the parable to Pharisees and scribes who criticize Him for welcoming sinners—the lost sheep represents those outside the covenant community whom Christ seeks. In Matthew, however, Jesus addresses His disciples within the context of kingdom life, and the lost sheep represents a believer who has wandered from the fold. This contextual shift demonstrates that parables are not rigid allegories with single meanings but flexible teaching tools that illuminate different facets of divine truth. The hosts argue that this reality should free interpreters from overly narrow readings and encourage careful attention to literary setting, audience, and surrounding discourse when seeking to understand Jesus' teaching. The Parable Sets Up Church Discipline In Matthew 18, the parable of the lost sheep (vv. 12-14) is not an isolated story but a theological foundation for the church discipline instructions that immediately follow (vv. 15-20). By emphasizing the shepherd's joy in recovering the one lost sheep and stating that it is not God's will for any "little one" to perish, Jesus prepares His disciples to approach confrontation with a restorative rather than punitive mindset. The language of "gaining your brother" (v. 15) echoes the recovery theme of the parable—confrontation is rescue, not victory. This connection is often missed because English Bible headings create visual breaks between verses 14 and 15, obscuring their flow. When read together without interruption, the passage reveals that every step of church discipline—from private conversation to final excommunication—must be undertaken with the Father's heart, which longs for the wanderer's return rather than their expulsion. Christ's Presence Empowers Difficult Work The promise in Matthew 18:20—"where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them"—is frequently misapplied as a general encouragement for small prayer groups or house churches. While Christ's omnipresence certainly validates such gatherings, the primary context of this verse is judicial and ecclesiastical. The "two or three" echoes the Old Testament requirement for multiple witnesses in matters requiring serious judgment (Deuteronomy 19:15), and the phrase appears at the climax of Jesus' teaching on church discipline. Christ is promising His authorizing presence specifically during the church's most difficult and painful work: confronting sin, evaluating repentance, and when necessary, declaring someone outside the visible church. This is both sobering and comforting—sobering because it reminds us that church discipline carries divine weight, and comforting because Christ does not leave His church alone in this weighty task but stands in the midst of the assembly, confirming its righteous judgments and sustaining its members through heartbreak. Memorable Quotes "This almost proves the idea that parables have one meaning just isn't really real...a single parable with the same words can have multiple, at the very least, can have multiple gradations of meaning." — Tony Arsenal "The scandal here is that it's not God's will that any one of these little ones should be lost. And that sometimes, I think, in the midst of great conflict feels scandalous." — Jesse Schwamb "Gaining your brother frames confrontation as rescue...discipline begins maybe actually all the way through as pastoral care. It's not public shaming." — Jesse Schwamb Full Transcript [The complete, unedited transcript of the episode would be included here for reference and accessibility.]
• Sin as Debt: Why Financial Language Reveals the Gospel's Power 16.02.2026 49мин

  In a theological landscape that often softens sin into "brokenness," Episode 480 re-establishes the biblical category of sin as debt. Jesse Schwamb takes us into the house of Simon the Pharisee to analyze the Parable of the Two Debtors. The central argument is forensic: sin creates an objective liability against God's justice that no amount of human currency—tears, works, or religious heritage—can satisfy. We explore the critical distinction between the cause of justification (God's free grace) and the evidence of justification (love and repentance). This episode dismantles the self-righteous math of the Pharisee and points us to the only currency God accepts: the finished work of Christ. Key Takeaways Sin is Objective Debt: Sin is not merely a relational slight; it is a quantifiable liability on God's ledger that demands clearing. Universal Insolvency: Whether you owe 50 denarii (the moralist) or 500 denarii (the open sinner), the result is the same: total inability to pay. God Names the Claim: The debtor does not get to negotiate the terms of repayment; only the Creditor determines the acceptable currency. Love is Fruit, Not Root: The sinful woman's love was the evidence that she had been forgiven, not the payment to purchase forgiveness. The Danger of Horizontal Math: Simon's error was comparing his debt to the woman's, rather than comparing his assets to God's standard. Justification by Grace: Forgiveness is a free cancellation of the debt, based entirely on the benevolence of the Moneylender (God). Key Concepts The Definition of Money and Grace To understand Luke 7, we must understand money. Money is a system of credit accounts and their clearing. When we apply this to theology, we realize that "religious effort" is a currency that God does not accept. We are like travelers trying to pay a US debt with Zimbabwean dollars. The Gospel is the news that Christ has entered the market with the only currency that satisfies the Father—His own righteousness—and has cleared the accounts of those who are spiritually bankrupt. The Pharisee's Calculation Error Simon the Pharisee wasn't condemned because he wasn't a sinner; he was condemned because he thought his debt was manageable. He believed he had "surplus righteousness." This is the deadly error of legalism. By assuming he owed little, he loved little. He treated Jesus as a guest to be evaluated rather than a Savior to be worshipped. A low view of our own sin inevitably leads to a low view of Christ's glory. Evangelical Obedience The woman in the passage demonstrates what Reformed theologians call "evangelical obedience"—obedience that flows from faith and gratitude, not from a desire to earn merit. Her tears did not wash away her sins; the blood of Christ did that. Her tears were the overflow of a heart that realized the mortgage had been burned. We must never confuse the fruit of salvation with the root of salvation. Quotes Tears don't cancel the ledger. Christ does that. Tears are what debtors do when Mercy lands. Grace received produces love expressed. A creditor doesn't need to be convinced you did harm. The ledger already stands. Transcript [00:01:10] Welcome to The Reformed Brotherhood + Teasing the Parable [00:01:10] Jesse Schwamb: Welcome to episode 480 of The Reformed Brotherhood. I'm Jesse, and this is the podcast for those with ears to hear. Hey, brothers and sisters, how great is it that we have these incredible teachings of Jesus? Can we talk about that for a second? Tony and I have loved hanging out in these parables with you all, and Tony will be back next week. Don't you worry. But in the meantime, I've got another parable for us to consider, and I figured we would just get. Straight to the points, but I have to let you in in a little secret first, and that is not even Tony knows until he hears this, which parable I've selected for us to chat about. And I knew that there might come a time where I would be able to sneak in with this parable because I love. This parable, and I love it because it's so beautiful in communicating the full breadth and scope of the gospel of God's grace and his mercy for all of his children. And it just makes sense to me, and part of the reason why it makes so much sense to me is. The topic which is embedded in this is something that more or less I've kind of built my career around, and so it just resonates with me. It makes complete sense. I understand it inside and out. I feel a connection to what Jesus is saying here very predominantly because the topic at hand means so much to me, and I've seen it play out in the world over and over and over again. So if that wasn't enough buildup and you're not ready, I have no idea what will get you prepared, but we're going to go hang out in Luke chapter seven, and before I even give you a hint as to what this amazing, the really brief parable is, it does take a little bit of setup, but rather than me doing the setup. What do you say if we just go to the scriptures? Let's just let God's word set up the environment in which this parable is gonna unfold. And like a good movie or a good narrative, even as you hear this, you might be pulled in the direction of the topic that you know is coming. And so I say to you, wait for it. Wait for it is coming.  [00:03:20] Luke 7 Setup: Simon's Dinner & the "Sinful Woman" Arrives [00:03:20] Jesse Schwamb: So this is Luke's book, his gospel chapter seven, beginning in verse 36. Now one of the Pharisees was asking Jesus to eat with him, and Jesus entered the Pharisees house and reclined at the table. And behold, there was a woman in the city who was a sinner, and when she learned that he was reclining at the table in the Pharisees house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfume. And standing behind him at his feet crying. She began to wet his feet with her tears, and she kept wiping them with her hair over her head and kissing his feet and anointing them with perfume. Now, in the Pharisee, who had invited him, saw this, he said to himself saying, if this man were, he would know who and what sort of person this woman is who is touching him, that she is a sinner. Let's stop there for a second. So this incredible dinner party that Jesus attends and here is this woman. Well, all we're told is that she's a woman who's identified as a sinner. Clearly moved by the presence of Jesus clearly wanting to worship him in a very particular way. By the way, loved ones. Can we address the fact that this goes back to something Tony and I have been talking about, I dunno, for like seven episodes now, which is coming outta Luke chapter 15. This idea that sinners, the marginalized, the outcasts, the down and out, they were drawn to Jesus. Something about him, his presence, the power of his teaching drew them in, but in a way that invited vulnerability, this kind of overwhelming response to who he was. And what his mission was. And so here maybe is like any other occurrence that happened in Jesus' day, maybe like a million other accounts that are not recorded in the scriptures. But here's one for us to appreciate that. Here's this woman coming, and her response is to weep before him, and then with these tears, to use them to wash his feet and to anoint him with this precious perfume. Now, there's a lot of people at this dinner party. At least we're led to believe. There's many, and there's one Pharisee in particular whose home this was. It was Simon. And so out of this particular little vignette, there's so much we could probably talk about. But of course what we see here is that the Pharisee who invited him, Simon, he sees this going on. He does not address it verbally, but he has his own opinions, he's got thoughts and he's thinking them. And so out of all of that, then there's a pause. And I, I would imagine that if we were to find ourselves in that situation, maybe we'd be feeling the tension of this. It would be awkward, I think. And so here we have Jesus coming in and giving them this account, this parable, and I wanna read the parable in its entirety. It's very, very short, but it gives us a full sense of both. Like what's happening here? It's both what's happening, what's not happening, what's being. Presented plain for us to see what's below the surface that Jesus is going to reveal, which is both a reflection on Simon and a reflection on us as well. [00:06:18] The Two Debtors Parable (Read in Full) [00:06:18] Jesse Schwamb: So picking up in, in verse 40, and Jesus answered and said to him, Simon, I owe something to say to you. And he replied, say it, teacher a money lender had two debtors, one owned 500 in RI and the other 50. When they were unable to repay, he graciously forgave them both. So which of them will love him more? Simon answered and said, I suppose the one who he graciously forgave more, and he said to him, you have judged correctly and turning toward the woman. He said to Simon, do you see this woman? I entered your house? You gave me no water from my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but she, since the time I came in, has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she anointed my feet with perfume. For this reason, I say to you her sins, which are many have been forgiven for. She loved much, but he who is forgiven, little loves little. Then he said to her, your sins have been forgiven, and those were reclining at the table. With him began to say to themselves, who is this man who even forgives sins? And he said to the woman, your faith has saved you. Go in peace.  [00:07:42] What This Scene Teaches: Sin, Forgiveness, Love as Fruit [00:07:42] Jesse Schwamb: What a beautiful, tiny, deep, amazing instruction from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So in this just short 10 verses here, it's we're sitting inside. This dinner at Simon, the Pharisees house, and a woman known publicly only as a sinner, has shown some striking love toward Jesus, and Jesus explains her actions. Then through this mini parable of debt, two debtors, one creditor, neither can pay. Both are freely forgiven. Love flows. Then from that forgiveness. And so there's a lot within the reform theological spectrum here that helps us to really understand. I think the essential principles of what's going on here, and I just wanna hit on some of those and chat with you about those and hopefully encourage you in those as I'm trying to encourage myself. First, we get some sense about what sin really is like. We get a sense of the inability to cope with sin. We get the free forgiveness that's grounded in Christ, in Christ alone, and we get this idea of love and repentance as the fruit or the evidence, not the cause of justification. Now to set this whole thing up. [00:08:50] Why Talk About Money? Defining Money as Credit & Clearing [00:08:50] Jesse Schwamb: I do think it's so important for us to talk about money for a second, not money, like we're gonna have a budget talk, not what you spend on groceries or your vacation, not even what you do in terms of planning for your retirement or what you give to the church in way of tithe than offering none of that. I'm actually more interested to talk to you about money itself. One of the things I love to ask people. Especially when I was teaching students in money and finance is the question, what is money? And I bet you if you and I were hanging out across the kitchen table and I asked you, what is money? I'm guessing you would go in one or two directions. Either you would gimme examples of money, types of money. You might talk about the US dollar or the Zimbabwean dollar, or the Euro or the Yuan. That would be correct in a way, but really that's just symptomatic of money because that's just an example or a type of some money that you might use. And of course those definitions are not ubiquitous because if I take my US dollars and I go travel to see our Scott brothers and sisters, more than likely that money. That currency, those dollars will not be accepted in kind. There'd have to be some kind of translation because they're not acceptable in that parts of the world. That's true of most types of money. Or you might go to talking about precious metals and the price of gold or silver and how somehow these seem to be above and beyond the different types of currency or paper, currency in our communities and around our world. And of course, you'd be right as an example of a type of money, but. Gold itself, if you press on it, is not just money, it's describing as some kind of definition of what money is. The second direction you might take is you might describe for me all the things that money is like its attributes. Well, it must be accepted generally as a form of currency. It might must be used to discharge debt or to pay taxes, or it must have a store of value and be able to be used as a medium of exchange. And you would be correct about all of those things as well because. Probably, whether you know it or not, you're an expert in money because you have to use it in some way to transact in this lifetime. But even those are again, just attributes. It's not what money is in its essential first principle. So this is not like an economics lecture, I promise, but I think it is something that Jesus is actually truly drawing us to, and that is the best definition of money I can give, is money is a system of credit accounts and their clearing. It's a whole system of credit accounts and their clearing. So think of it like this, every time you need something from somebody else. Anytime you wanna buy something or you wanna sell something, what's happening there is somebody is creating a claim. So let's say that I go to the grocery store and I fill up the cart with all kinds of fruits and vegetables and meats, and I'm at the counter to check out. What I've just done is said that I have all of these things I would like to take from the grocery store, and now the grocery store has some kind of claim because they're handing them over to me and I need a way to settle that claim. And the way that I settle that claim is using money. It is the method that allows us to settle those transactions. And in my particular instance, it's going to be the US dollar, or maybe it's just ones and zeros electronically, of course representing US dollars. But in this case, the way I settle it is with money and a particular type of money. But, and I want you to keep this in mind 'cause we're gonna come back to it. This is my whole setup for this whole thing. The reason why this is important is because you have to have the type of money. That will settle the debt or settle the creditor. You have to have the thing itself that the creditor demands so that you can be a hundred percent released from the claim that they have on you. If you do not have exactly a. The type of money that they desire, then the debt will not be released. The creditor will not be satisfied. You will not go free, and that it's so critically important.  [00:12:52] Sin as Objective Debt: God Names the Claim [00:12:52] Jesse Schwamb: I think it's just like this really plain backdrop to what's happening here When Jesus addresses Simon with this whole parable. So he starts this whole idea by saying to Simon that he is something to say to him, which I think in a way is profound anyway, because Simon invites him to speak. But Jesus here is taking the initiative. Simon is the host. He socially, as it were, above this sinful woman. But Jesus becomes the true examiner of the heart in this parable. What we have is. Christ's word interrupts self-justifying narratives, and clearly there was a self-justifying narrative going on in Simon's head. We know this because we're privy to his thoughts in the text here. The gospel does not wait here for the Pharisee to figure it out, the gospel lovingly correct. Always goes in, always initiates, always intervenes as Christ intercedes. And here, before any accounting happens, Jesus sets the terms. God is the one who names the debt, not the debtor. And this really is probably the beating hearts, the center of gravity of this whole exchange. I love that Jesus goes to this parable. Of a money lender, a money lender who had two debtors, one owned, 500, one owned 50. Now of course, I would argue that really, you can put this in any currency, you can translate into modern terms, you can adjust it for inflation. It doesn't really matter. What we have here is one relatively small debt, another debt 10 times the size. So one small, one large, and that's the juxtaposition. That's the whole setup here. And I would submit to you something super important that Jesus does here, which flies in the face of a lot of kind of just general wishy-washy evangelicalism that teaches us somehow that sin is just not doing it quite right, or is just a little brokenness, or is just in some way just slightly suboptimal or missing the mark. It is those things, but it is not the entirety of those things because what's clear here is that Jesus frames sin as debt. In other words, it's an objective liability. A liability is just simply something of value that you owe to somebody else. And I am going to presume that almost everybody within an earshot of my voice here all over the world has at some point incurred debt. And I think there's, there's lots of great and productive reasons to incur debt. Debt itself is not pejorative. That would be a whole nother podcast. We could talk about. Maybe Tony and I sometime, but. What is true is that debt is an objective liability. The amounts differ, but both are genuinely in the red here. And what's critical about this is that because debt is this objective reality, whenever you enter into an arrangement of debt, let's say that you borrow some money to purchase a car or home or simply to make some kind of purchase in your life, that's unsecured debt. In all of those cases, the. The one lending you the money, the creditor now has a claim on you. What's important to understand here is that this kind of thing changes it. It provides way more color and contrast to really the effects of what sin is and what sin does in its natural accountability. And so in this way we have this nuance that there are differences in outward sin and its social consequences. That is for sure that's how life works, but all sin is ultimately against God and makes us debtors to divine justice. That is now God has a claim against us. And this shouldn't make sense because unless we are able to satisfy that claim, all have that claim against them all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And as a result of this, it's not just that we somehow have lived a way that is just slightly off the mark and suboptimal, but instead that we've heaped up or accumulated for ourselves an objective liability, which is truly. Owed to God and because it is truly owed him, he's the one who can only truly satisfy it. This is why the scripture speak of God as being both just and justifier. That is a just creditor ensures that the debt is paid before it is released, and the one who is justifier is the one who pays that debt to ensure it will be released. God does both of these things through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Praise be to his name. So here we have a really true understanding. Of what sin is. There's no mincing of words here. There's a ubiquity in all of our worlds about money lending and borrowing, and Christ leans into that heavily. We know for a fact that the ancient Mesopotamians learned how to calculate interests before they figured out to put wheels on car. And so this idea of lending and borrowing and indebtedness, this whole concept has an ancient pedigree, and Jesus leans into this. And so we have this really lovely and timeless example of drawing in the spiritual state into the very physical or financial state to help us understand truly what it means when we incur sin. Sin is not easily discharged, and just like debt, it stands over us, has a claim on us, and we need somebody to satisfy that claim on our behalf. By the way, this gets me back to this reoccurring theme of we need the right currency, we need the right money, as it were to satisfy this debt only that which is acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Our Lord, by the power of the Holy Spirit is what will be acceptable in payment in full for this kind of debt. And so that's again, this whole setup, it's the spiritual realm being immediately kind of dragged into this corporal reality of the balance sheet, assets and liabilities, things of value that we owe to someone else. [00:18:50] Unable to Repay: Free Cancellation, Justification by Grace [00:18:50] Jesse Schwamb: Notice in Luke verse 42, that the reason why it's important to understand the full ferocity, the ferocious of sin and the weight of the debt that it incurs upon us, is that it cannot be repaid no matter what. So look at both of these borrowers. Neither could repay. Neither could repay. So think about that for a second. It doesn't even matter how much they owed. Both were way beyond their ability. It's not merely they didn't want to, but they didn't have the resources in the spiritual state. In other words, there was no surplus righteousness to pay God back and the creditor's action here is free cancellation grace, not a negotiated settlement, but free cancellation. So whether it was 50 or 500, it was irrelevant to the fact that these borrowers just like you and I, have nothing within our means, our wherewithal to actually satisfy the this cosmic debt that we have rightfully incurred against God. And so you should be hearing this align so closely with justification By Grace, God doesn't forgive because we eventually scraped together payment. He forgives because he's gracious and in the full biblical picture because Christ pays and bears that penalty. So this isn't, we have somehow, as you've heard, sometimes in kinda very again, wishy-washy, evangelical ways that we've somehow come forward at the right time. To receive from God some kind of gift or that we've somehow elevated ourself to the place of the deserving poor, or that we come with our own extended arms, empty, but outstretched so that we might receive something from God, in part because we make ourselves present before him, not loved ones. It's far better than that. It's not being able to pay and Christ saying, come and buy. Not being able to put food on the table and him saying, come and eat. It's him saying, you who are thirsty, come and drink from the fountain of life freely and unreservedly. Not because you have some way deserved it, because in fact you desperately do not. And because God has made a way in Christ a way that we could not make for ourselves, he's paid a debt that we just could not repay. It doesn't matter what it is that you think is outstanding against you. The fact of the matter is you cannot repay it. And so of course, that's why Paul writes in Ephesians, it's by grace through faith and not by works that you've been set free in the love of the Kingdom of Christ, that all of these things have been given to you by God because he loves you and because he's made a way for you. You may remember that when Tony and I spent some time in the Lord's Prayer. That we really settled, we sunk down into what we thought was the best translation of that portion where we come to forgiving debts and forgiving debtors, and we settled on that one because we feel it's the most accurate representation of the actual language there in the text. But two, because that language also comports with all this other teaching of Jesus, this teaching that. Emphasizes the debt nature of sin, and that when we think about the fact that we in fact have a giant loan or a lease or an outstanding obligation, something that has been that our souls ourselves in a way have been mortgaged. And we need a freedom that breaks that mortgage, that wants to take that paper and to satisfy the payment and then to throw it into the fire so that it's gone and no more upon us. That because of all of that, it's appropriate for us to pray that we be forgiven our debts, and that, that we, when we understand that there's been a great debt upon us, that we are willing to look at others and forgive our debtors as well. And so you'll see that in, I'd say it looks like verse 43 here, Simon answers. Jesus question appropriately. Jesus basically pegs him with this very simple, straightforward, and probably really only one answer question, which is, which one do you think loved the creditor more? Which of these borrowers was more ecstatic, which appreciated what had been done more? And of course he says, well, the one with the larger debt, that that seems absolutely obvious. And Jesus essentially here gets Simon to pronounce judgment and then turns that judgment into a mirror. This is brilliantly what Jesus often does with these parables, and to be honest, loved ones. I think he still is doing that today with us. Even those of us who are familiar with these parables, they're always being turned into a mirror so that when we look into the, the text we see ourselves, but like maybe whatever the opposite of like the picture of the Dorian Gray is like, well, maybe it's the same as the picture. You know, this idea that we're seeing the ugliness of ourselves in the beauty of Christ as he's presenting the gospel in this passage. And the issue of course here is not whether you and I or Simon can do math. It's whether Simon will accept the implication and you and I as well, that we are a debtor who cannot repay. That. That's just the reality of the situation.  [00:23:44] The Mirror Turns: Simon's Little Love vs Her Overflowing Gratitude [00:23:44] Jesse Schwamb: And so Jesus turns then, and this is remarkable, he turns toward the woman and he compares her actions with Simon's lack of hospitality, speaking to Simon while he stares intently at the woman. I mean, the drama unfolding in this quick small little passage is exceptional. It's extraordinary. And unlike some of the. Other teachings that we've already looked at here, there is something where Jesus is teaching and acting at the same time. That is the scripture is giving us some direct indication of his movements, of his direction, of his attentional focus. And here there's an attentional focus on the woman while he speaks to Simon the Pharisee. And first what we find is Jesus dignifies the woman by addressing Simon about her while looking at her. He makes the sinner central and the respectable man answerable. That's wild. And there's an angle here that still leads us back to debt, which is Simon behaves like someone who thinks that he is little debt. So he offers little love and the woman behaves like someone who knows she's been rescued from insolvency, and so she pours out gratitude. And then there's a whole host, a little list here, a litany of things that Jesus essentially accuses Simon of directly and pulls them back into this proper understanding of the outpouring of affection. That is a fruit of justification exemplified in the woman's behavior. For instance, Simon gave no kiss, and yet here's this woman. She has not stopped kissing Jesus' feet and then wiping her feet, washing his feet with her tears.  [00:25:19] Grace Received, Love Expressed (Not Earned) [00:25:19] Jesse Schwamb: Of course, in that culture, Simon withheld this ordinary honor and the woman lavish is extraordinary affection. You know, we would often call this an reformed theology, evangelical obedience. It's the kind that flows from faith and gratitude, not a plan to earn acceptance. And this is tough for us, loved ones because we want to conflate these two. It's easy to conflate these two, and we're well-meaning sometimes when we do that. But we have to be careful in understanding that there is an appropriate response of loving worship to one who has set you free. While at the same time understanding that that loving worship never should spill over and, and into any kind of self-proclaimed pride or meritorious earning. And this woman apparently does this so exceptionally well that Jesus calls it out, that all of this is flowing from her faith and her gratitude. Jesus says, Simon didn't anoint his head with oil and she anoints his feet with perfume again. Notice some really interesting juxtaposition in terms of the top and the bottom of the body here. Here's this woman's costly act, underscoring a pattern, grace received, produces love expressed. I love thinking of it that way. Grace, perceived, excuse me, grace received produces love expressed.  [00:26:39] Sin as Crushing Debt: Why It Must Be Paid [00:26:39] Jesse Schwamb: That is the point that Jesus is driving to here, that if we understand the gospel and the gospel tells us that there is a law. That we have transgressed and that this law has accumulated in all of this debt that we cannot pay. And so the weight of this means not just that, oh, it's, it's so hard to have debt in our lives. Oh, it's so annoying and inconvenient. No, instead it's oppressive. This debt itself, this grand burden is over our heads, pushing down on our necks, weighting us down in every way, and especially in the spiritual realm. And because of this, we would be without hope, unless there was one who could come and release us from this debt. And the releasing of this debt has to be, again, an A currency acceptable to the debtor, and it has to actually be paid. There's no wiping away. There's no just amnesty for the sake of absolve. Instead, it must be satisfied. And the woman here has received this kind of extraordinary grace has acknowledged, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, through opened eyes and unstopped ears and a clean heart, has been able to understand the severity of the situation. And then this produces in her love expressed, which again is not the means of her justification, but certainly is one of the fruit of it. And Jesus explains then the reason for her response.  [00:27:58] Forgiveness First: Clearing Up Luke 7's Logic [00:27:58] Jesse Schwamb: The reason why Grace received produces love expressed is because she and her many sins have been forgiven. Hence, her love is great, love the one forgiven, little forgives little. I think sometimes that verse is often misunderstood as if. Her love caused her forgiveness. But again, we want to hear clearly from Jesus on this. The logic he gives is forgiveness, leading to love. Love is evidence or fruits. And so her love is the sign that forgiveness has already been granted and is truly possessed, not the purchase price. And Simon's Lovelessness exposes a heart still clinging to self-righteousness, acting like a small debtor who doesn't even need mercy, like one who doesn't understand that they will never, ever be able to repay the thing that is over them. You know, I love that John Val is often quoted along the lines of something like this. Those forgiven much will love much. And in his writing to me, he captures so much of this moral psychology of grace and I think there is a psychology of grace here. There is a reasonable response. That moves us by the power of the Holy Spirit, from deep within this renewal of the man, such that we express our love to God in all kinds of ways. I think especially in our age, on the Lord's day, in acts of singing through worship and meditation, through worship, and listening through worship and application, through worship, all of these means in particular as our expression of what it means to have been received, having received grace, producing a loving response. [00:29:36] "Your Sins Are Forgiven": Jesus' Divine Authority [00:29:36] Jesse Schwamb: I love that all of this ends as it draws to a close. Jesus speaks these incredible words. He tells her that her sins are forgiven. You know, notice here that Christ speaks an authoritative verdict. This is justifying speech. It's God's court declaration. It's not some like mere the therapeutic. Like reassurance here. It's not like whistling in the dark. It's Jesus himself saying This woman has been forgiven. Blessed is the one whose sins are forgiven. And of course, like so many other times in Jesus' ministry, and I have to imagine by the way, loved ones that this question got asked all the time, and not just on the occasion in which it was a court of us in scripture, but the other guests ask the right question and that question is. Who is this? Who even forgives sins, and that is the right question. Only God can forgive sins against God. Jesus is implicitly claiming divine authority. Now, we finally arrived. This is God's currency. This is the currency or the money, so to speak, that is desperately needed, the only one acceptable to discharge the debt, the cosmic treason that has been done against God himself. So because of that, here's Jesus making the claim that the way that you are led out, the way that you are set free is through me. So even here in the course of just this confronting Simon speaking about sin, he's also providing the way he's saying, I am this way, I am this truth. I am this life. Come through me. [00:31:14] Jesus the Greater Moses: The Gospel as Exodus [00:31:14] Jesse Schwamb: What I find amazing about this is in the beginning. With Adam and Eve, they transgress God's law. And from that day in all days forth, we have been building this massive sin, debt that we cannot repay. And part of the, the repercussions of that debt were for Adam and Eve to be driven to be Exodus as it were, out of the garden. And ever since then, the grand narrative of the redemptive history of God's people has been an exodus instead. Not out of what is idyllic, not out of perfection, but instead. Out of sin, out of bondage, out of sin and death and the devil and the deaths that we have incurred. And so here we have Jesus representing. He is the, the new and better Moses, he is the exodus, so to speak, who comes and grabs us by the hand almost as in the same way that the angelic representations in the story of la. And Sonor grabbed his hand to pull him, maybe even kicking him, screaming. Out of that sinful place, into the glorious light, into safety and security out from underneath this grand debt that we cannot repay. I think of Jesus's acal meeting with Moses and Elijah on the mounts of transfiguration. That's also in Luke, right? And Luke tells us that they spoke of his deceased, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. And the word deceased there literally means Exodus. In Jesus, God would affect an infinitely greater deliverance than he had under Moses. And then interestingly, we see that even in all the way back in Psalm 23, you know David, he's writing as a rescue sinner who has been brought out. Brought to the Heavenly Shepherd, into the security and freedom of a sheep hold in love ones I submit to you. That is what Jesus is after here. He's after it in your life and he's after in mind that there is death, and he wants to take us out from underneath that debt by paying it off that he is the rescuer, the one who is just and justifier that he's the greater Moses, and that he leads us into Exodus. So we are transferred into the kingdom of a light. And that kingdom of light is also a kingdom of lightness in the sense that what was once a burden on our back, like it was for Pilgrim, has now been taken off. And so we are free. In that freedom, in that financial freedom, in that spiritual freedom as it were, to use both of the sides of this metaphor. What we find is our response is appropriately one of worship, that we weep and we cry for who we were, that we rejoice for who God is, and that we come proudly into His kingdom because of what he has done. And this changes us. It messes us up. You know, I think we've said before that. The joy of the Christian life of Christian lives is that the transformation process that God undertakes in each of us is very different, and some honestly are more dramatic than others. But what I think is always dramatic is one, the scripture tells us that it is a miracle. That even one would be saved. So hardhearted are we, and again, so great this debt against us that when God intervenes all get what they deserve. But some get mercy. And if we have been the ones who have received mercy, how joyful ought we to be toward the one who has granted it to us? And so here we have Christ, the the one who delivers, the one who leads out, the one who pays off, the one who pays it all.  [00:34:45] Behold the Cross: What Sin Costs, What Love Pays [00:34:45] Jesse Schwamb: I think what's clear is that the cross gives us this sense when we look upon it of just how deep and dark and heavy sin is, and that there is no easy way out of it. That what we find is that sin constantly wants to drag us down. It constantly wants to take us farther than we wanted to go, and it certainly costs us way more than we were willing to pay. So I think if we come and we behold the wood, if we behold the nails, if we look on this crown pressed into the brow that knew no guilt or disobedience, if we, not in our mind's eye, but by faith, behold, the hands that open, the blind eyes now being opened by iron. If we see the feet. Walked toward the hurting, now fixed in place for the healing of the world. If we look at the thirst of the one who is living water and the hunger of the one who is the bread of life, we ought to see the one who here, even in this passage, is just and justifier, and he invites us to say with him, come witness the death of death in the death of Jesus Christ. That is the glorious mission, right? As as, um, Horatio Spafford said, my sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought. My sin not in part, but the whole is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Oh my soul of ones. This is the beauty of, I think of what Jesus is, is teaching here. It's the lamb. It's the one promise on the mountain provided in place of Isaac. It's the Passover marked with Crimson death passing over doors that were covered. Here's the suffering. Servant despised and rejected a man of sorrows. Who here is one who is truly well acquainted with grief? When we see Jesus lifted up, lifted up on the cross, lifted up between heaven and earth. Here the instrument of exalted torment but also unexpected triumph, the perfect God man, lifted up between earth and heaven, lifted up in shame so that we might be lifted up in grace, lifted up in cursing. We might be lifted up in blessing lifted up in Forsakenness so that we might be lifted up in divine communion with God the father lifted up to be stared at as he presents himself here, so that we could finally see what sin costs and what love pays. That is everything that he's teaching us in this passage, and I hope that you are as encouraged about this as I am because. When I think about the gospel framed in this way with the full severity of its repercussions, thinking about sin as debt objectively as a liability, that must be satisfied. My heart is instantly warmed, and I think the warming of that is not because this manufactured some kind of sentimentality around this, but there is something about this that's so resonant to me that in my professional career, in my business, I'm intimately familiar with, with debt and understanding how to manage it, but also the dangers of it. And what a liability it truly is. And so when I hear that sin not just is like this, but is this way, it makes complete sense to me and I see that this is really the, the true way that we ought to understand, I think the gospel message.  [00:38:18] Key Takeaways: Debt, Currency, and Canceling the Ledger [00:38:18] Jesse Schwamb: So here's what we should remember. Debt highlights objective guilt. I think I've said that a bunch of times and I just feel like it's, it bears repeating one last time. Sin is not only damage, it is consequences, but it's also a liability. A creditor doesn't need to be convinced you did harm. The ledger already stands and the ledger against us is not on our side. Loved ones. We are deeply in the red, and it really doesn't matter what the balance is because we just cannot repay. So it's really about our lack of ability, our inability, the no, we have no capability to pay this, and so it doesn't matter. We find ourselves in a place of hopelessness no matter what, and this debt highlights that inability none of these particular borrowers could repay. It's devastating to moral pride. We lean on this in our reform theological perspective. Even our best works can't erase guilt or generate merit sufficient to square the accounts. It's impossible. It's impossible with two ways, and this is some, I think really like the beautiful nuance of what Jesus after here in the one way that we are enabled to do this. Is because we just actually cannot earn enough. So in other words, the debt is too big. So think of the biggest number in your head that you could possibly think of, and that's at least minimally the outstanding debt. But then think about this. You don't even have the right currency. So you might find that you spend your entire lifetime working to the bone. It's like finding out that you have a million dollar loan or lien against you, and you work hard all your life, 50, 60, 70 years. And finally, on your deathbed, you've assembled enough cash with all of your savings to put toward and finally satisfy. So you might die in peace with this $1 million free and clear from your account, and you turn over the money and the creditor says, what is this currency? I won't accept this. I can't accept this. How debilitating. So it's not even the size of the debt. It's also that we don't have, we cannot earn the right currency. Only. God. God. I think this debt also highlights grace as cancellation. Forgiveness is not God pretending the debt doesn't exist. It is God releasing the debtor. This is him in triumph, being the greater Moses who walks us out through the waters outside of the city into the glorious light and the broader New Testament explains how God can do that justly. The charge is dealt with through Christ. You can go check out Colossians two. Read the whole thing of Love it. It's fantastic. I think lastly, this debt explains love, as shall we say, like a downstream effect. People love a little when they imagine that they have little needs and people love much when they were spiritually bankrupt and then freely pardoned freely in that it didn't cost you and I anything, but of course it cost our Lord and Savior everything, and so. In this way, our hopes to frame the fact that our love should be an outpouring of gratitude, uh, for the grace that God has given us through Jesus Christ.  [00:41:28] Putting It Into Practice: Don't Compare Debts, Watch for "Simon Symptoms" [00:41:28] Jesse Schwamb: Here's some things I would say that we should all walk away with to help us then both process what we've talked about here, and also put some of this into action. First thing would be, don't measure your need by comparing debts horizontally. That's a fool's errand, whether 50 or 500. The point is we cannot pay. And this levels the Pharisee and the prostitute alike. That is like Tony talked about elsewhere in the previous Luke 15, where we're talking about the PR prodigal of the father, the prodigal of the two lost sons. How there's like a great insult against the Pharisee there. And here's the insult, it's also a little bit cutting to us, and again, that the Pharisee and the prostitute are alike. Can't repay. It Doesn't matter what debt you think you have in the corporal sense, or again in this horizontal means, but you cannot repay it. And so therefore, guess what? We're all like, we need to let forgiveness lead and we need to let love follow. If you reverse that order like I'll love so I can be forgiven. You crush assurance and you turn the gospel into wages and that's again exactly I think what Jesus is against in this. He's making that very clear. The, the beauty of the gospel is this receiving that Christ has done all these things that we, uh, find ourselves by his arresting, by again, his intervening by his coming forward. He does all this on our behalf. You've heard me say before, I always like take that old phrase, what would Jesus do? That question that was on everybody's bracelets and everybody's minds and what, two decades ago? And turn that answer into what would Jesus do? Everything And it's already done. We need to watch for Simon symptoms. That's my clever way of saying this, like low love, high judgment. A chilly heart toward Christ often signals a warm heart towards self justification. And so we wanna be about the kind of people that are closely king, clinging to Jesus Christ as all of our hope and stay that the strength for today and hope for tomorrow comes from what Christ has already accomplished on our behalf. And therefore, there is a dutiful and meaningful and appropriate response for us. But that response again, is not obedience for merit. It is obedience out of warm heartedness for our savior. And for a sincere repentance because a sincere repentance is not payment. It's agreement with God about the debt. Tears, don't cancel the ledger. Christ does that. Tears are what debtors do when Mercy lands, and I think in some way the challenge here is that have we really meditated on the life of this woman and then more personally on our own experiences on what it means to be saved? Well, I'm not asking you to get yourself worked up into an emotional state, but what I am asking all of us to do is. Have we spent enough time recently meditating on what it means that Christ has set us free, that we are incredible debtors, and that Christ in our own ledger in this way hasn't just wiped out the debt, but he's filled up the account with righteousness. And so we can exchange these horrible soiled garments for garments of praise. Now, have we thought about that recently? The call here is to be reminded. That sincere repentance is an agreement with God about the debt, and in that agreement we're sensing that weight. There should be a response.  [00:44:42] Final Charge + Community & Support (Telegram / Patreon) [00:44:42] Jesse Schwamb: So I leave it to you loved ones, you've heard it here, or at least you've heard me talk for a little while about this parable. And maybe one day, maybe there'll be an episode one day about Tony's perspective on this, which I can't imagine will be too much different. But again, I saw my opportunity, loved ones. I said, oh, I'm gonna sneak in hard on this one because this one is particularly meaningful and special to me, and I hope that even though it involved a little bit of economics and maybe a lot of finance, that it didn't lose its resonance with you. I think this is the great weight of the way in which Jesus teaches that he's not just using practical means. But he's using these things to give greater weight and flesh, as it were, to these concepts of a spiritual nature that sometimes feel ephemeral. Instead, he wants them to sink in heaviness upon us. And I wanna be clear that. This whole parable is both law and gospel. It is the weightiness and the sharp edge knife of the law which cuts against us. And Jesus throwing his weight around literally at this dinner party and in this parable, and you and I should feel that weight. It should knock us around a little bit. And then. And then comes the reminder that there is good news and that good news, which is the gospel of Jesus Christ, is that he has made a way that the debt that was incurred against us, that we ourselves added to, that we continue to want to try to borrow against, that Jesus has, in fact paid that debt in full and that he's done so in the currency of his own flesh and blood and his own passive and active obedience so that it may be paid in full. It's true what the hymn says. Jesus paid it all, all to him. I owe. So I hope loved ones that you'll be encouraged with that message that it is both law and gospel, but it ends in this high and elevated state, which is we have been made together alive with Christ for his own sake, for his glory, and for our good. So now that you know that go out into the world and live that way, meditate on that, enjoy that. Talk about it with a family member or a brother and sister, or you can talk about it with us. You didn't think that we'd get this far without me even a plug for telegram, did you? So if you. Haven't listened to us before, or if this is your 480th time, I say welcome and also come hang, hang out with us online. You can do that by going to your browser and putting in there. T me slash reformed brotherhood. T. Dummy slash reformed brotherhood, and that will take you to a little app called Telegram, which is just a messaging app. And we have a closed community in there, which you can preview and then become a part of. And there's lots of lovely brothers, sisters from all over the world interacting, talking about the conversations we're having here, sharing prayer requests, sharing memes, talking about life tasting foods on video. It's really. Absolutely delightful, and I know you want to be a part of it, so come hang out. It's one other thing you can do. If at any point you felt like this podcast, the conversations have been a blessing to you, may I ask a favor, something at least for you to consider, and that is there are all kinds of expenses to make sure that this thing keeps going on. Keeps going strong. And there are brothers and sisters who after they've satisfied their financial obligations, have said, I want to give a little bit to that. So if you've been blessed, I'm what I can I boldly ask that you might consider that it's so many people giving so many tiny little gifts because all of these things compound for God's glory in the kingdom. And if you're interested in giving to us one time or reoccurring, here's a website for you to check out. It's patreon.com. Reform Brotherhood, P-A-T-R-E-O n.com, reform slash reform brotherhood. Go check that out. Alright, that's it. Loved ones, you know what to do. Until next time, honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. 
• The Prodigal Son's Father: God's Unconditional Love and Divine Initiative 09.02.2026 1ч 4мин

  In this profound exploration of Luke 15, Tony Arsenal and Jesse Schwamb complete their examination of the Parable of the Prodigal Son by focusing on the often-overlooked central figure: the father. Rather than a sentimental character, the father serves as a revelatory figure who demonstrates God's nature toward returning prodigals and resentful religious people alike. This episode challenges common misinterpretations of the parable, particularly regarding the father's running to meet his son, and explores how the parable simultaneously confronts both antinomianism and legalism. The hosts demonstrate how the father's love—not the son's repentance—is the driving force of redemption, offering vital insights into God's character and the nature of grace that should transform how we understand salvation and our relationship with the Heavenly Father. Key Takeaways The Father is the Keystone: The father, not the sons, is the central, load-bearing character of the parable, revealing God's character and serving as the foundation for understanding the entire narrative. Divine Initiative Precedes Human Response: The father's compassion and action are described before the son completes his confession, demonstrating that God's mercy initiates reconciliation rather than being triggered by repentance. The Father's "Running" Represents Condescension, Not Embarrassment: Contrary to popular interpretations, the father's running should be understood as divine condescension—God crossing the distance sin creates—rather than undignified self-abasement. God's Love Drives the Plan of Redemption: The parable corrects the theological error of pitting the Son against the Father, showing instead that the Father's love is the motivating force behind salvation (John 3:16). The Parable Confronts Two Errors Simultaneously: Jesus addresses both the younger son's rebellion (antinomianism) and the older son's self-righteousness (legalism), showing that both require the same gracious response from the Father. Wrath is God's "Alien Work": The father shows no wrath in the parable, illustrating that while God's wrath against sin is real, it is not his primary disposition—love and grace are central to his nature. The Insanity of Not Rejoicing: The shocking element of the parable isn't the father's celebration but the older brother's refusal to join it, directly confronting the Pharisees' attitude toward sinners being welcomed into God's kingdom. Key Concepts The Father's Compassion and the Nature of Grace The parable reveals that the father's compassion is active before any condition is met by the returning son. When the text says "while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion," we witness divine initiative in action. This sequence matters tremendously for our understanding of grace. The son had prepared a speech—a negotiation for hired servant status—but the father's embrace interrupts the transaction. Grace is not extracted from God by human improvement or the quality of our repentance; it flows from God's own character and will. This theological reality guards against both presumption and despair. We cannot presume upon grace as though sin doesn't matter—the father clearly identifies the son's condition as "death" and "lostness." Yet neither can we despair that our repentance might be insufficient to move God—his love precedes and enables our return. As Ephesians 1:4-6 declares, God chose us "before the foundation of the world...according to the pleasure of His goodwill." The father's running illustrates what was true before time began: God's saving disposition originates in himself, not in us. Condescension versus Decorum: Rethinking the Father's Run Much scholarship has emphasized the supposed shame of a patriarch running, suggesting this represents God's willingness to be embarrassed for our sake. However, this interpretation may miss the mark. The running should be understood as condescension—God stooping to save—rather than a violation of decorum. Throughout Scripture, God is described as "bearing Israel up as a man carries his son" (Deuteronomy 1:31) and having compassion that "grows warm" (Hosea 11:8). These are images of condescension: the infinite God making himself accessible to finite creatures. The distinction matters because it shapes how we understand God's character. If the father's running is primarily about embarrassment, the focus remains on cost to dignity. But if it's about condescension, the focus shifts to the nature of love that bridges distance. Any parent who has seen a long-lost child return understands this instinct—you don't calculate dignity; you simply run. The father's action isn't surprising or unusual given the circumstances; what's shocking is the older brother's refusal to share in the joy. This interpretation better fits the parable's context and Jesus's purpose in telling it to the Pharisees. The Father's Love as the Engine of Redemption Perhaps the most crucial theological correction this parable offers concerns the relationship between the Father and the Son in the economy of salvation. Some theological circles wrongly pit "the wrathful Father" against "the loving Son," as though Jesus came to change the Father's mind about sinners. This parable demolishes that error. The father's love is the initiating force of the entire narrative. Before the son returns, the father is disposed to welcome him. Before the older son rejects the celebration, the father goes out to plead with him. This reflects the biblical pattern consistently: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son" (John 3:16)—the Father's love gives the Son. The covenant of redemption originates in the Father's love for the elect. The incarnation, atonement, and application of redemption all flow from the Father's initiative. Wrath, while real and righteous, is God's "alien work"—not foreign to him, but not his primary disposition either. The father in the parable displays nothing but gracious intention toward both sons, never manipulated into love, never coerced into mercy, but freely extending restoration because it flows from who he is. Memorable Quotes The love of God the Father is the motivating factor that drives the whole plan of redemption...So it's God the Father's love that drives the whole plan of salvation. The whole covenant of redemption is initiated in light of the Father's love. - Tony Arsenal The father in this archway is the keystone. He's the load-bearing character in this whole parable. He's not just a sentimental figure, he's a revelatory figure. He shows us what God is like toward returning prodigals and toward resentful older brothers. - Jesse Schwamb The point that the parable is making is that the love of this father drives him to exert himself and close that distance...There is never a point in the parable where there's anything shown by the father except for love for his people. - Tony Arsenal Full Transcript [00:00:08] Tony Arsenal: In a lot of theological circles, this takes the form of pitting the son against the father, like God, the Son against God, the Father the son placated the father. Because the father was wrathful and angry, so Jesus had to come down and die and now the Father can love us. The reality is the love of God the father, is the motivating factor that drives the plan of redemption, and that's the same love of the Son and the same love of the spirit. In the most famous verse in the Bible, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that's God the Father  So it's God the Father's love that drives the whole plan of salvation. The whole covenant of redemption is initiated in light of the Father's love [00:00:53] Jesse Schwamb: Welcome to episode 479 of The Reformed Brotherhood. I'm Jesse.  [00:01:00] Tony Arsenal: And I'm Tony. And this is the podcast with ears to hear. Hey brother.  [00:01:05] Jesse Schwamb: Hey brother.  [00:01:06] Discussing the Parable of the Lost Son [00:01:06] Jesse Schwamb: We've been famously in the parable of the Lost Son or The Lost Sons. Or the father. Everybody knows this. And today on this episode, we're at least gonna close out our conversation about Luke Chapter 15. And I think everybody should just imagine that this parable is like a grand stone archway that's being constructed in such a way that it has to bear its own weight. And the father in this archway is the keystone. He's the load-bearing character in this whole parable. He's not just like a sentimental figure, he's a revelatory figure. He shows us what God is like toward returning prodigals and toward resentful older brothers. And Jesus uses this to fire up our understanding of the kingdom and the gospel, and also to fire up the scribes and the Sadducees. So we're talking about the Father on this episode, and he's rightfully the culminating character here. He's the keystone. So we're gonna get to arch building, keytones load bearing stuff, all the engineering that you wanted us to talk about in this parable. First we, we gotta do that thing. We just gotta do it, Tony. [00:02:16] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, we do.  [00:02:17] Affirmations and Denials [00:02:17] Jesse Schwamb: It's affirmations and denial. So are you, and your excitement is palpable. Are you affirming or are you denying against,  [00:02:24] Tony Arsenal: I'm denying something tonight? It's a little bit heavy.  [00:02:26] Political Discourse and Christian Perspective [00:02:26] Tony Arsenal: Um, we haven't, and, and we don't typically wade into political discourse or what's going on in politics. Um, that's just not really our, our lane. And that's not that there's anything wrong with shows that do, or that there's anything wrong with Christians who want to be involved in political discourse. It's just not really our thing. But, um, you know, I, I grew up in Minneapolis and I have family still in Minneapolis and I was texting with my sister the other day who, um, lives and works right in downtown Minneapolis. And so I think, I think what I'm denying is not necessarily anything related directly to ICE or to the political positions. Um, what I see online. Is that there is a. Bifurcation. There are, there seems to be, and I think this is probably just the, like the nature of online discourse. So I don't think this is necessarily the way it is in the real world, but what I see online is there seems to be sort of progressive leaning Christians who are totally anti-ice. This is the worst thing ever. Um, you know, nobody who's being arrested and deported deserves it and all of the ice people here, but that's one perspective. And then what I tend to see on the other side is ice is like God's righteous warriors and everyone who they scoop up it deserves it no matter what. And they can do no wrong. And, uh. I am not making a commentary. Um, if you want to ask me directly in, in privately what I think about it, I, I'm happy to have a conversation. I'm not doing that right now. Um, I have no commentary on the legality of the, the deportations or the legality of the way they're conducting arrests. That's just, I'm just not interested in talking about that on, on a podcast. But what I do think is challenging and what I think we need to think about as Christians is there is a real.  [00:04:24] Reflecting on Suffering and Compassion [00:04:24] Tony Arsenal: Human cost associated with what's going on, and there are lives, um, that are affected and there are people who are scared. I, I think where this really hit me is I just texted my sister to, you know, to tell her that I was praying for her and, and get sort of a general check-in. And she shared with me, and I'm sure that this is not unique to her context. She shared with me that she has, uh, colleagues at, uh, her place of employment, um, who are, are American citizens born in the us, born to citizens. Like there's no question about their citizenship. Um, and they are afraid to leave their home and afraid to go to work. Again, I'm not making any commentary on whether there's illegal things going on. I'm not even making any commentary on whether or not, um, I think it's reasonable for them to be afraid. Um, the fact of the matter is they are afraid to to leave their homes, and some of those people are probably afraid to leave their homes because they feel like ice is going to harass them. Other people are probably afraid to leave their homes because there's a lot of violence and a lot of, uh, unrest going on. But in, in either case, uh, I think we as Christians should look at this and see that there are a lot of hurting people who need Jesus. And there are a lot of people who are scared and there's a lot of people who are suffering real concrete arm all across the whole spectrum of this situations. So as Christians, I think we should be praying that God's will would be done and God does not delight in suffering for, you know, for suffering sake. He doesn't delight in people being hurt or harmed or even emotionally scarred. Um. You know, we have sometimes this picture of God who's so abstract that those things he, that they don't bother him. And that's true from like a strictly theological sense, but we also have to reconcile what the scripture says and what it, what the picture it paints. Um, at the very least, God, uh, reveals himself under the language of grieving, uh, injustice and grieving misery and grieving sorrow and suffering. So we should be a people that reflects that. Uh, although there are times when those things are necessary, both in the life of a Christian and then also as a result of sin in, we, we shouldn't be reveling in it and, and being excited about the fact that this is happening. So I, I might get some heat for this and I guess I don't really care all that much. Um, but I think this polarized like. Every person who's scooped up by ice is, is a terrible, awful criminal. And it doesn't really matter what their story is. And then anyone who's scooped up by ice is just a total victim. And it doesn't really matter what their story is like neither of those polls are true for most of the situations, um, to, you know, the story probably drift towards one side or another, and they're not all like right in the middle. But, um, the, the truth is that the world and life is complex and we shouldn't treat it as though it's, it's simple. It really is not, in most cases,  [00:07:30] Jesse Schwamb: it's a good reminder that there are places that are not here. That there are people, as you said, that are experiencing a different kind of suffering and your rights. Of course, if we're to be the kind of people that even ourselves are taking on our lips that we want to follow our Lord Jesus Christ, then the example that he gives for us is to think about, to identify with. To come alongside in prayer for those that are suffering. I think also for prayer for Christians in those communities to be strong and to exemplify the love of Christ in ways that they can. And so of course, I immediately go to Isaiah 53, and that's also about really the ubiquity of suffering in our world, but this massive desire on the part of God in an unreserved way to identify with that kind of suffering. So in verse four, the famous verses, surely our griefs, he himself bore what? A statement, right? Yeah. Like the grief that we're talking about now, that we're not alone. The grief of those who in the midst of this kind of traumatic, uh, sorrow and our sorrows, he carried. We ourselves steamed him, stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. But he was pierced through for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The chastising for our peace fell upon him, and by his wounds, we are healed. All of us, like sheep have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way, but Yahweh has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on him. And who doesn't have iniquity? All of us do. So this reminder that we serve a God who can parse out and understand the suffering the best, who is both just and justifier, and what is left to us then is to submit to him, to worship him, to pray that in that great grief, that our world experiences, that he himself would draw close as he has already promised to do, and that his spirit would come with both comforts and conviction to bring all his children onto himself, even in difficult situations like this. [00:09:22] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, yeah.  [00:09:25] Affirmations and Denials Continued [00:09:25] Tony Arsenal: Well, on that note, Jesse, are you affirming or denying something? There's no good transition there.  [00:09:30] Jesse Schwamb: No, it, it's heavy. I hear you. And the problem is partly in our culture right now is you can't, I understand your all, all, both of our desires right now to be measured in what we say because maybe we have opinions, maybe we don't. But the bottom line is I'm not sure that opinions even help that much in this type of situation because the complexities involved here. And all I think that's left to say is just that it's hard. And I wish there was more I could do. I, I wish this kind of thing wasn't happening. And I, I understand too. I'm not naive enough to think that's not just happening here, but all over the world, these kind of things take place at any given day. And if, if we are so fortunate not to have to contend with them, then we are just very fortunate and we all take that as blessing. It doesn't mean that we don't have a responsibility to pray and to, I think in some ways try to identify with that suffering if only through our prayers, reminding ourselves that, like you said, we all need to save, we all do. All of us, you and me and all those involved in this, it's absolutely necessary. It's part of what we're talking about tonight, right? We're saying like, Lord God as father, come. Come in your mercy, come quickly, come and heal. Come and restore. Come and make right. Come and judge, come in comfort. That's what we're asking the father to do. So it's, it's heavy, but we need those kind of affirmations and denials from time to time. So I,  [00:10:43] Tony Arsenal: yeah,  [00:10:44] Jesse Schwamb: I appreciate you being willing to bring that into the chat.  [00:10:47] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:10:49] Jesse Schwamb: You want my affirmation into Yeah.  [00:10:51] Tony Arsenal: I feel like I can't, I, I mean, I'll be honest, like I, I think people might be surprised at my overall perspective on this. And again, I'm not gonna get into it here, and, and I really am being honest when I say, like, if you wanna reach out to me privately, I'm, I'm not shy about my perspective on this. I'm happy to share it, but I think it's just heavy. And I felt the same way about this during the George Floyd riots. You know, like I grew up in Minneapolis and. It's been a long time since I've been super familiar with Minneapolis, but, and I, like, I grew up on, on the east side of the cities, which is the St. Paul side. So even, even saying I grew up in Minneapolis is not super accurate, but there are times when I look at the news coverage and I can see I, I recognize the landmarks, I recognize, um, the street layout, and I go, I know what street that is. And there's something, there's something heavier about watching this kind of news coverage and this kind of event when this is the place you grew up. And when, when there are people there that you know, that aren't just names, that they're people with a history, that you're part of their history and they're part of your history, right? There's something heavy about that. And I think what's been impressed on me and maybe why I am, why I am reflective on this is. Even if those people are not a part of our history, they're part of someone's history. Right. They're, they're of  course,  that that person you saw, and, and I'll just say it like again, I'm not making commentary on the rightness or the wrongness or the justified ness or not justified of, uh, the most recent ice involved shooting. Um, but that person had a family like that, that person that was killed was an image bearer and had a family, and he had perspectives and he had opinions, and he was a person who, um. Death is terrible. Like all of those things are true regardless of whether he made a good decision to go out that day or a foolish decision to go out that day, whether he was antagonizing ice or whether he wasn't like whatever the situation was, it's still true that he had a family who is mourning him, um, and he was an image bearer, and now that's done. Like he's, I mean, he's still an image bearer, but like now he's gone and his, his life on earth and his history here is over. And that's a tragedy, like no matter how we slice it, that's a tragedy. And I guess I'm just really sick of people acting as though, and, and I think most people are doing this for. Political posturing reasons. I think people who wanna paint this as though it's good versus evil and that there's only simple answers in this, they're doing it because it suits a political narrative. And I'm not even making a commentary on whether or not that's good or, or wise or bad. Like I, that that's not even the point. But that's a lot of what's driving this. And I, I think as Christians we can be and should be political. I think we should be involved in politics in so far that God calls us to. There's nothing wrong with that. But we, we don't have the liberty to do politics the way the world does politics. If we're gonna be involved in political action, whether that's formally by seeking office or whether that's informally by. Making commentary. We still have to be Christians while we do it. We still have to, we still have to follow God's law while we do it. And that includes both the sixth Commandment and the ninth commandment. All of those things are true. And I guess I'm just really frustrated seeing some Christians or some people who call themselves Christians. I, the only reason I say that is not to necessarily call their salvation into question. It's people who are identifying as Christians. I just have no knowledge of, it's just random screen names on Twitter. Some of them are probably bots, right? But there are people who identify, who are identifying themselves as Christians who are. Acting as though the death of an image bearer is not a tragedy. And, and I, I can't think of a situation even when a hardened criminal is, is executed, even when justice is served by the death of an individual, it's still a tragedy and like a cosmic sense. That's not how it was supposed to be. It's not God's design for humans to perish and to, to, you know, to cease to be like, that's, that's just not the way it's supposed to be. So it's heavy. I do want you to save me and get us out of this. Hopefully you've got some light, fun affirmation to get us back on track, but I've just, just been weighing on me and, and I feel like, I feel like sometimes we do have a platform and we have a responsibility to use it to, to make some statements to, to force us to grapple with these things. I mean, I not like, it's a huge platform. We have like four or 500 regular listeners. It's not like we have a big reach, but we have a reach and we think, I think that has means we have a responsibility too.  [00:15:52] Jesse Schwamb: Also, this is how you and I talk, isn't it?  [00:15:54] Tony Arsenal: It's true. That's also true.  [00:15:56] Jesse Schwamb: This, and we're being true to the fact that we talk about the things that come up, that grieve us, that hurt us, that help us to process our faith and also our struggles in the midst of that faith. [00:16:08] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:16:08] Jesse Schwamb: To make sure that we're honoring the Lord Jesus Christ in like difficult times and difficult circumstances of which again, by some, in almost all relative comparison, it's not that difficult for us, for you and I except that we have to contend with these things. Everybody should. So I think when you bring it forward, you remind us of that. And I, for one, I'm grateful. So in that spirit, I don't know how my. Affirmation or denial could be heavier than that. Like we would, this would take a really weird turn. If I had one that was like, well, hold on, because I wade into so, and part of maybe its lightness is I'm gonna just break the rules. I'm gonna do an affirmation in denial, which used to be the old school method, but the affirmation is like, dry by, you rarely notice it happens. So I'm just gonna drop it real quickly. So I've spoken before about two great series by author Brandon Sanderson, who writes amazing fictions in the fantasy genre. Uh, those two are miss Born in Stormlight Archive. So in case you know him as an author and you've been living under a rock, I just wanna say in passing that Apple TV just picked up, uh, some rights to those two series and they're gonna be making movies and, uh, television series. And I high host because it's Apple and apparently Sanderson is also going to write, produce, and consult and approve and all this stuff. So it's gonna be good. So if you're not into reading. But you've heard me talk about them before. You can just wait and if you are into reading, get super stoked. 'cause you're gonna see people like, you know, VIN and Ellen in person. Apparently it's gonna be great. So that's news in passing. Nothing else. Say  [00:17:36] Tony Arsenal: Vin and Ellen. Like Vin Diesel and Ellen DeGeneres are starring in  [00:17:40] Jesse Schwamb: this show? No, no. Being the character in Ellen. Ellen,  [00:17:45] Tony Arsenal: you're on like a first name basis with Vin and Ellen.  [00:17:48] Jesse Schwamb: Yes. I mean, if you read, I mean, if you know, you know, if you know, you know, so you have time to read, read, miss, board, read Storm, like archive. It's actually, there's a lot of books, but, but I'm super stoked that this is gonna happen. So that was just a, that's the drive by I, I gotta leave it there. We're gonna, I've already drawn like just sped past the house, so here's the real denial. I'm also going denial. It is lighter than yours, Tony, but I think that you'll agree with me, but I'm not entirely sure. So we're gonna find out.  [00:18:13] Cold Weather and Personal Preferences [00:18:13] Jesse Schwamb: So I think the best way I can summarize this denial is like the dislike or vitriol, that's too strong a word, but I'm denying against the, what I think is too much dislike against. The cold weather. So, so hear me out on this in lots of places of the world right now, it's cold, it's super cold, it's colder than average for many people. And I get that that can be uncomfortable. But there's something for me where I've always found the cold to be kind of life giving. It makes you feel alive. Like you go outside, uh, to take out the trash on a cold night, you breathe in that air and yeah, maybe it burns your lungs a little bit. You look up at the clear sky. There's something about a beauty of the cold that I don't find the same in winter. Also, you can't get comfy in the, or in the summer, rather, you can't get comfy in the summer. It just doesn't happen. So like even now in my makeshift bedroom studio, it's a nice 61 degrees. I got a sweatshirt on, like I, and I know what the temperature is in the room you're at. It's definitely  [00:19:13] Tony Arsenal: older than 61 degrees probably.  [00:19:15] Jesse Schwamb: It's, it's around that temp probably. So I, I know that it's like easy. I think it's just like easy to pick on the cold. But I think they, you know, of course there's something that people say about like, the fire is purifying. I don't know. I always kind of think that way about the cold. It's, it's special. And I think there's something about leaning in and appreciating it, both like the joy then and, uh, appreciating the blessing of having someplace warm to be, but also this amazing juxtaposition of just being out in temperatures that cuts you a little bit, ah, I don't know. There's something about that. I don't get that with the, the heat, but What's that? You, have I gone too far? Am I not?  [00:19:52] Tony Arsenal: Mm-hmm. No, I think there's a sweet spot. Like, I think, I think there's a such thing as too cold. Um, you know, I think, uh,  [00:20:01] Jesse Schwamb: what, what's too cold? Fahrenheit style. Sorry. We, we can, we'll, we'll do the conversion of Celsius.  [00:20:06] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. I'm not gonna do the conversion of Celsius. This is a America. Um, I think probably like. 15 to 20 degrees is the sweet spot. I think if you get much colder than that for me. Oh, that's, I  [00:20:19] Jesse Schwamb: thought you'd say  [00:20:20] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. I think if you get much colder than that, for me it, it becomes, and maybe this is 'cause I have kids and so like, it, it becomes a whole different game to try to get kids into the car when it's, it's colder than 15 degrees. Um, you can get a, you know, you can get away with like rushing the kid out to the car and just wrapping the jacket around them. Something people who don't have toddlers don't realize is you can't put your toddler in the car seat in a winter jacket. So like, it gets to be cumbersome.  [00:20:49] Jesse Schwamb: Gotta do costume change. [00:20:51] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. And I feel like, I feel like if it gets much colder than that, then the joy of being outside, I guess my, my threshold and maybe. It probably isn't a, like an a specific temperature, but when I take the dog out at night, if I feel like I have to put a jacket on to do that, that's when it's too cold. And, but I agree with you in principle that there's something refreshing about standing outside when it's crisp and cold. Not just cool, but cold. Something about the, the, uh, the alertness of your nerves and like there's something that just like wakes you up in a really nice way, um, that you don't get in the heat. I feel like in. Converse heat. So like, I think maybe the equivalent of 15 degrees, if I was talking about when it's too hot, would be like 90, 95 degrees would feel the same, like, would be on the same end, end of the spectrum. You don't walk out and go, ah, it's 95. Like, you walk out and you feel oppressed. You feel like it's heavy on your shoulders. It drains you of your life. Um, I feel like it's cold. There's a sweet spot. There is no sweet spot where like, it, it gets so hot that you feel great about it. So I think, I feel you in pr in principle. I'm, I'm not sure, I guess maybe you have a, maybe there's a sweet spot for you two. Like I don't think you're, we're not talking like negative 60 degrees air temperature or something like that, but yeah, I think I'm with you.  [00:22:16] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, but I, but I am, I think talking about a little bit of like cold face slapping, if you know what I mean. Yeah. I mean there's, there's something famously about the heats. Where you, once you get out in it, there's not much you can do if it is oppressive. Right. So, you know, if you're going out, you're exercising or just out and about. It's not like you can like strip down entirely and even then you might not be comfortable. Right. Obviously where the cold is a little bit different. Hopefully you can prepare yourself. You can put a more clothes. I, I'm with you. I don't know what that temperature would be for me, but it's just funny around here. It's every, every kind of interaction ends with a stay warm out there. Will you? Yeah. Like, I guess we do that in the heat as well, but I'm, sometimes I'm like, no, it's, it's okay to feel what you feel and it's nice to have, uh, the seasons of cold. I don't know if I would like living in a place where it didn't get at least a little bit once in a while, shockingly cold because there's so beautiful about that shock. So I think 15 is fine. I'm with you. That's maybe the right for all of our like continental listeners, those out in the rest of the world that's negative nine degrees Celsius. So, you know, take that for what you will. But it's, it's okay. I guess I'm saying it's okay. We can, we can just be like, you know what, it's cold, but it might be good for us. Does that make sense? Yeah.  [00:23:24] Tony Arsenal: I think on a, a totally different temperature related bit here, I think we should stop saying, uh, that it is 20 degrees and instead we should be, we should say, every time it's 12 degrees below the temperature at which saline freezes at sea level or whatever the, whatever the weird calculation is that makes 32 degrees freezing instead of zero degrees. I joke about like this being America, but like the Fahrenheit scale is cr is whacked out and it's wild, crazy. It makes no sense. It's wild. It, it makes sense in the laboratory setting that it was created in, but like, it just doesn't make any sense from like a, just a logical human beings think this way. Um, perspective. Um, but I think I'm with you. I think, I guess maybe where I'm, where my head is at is like. When it's like negative 10 degrees, and I'm not talking about windchill actually, I think negative 10 degrees air temperature when there's no wind is probably not all that uncomfortable. Like, really? Right. Like I  agree.  I feel like I would not feel totally uncomfortable just walking out to the mail. Like I wouldn't put a jacket on to run out to the mailbox and grab the mail if it was 10 degrees below zero and there was no wind. Um, but whatever it is, like when you're at a low temperature and then you come back up a little bit, your body's like, ah, like you can tolerate that. I feel like when it's 105 degrees and then it drops to 95 degrees, there's not that same effect where you're like,  [00:24:48] Jesse Schwamb: yes.  [00:24:49] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, yeah. Like,  [00:24:50] Jesse Schwamb: right.  [00:24:50] Tony Arsenal: That, that, my favorite part of the season, this is like super nerdy total, like Northerner Yankee talk. My favorite part of the season is that first like. We had it in January this year, but like that first period of time where it pops back up into the mid twenties mm-hmm. And everybody is like wearing shorts and a t-shirt for like two days. Yeah.  Right.  Um, or like people are driving all with their windows rolled down on their car because it like, or that's like when you open your house to get all the like winter stale air out. Um, that's my favorite part of the season. Maybe that's what, maybe that's what I'm talking about with you, but I think I'm with you. I think the cold is refreshing in a really kind of organic way. It wakes you up in a good way.  [00:25:30] Jesse Schwamb: I agree. I think maybe it's okay and maybe we need it. And I've thought about that a lot. Isn't it strange, but also endearing that the way that we feel, the temperature, the way that we actually experience it, is relative to the season. Yeah. Because you know, you might have, like, if it was like 61, 62 in your house and like the dead of August, you'd be like, man. So refreshing. But in winter you're prone to say, Ooh, there's a little nip in the air, you know? And it's like, what? Same temperature. It's just that like you're oriented, all of your experience is oriented right now to your seasonal reality and circumstances. So I think I love temperature change. So I'm, I, and I also would say maybe it's just growing up in New England, I much prefer the cold than the heat. I mean,  [00:26:10] Tony Arsenal: yeah,  [00:26:10] Jesse Schwamb: oppressive heat where it feels like you're inside a dog's mouth to me is in no way preferable or has hegemony over going outside in the the minus 10. So,  [00:26:21] Tony Arsenal: yeah, I  [00:26:22] Jesse Schwamb: agree. Enjoy it. Loved ones. Wherever you're at it, just enjoy it.  [00:26:26] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. I, I also think, um, it's funny how you talk about temperature being relative or exp experience of temperature being relative because, you know, we're, it's winter we're trying to save money. Like fuel oils is crazy expensive in New England and  Right. Um, all of the fuel oil in this area comes from Canada. So there's all the tariff stuff going on. And so I'm trying to keep my, you know, trying to keep our thermostat down. And so I have it set to like 63 at night, which is lower than I, I think I would've set it in the past. And I remember like the other day, I was up in the middle of the night with one of the kids and I was like, oh man, it's so cold in here. And I looked at the, the thermostat and I was like, wait a second. Like, I set my air conditioner to 63 in the summer,  right.  And I keep my room that, like, I keep our bedroom that cool, right? It's a small bedroom. We have a nice air conditioner, so we keep that a room that cool. But in the winter that feels cold and I'm trying to turn up the heat. There's, there's something theological there too. Something about not being satisfied. Maybe there's like a, there's a, an argument. For dissatisfaction, like CS Lewis style, there's an argument that because we can never be comfortable with the temperature, there must therefore be a heaven where temperatures is perfect or something like that. [00:27:35] Jesse Schwamb: I actually that's, that's pretty good. That's better than I always could come up with. I was gonna go the direction of like the rare jewel cont contentment, like, there  [00:27:42] Tony Arsenal: you go.  [00:27:42] Jesse Schwamb: Puritan style. Obviously that's the best segment We're gonna get into our conclusion of yes, chapter 15 and this rice baked parable of lostness. [00:27:54] Returning to the Parable of the Lost Son [00:27:54] Jesse Schwamb: And we're, we're gonna talk about the father, so I'm just gonna take us right there. Ready? Everybody. We're speeding ahead. We're just gonna go right to verse 18 because I think it's good for us to put in our ears again just the end of this parable so we can see and hear this interaction of the father with his two sons. And I'm gonna advance us to the point where the first son has gone away. He squandered all his living, he comes to himself and so then he has this little conversation while he's, uh, you know, presumably with the pigs looking at the pods that they eat, that he wishes he could as well. He says, I'll rise up and go to my father and I'll say to him, father, I've sinned against heaven and before you, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me as one of your hired. So he rose up and he came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, father, I've sinned against heaven and before you, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father said to his slaves, quickly bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet and bring the fat in calf and slaughter it and let us eat and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and has come to life again. He was lost and he's been found and then began to celebrate. Now, his older son was in the field and when he came and approached the house, he heard music at dancing and summoning one of the servants. He began inquiring what these things could be, and he said to him, your brother has come and your father has killed the fatten calf because he has received him back safe in sound. But he became angry and was not wanting to go in, and his father came out and began pleading with him. He answered and said to his father, look, for so many years I've been serving you and never have I neglected a command of yours. And yet never have you given me a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came who has devoured your wealth with prostitutes, you killed the fat and calf for him. And he said to him, child, you are always with me. And all that is mine is yours. But what we had to celebrate and rejoice for this brother of yours was dead and is alive and was lost and has been found. [00:29:58] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, I think it's important, you know, we're kind of gonna jump in here and really focus on the father and we made, we made the point last week that this. This parable really probably is about the older son. Like the punchline of this parable is about the older son because it's a parable that's told in response to the Pharisees to shame them for acting like the older brother. So even though the, the rest of the parable exists that the main point of the parable is probably found in. This lack of rejoicing over the lost brother who was, uh, found. And that lines up with the main point of the other two parables in this sort of triplet of parables is the rejoicing element, right? There's the, there's the, the shepherd who rejoices when he finds his lost sheep, the angels in heaven that rejoice, you know, they're not part of the parable, but it's explained that the angels will rejoice. And then this woman who rejoices over her lost coin and invites all her friends over to do the same. Um, the flip side of this, yes, the parable has a lot to say about how. The father rejoices how he throws this big feast, but the, the, the punchline of this parable is that the older son refused to come in. And so it's, it's painting this picture of like, there's these two parables where the only logical answer is to rejoice, and then there's this parable where it seems like, yeah, the only logical answer is to rejoice. And then there's this totally irrational, insane reaction of the, the older brother to not rejoice, but all of that said. That only functions like that. Punchline only works if you also understand the setup. I don't know if you've ever had this, this happen, Jesse, where you're, you're trying to tell a story that has kind of a funny punchline or you're, you're telling a sort of a narrative joke and either you miss something in the setup or the, the person doesn't get something in the setup and so the joke just doesn't land, or the story just doesn't have the, the impact it's supposed to. And I think like that's kind of where we're at on this is, yes, we've talked about the punchline and that is the punchline, but we can't fully understand the impact. The insanity of the older brother's response.  [00:32:12] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:32:12] Tony Arsenal: Um, if we don't understand the, just the grace that the father shows both to the younger son, which we've talked a lot about, and to the older son, which we've also talked a lot about, but understanding the nature of the father beyond just like his response, I think is, is really vital. And that's where we're gonna go tonight.  [00:32:29] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. I think that's really good setup. It, there's this posture of the father, this watchful mercy, which is for both of his children, for the son, that's away. Also for the son that's at home, he notices them both, one coming, one missing. And so I find it interesting that, like you said, the father's compassion is described even before the first son finishes his rehearsed confession. And it's clear that we're seeing that God's mercy is, is not hired by repentance.  [00:32:56] The Father's Compassion and Divine Initiative [00:32:56] Jesse Schwamb: Repentance is like this appointed pathway by which mercy is received and it's extended to both of the children in a way. And so in the first, the father's seeing and running really portrays clearly for us that divine initiative, not that the son is contributing some kind of merit, but that the father's already disposed to welcome. The returning sinner, and he is already disposed to welcome his angry older son into the fray. It's almost a warning as if to say, you know, similar maybe to what Cain receives, like sin is crouching at the door, a desires to master over you. Don't go this way. Don't do this thing. Come and enjoy, come and celebrate. But you're right, the whole setup is in the father's posture. And then of course, like coheres with that wider biblical portrait of God's fatherly compassion, that he's a father that shows compassion to his children, that the ones he loves, he shows, or the ones that love him. Rather, he shows grace and blessing and mercy to a thousand generations while only punishing the next several contiguous generations that he's a loved us with an everlasting kind of lavish love. So there's this emphasis right from the beginning, which I think is setting up that punchline that the father's compassion is free. It's prior, it's rooted in God's character, not in the sinner's performance here and, and they're both sinners. That's clear. So you're right. It, it's almost like maybe we should see it coming. Yeah, maybe they should have seen it coming. But that is all necessary to get to the end result where you get the like, you know, big kind of gotcha moment.  [00:34:18] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. And I think too, um. We rightfully look at the response of the father to the younger son's return, um, as sort of like the locust classicist of the father's character here, right. The, the, the seminal moment in this, this interaction. But we, we, um, and we're even doing this tonight, right? We started at verse 18, but we start to see glimpses of the father's character earlier in the parable.  [00:34:44] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.  [00:34:45] Tony Arsenal: Right? Of course.  [00:34:45] The Parable's Punchline: The Older Son's Response [00:34:45] Tony Arsenal: So first of all, the parable is, is, um, the punchline of the parable is about the older son and the older son's response. But the parable starts out saying there was a man. The man is not one of the sons. There was a man who had two sons.  [00:34:59] Jesse Schwamb: Right?  [00:34:59] Tony Arsenal: So this is a parable that starts by describing this father as one who had two sons.  [00:35:04] The Father's Grace and the Younger Son's Request [00:35:04] Tony Arsenal: And then we see in the response of the father to this, this younger son's request already, there's an act of grace. Right. And you know, we've kind of made this comment that there's, this is sort of like a, a lesson in systematic theology, um, in soteriology baked into this parable. But like the fact that the father doesn't reject the son's request to divide up the inheritance early. Um, I I, I've read a lot of commentaries on this that would say like the request of the son was so audacious and disrespectful, that like in Israel, it would've been appropriate for this father to bring him up basically on like capital charges and have him executed, right? Like, like Leviticus style and. I don't know whether that's all true or not. Like there's a lot of speculation that has to happen with those kinds of cultural, um, extrapolations. But in either case, this father would've been well within his rights. Um, and again, like we've, we've made the point, like this isn't necessarily a lesson in great parenting. Um, but the father would've been well within his rights to laugh the sun out of his room and be like, of course I'm not dividing up your inheritance. Like, I'm still living, I still need this to live on. Uh, but he doesn't, he grants the request and, and this is a little bit of speculation, I think, but what motivation would there be to grant this request other than loving his son and not wanting to have this relational disruption? Right. This father.  [00:36:36] The Cost of the Younger Son's Departure [00:36:36] Tony Arsenal: Starts off this parable by granting this son's request at, at great cost to himself, right? We've, we've mentioned it in the inheritance laws. Um, the older son gets two thirds of the estate, and so the younger son or the older son gets a double portion. So if we assume that there are only two sons, which it says he had two sons, we, we don't have any reason to think there's more in view, then the younger son is leaving with a full third of this, of this man's estate, um, and has to be a third of the estate that he can take with him. So whatever he's granted in this request to, to give him his property, he's taking all, you know, at least a third of this man's liquid assets, probably more than a third of his liquid assets. Um, with him, that's a huge, huge amount of, uh, of your own personal, uh, assets that go with you that he, and he just does it. He just does it. And I think this paints a picture for us of.  [00:37:36] Theological Implications of the Father's Actions [00:37:36] Tony Arsenal: Again, we have to be theologically careful. God does not suffer loss when we depart from him. Right? It doesn't affect God in a, in a absolute proper sense when sinners, you know, are, are distant from him. Um, but there is a reality that this father in the parable grants his son's request a foolish request, right? And I think he probably understood it was a foolish request. He grants him this request at great cost to himself. And how often do we depart from our father at great, great cost? I'm doing air quotes. If you're not watching this on the video, A great cost to our Heavenly Father in that we now breach communion with him. Or if we're not, if we're not, uh, regener Christians and we persist in our sin, like the, his image is marred. His image is marred in creation. Uh, he, his glory is not proclaimed by an image bearer that still has the same chief end that all the rest of us do, which is to glorify God and, and enjoy him forever. There's a, there's a, um, an accommodated language analog loss that the father suffers when that happens. That's a picture of what's going on in this parable as well.  [00:38:54] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, I think that that's absolutely right on. I mean, there's, there's like, you're, you're drawing us something back to this. Juxtaposition between this kind of open, gratuitous rebellion of the first son without like us appropriate appreciating the more like subtle rebellion that's equally sinful of the second. [00:39:13] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. And  [00:39:14] Jesse Schwamb: that's a problem. And, and that's really what's God is addressing in here. He c he comes for both. The father comes for both in his own way.  [00:39:22] The Father's Love and the Running Controversy [00:39:22] Jesse Schwamb: Can we, since we're talking about the father, can we talk about a pet peeve of mine? I have with some interpretation of this? Yeah. And you can tell me whether you agree, disagree. Okay. So  [00:39:30] Tony Arsenal: it's peeve all the pets.  [00:39:31] Jesse Schwamb: It's, it's so, it's, it's um, it's about the running. Yeah. There's a lot written about the running and I think a lot of it is good. Some of it might be like going too far, but I understand. Let's just put out there, we can all agree that in that culture, a dignified patriarch running is like socially beneath him. I get all that right. What I find though interesting is I see a difference here in how we describe it. There's some, I think that would describe that as like undignified, right? I, I don't see it this way. It's not like David's style. Like, I'll become even more undignified than this. I will, you know, tie up my robe and I'll go running and I'll embarrass myself or my son. What I think we ought to understand, or at least is I'm interpreting it, is a difference between like condescension and not decorum. So in this parable, uh, I don't think this is embarrassment. It is a condescending love. It's God's willingness to cross the distance that our sin has created and that that fits. We know that I think we should pull in all the, all the Old Testament where God is, we're repeatedly describing as kind of like stooping to save. Whether that's he's boring Israel up as a man, carries his son, or God's compassion grows warm like from Hosea. But I don't see this as in decorum. I see it as condescension and I, I think that's worth mentioning. [00:40:45] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. I'm with you. I think, I think whether it's this or. There are other parables where this happens, where like people extrapolate, and I guess maybe I did this just now just a little bit, so I'm not like bashing on people too much, but I think we can make way too much out of a, out of a, um, somewhat speculative point. Sure. Like, like I, like I said, like, do we know for sure that this, uh, this request to divide the inheritance would've been a capital offense,  right?  I, I, I don't think so. Do we have a record of a child asking to have their inheritance early and then being put to I, I don't think so. None of the commentaries that I've read point to an actual account of that happening. And I think this is probably like the same thing. Like, yeah, I guess like the head of a family and like, yes. All of the commentaries that I've read that make this point talk about how like you'd have to gird your loins and like  [00:41:43] Jesse Schwamb: Yep.  [00:41:43] Tony Arsenal: Like you, there's almost like a level of exposure, of course that happens when you have to do that, like,  [00:41:47] Jesse Schwamb: right. [00:41:48] Tony Arsenal: Okay. But I, I think I'm with you that even if that's in play here, it's not, it's not really a point that the parable is making.  Right.  The point that the parable is making is that the love of this father drives him to exert himself and close that distance. Whether that's a condescension, like we might talk about it theologically, um, or whether it is a sort of like a self self-abasement or a self-effacement. Um, I don't know, but I also don't know that it matters that much. That's not really the point. And I think, um. When I think about this as a dad, um, this makes so much sense to me too. Like my, um, my kid does something that is obnoxious and is so frustrating and I'm so angry. And then sometimes he looks at me and he goes, daddy, I'm sorry. And it's all gone. Like, it's all gone in a second. Like, it, it really is most of the time. Like, and there is something about this that I have such, I guess, let me put it this way. I have such a tough time thinking that being a dad has emotionally changed so much in the last 2000 years that the, the, the, um. Natural instincts of fatherhood that God gives us are so different now that any father would not run to their child who is returning like this man. I think when he says at, when it's said at the end that your brother who was dead is now alive, like I don't think that that is an exaggeration.  [00:43:28] Jesse Schwamb: Right?  [00:43:29] Tony Arsenal: I think the assumption made in this family, in the context of this parable is that when this son left, they were never gonna see him again because this was a foolish decision. Right. They knew what he was gonna do with the money. They knew he was gonna run out of the money. And in the, in the ancient world, when you're in a far country and you've got no money. You don't have a lot of prospects, even the men in the world, you know, all, all that's made about like the social difficulties of, uh, widowed and orphaned women in the ancient world. Like yeah. But like a, a single dude out in some far country in the middle of a famine with no family support structure is gonna starve to death.  Right. So  I think, I think when I see this interpretations that make this running movement towards the sun to be somehow unexpected or unusual or something along those lines, um, they don't resonate with me. [00:44:25] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, me neither.  [00:44:26] Tony Arsenal: I don't know that they really have ever have resonated with me, but. They just don't resonate with me. And I think this sort of like he com he committed this action. That's sort of semi shameful.  [00:44:38] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.  [00:44:38] Tony Arsenal: Right. That's almost like, right. I just don't, I just don't buy it. That doesn't seem like the shocking part of the parables usually have kind of a shocking element to them. This does not seem like the shocking element to me.  [00:44:49] Jesse Schwamb: I, I agree. And if we take this and say, well he's done something really embarrassing and that's what shows the love. 'cause he's. He's so degraded himself. Then what are we really saying about God? If he's meant to be even in an emblematic way, a representation of God, like that's problematic. I think though I'm with you in tracking with what you're saying though I don't have children myself. I'm just considering if you could put yourself in the place of that father, or just imagine yourself, like you're out carrying groceries in one day and at the end of your driveway you see a person you never thought you'd see again, or a friend you haven't seen in so long, or somebody in broken relationship that you really thought you'd never see. I, I'm guessing what would happen is. You would just turn on your heels, get on your getaway sticks and you would run toward them. You, you went in that moment think like, uh, this is gonna be embarrassing, but the embarrassment is worth it. You would just go, you drop the groceries, you'd let the milk sit there, you would just take off. [00:45:44] The Father's Unconditional Love and Reconciliation [00:45:44] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, and that's what shows this love. It is like a condescension to just move and to go because like you said, to your point, if he anticipated that his son might have been gone from this world, then I'm not sure if he was sitting by the window every day just kind of melancholy looking out, you know, with his hand resting on or his head resting on his, his hand, but still was probably doing something and turned and saw him and just went, and that was it. And it was a reaction born out of the purest kind of love and condescension that would just go. I think then that's what flows into this whole response of like the kiss and the reconciliation before negotiation. You know, the son expects to bargain. Just make me like one of your Hy servants. But the fathers embrace, like interrupts the whole process. And of course he just keeps showing us that this reconciliation for both the older and the younger son, it's not a wage for both of them. It's not a wage, it's a gift. And the father, what I find really interesting in both of their cases, he doesn't deny the sin like you're saying. He says, this son of mine was dead, which I think is both literal and figurative. [00:46:44] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:46:44] Jesse Schwamb: The sense that he was, he was like cast outside. He, he was outside of himself, outside of the family, outside of the kingdom. But what he does deny is the son's proposed status. Downgrade. Yeah. You know, grace always restores sonship and so I, I think the parable here is resisting like two errors at once that you and I have talked about a lot, which would be kind of this like weird, like lukewarm omi and sentimental sentimentality. Like sin doesn't matter, right. People like do what you want. It's all good. The father calls it death and lostness. Yeah. And  [00:47:15] Tony Arsenal: you  [00:47:15] Jesse Schwamb: kind of compare that against like legalism, like, well you have to earn your way back. It's good enough to, you know, have grace and mercy, but you have to do something to, to accept it. You have to elevate yourself to the place deserving poor. You have to come forward with empty hands. The father restores before the son can even offer terms.  [00:47:32] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:47:32] Jesse Schwamb: So in both ways, the father is going out in one way. There's damage that's already been done through the youngest son, but in the other way I see it for the oldest son, the father's basically saying, don't do this, please don't do this. And what I think is the most telling in that way. Is at the very end of this chapter in the we, the last phrase that we have, the father says, but we had to celebrate and rejoice not, but I not, but like me and the family, like he pulls him in inclusively already and says, you ought to be celebrating. Which of course is that? Like we rock hard, sharp witted, like fiery tongue that's coming against the scribes in the Pharisees. But the father is condescending. He's not embarrassed by any of this.  [00:48:15] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:48:15] Jesse Schwamb: He's, he's condescending and proud, I think, to show his love. And again, I think any of one of us would get on our getaway sticks and run. And like you're saying, that is just the shadow, that's the argument from the lesser to the greater. So how much more, again, do we see this father pushing us against antinomian behavior and also against legalism? It's all right there for us.  [00:48:34] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:48:34] The Parable's Broader Theological Context [00:48:34] Tony Arsenal: And you know what, I think too, maybe to just put a, an exclamation point on this whole little train of thought we have here. Um, the father is not like. I think these, these interpretations that have this running out and embracing him to be some really unexpected, unusual semis shameful act. Mm-hmm. I think they just miss some of like the immediate context. Right. So the father arises, uh, well, the son was still a long way off. His father saw and felt compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed to him. The son said, father, I have sinned against you before heaven and earth, and I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. The father said to his servants. Right. They didn't walk back to the village. They didn't walk back to the house. The, the picture is that like the servants ran right after the father, like right. Everybody recognizes that this son is back and is alive when, when the, the son, the older son is coming in from the field. It's not the father that he asks what happened? The, the servant says, your brothers come home. He's been received back safe and, and sound. Everybody is celebrating. And it's not just that the servants are happy to have a free meal and, and a, you know, a better, some, some dancing and some wine like everybody is celebrating. And so this idea that like the celebration, the running to the embracing element of this is somehow unusual. That totally contradicts the fact that the, the older son's, um, the older son's response is the only, is like, that's the insane response in the parable,  [00:50:08] Jesse Schwamb: right? Preach.  [00:50:08] Tony Arsenal: Right. The, the, the sane expected response that everybody has is overjoyed. Um, just, uh, elation that this, this lost son has come home except this boneheaded older brother who refuses to come in and celebrate. So I think that, and, you know, we could even talk about the context of the father, like the fathers created this household with, with also with these servants where they're excited, they're happy, right? And like, let's not put too fine a point on it. If these are slaves, which we have no reason to think, they're not like slavery was a reality in the ancient world. These are slaves. Their livelihood and their existence depends on the, the livelihood and existence of this, this father of this landowner, he gives away a third of it. Their, their meals are getting leaner too. So they have every reason to be frustrated and angry with this older son as well, but they're not how, how amazing of a context of a family, of a household has this father created where even the servants who are there. Are rejoicing over the return of this son. Right? The one person who doesn't rejoice, the one person who we're, we should be surprised is not excited, is the older son. And I think that in itself says a lot about this father and the other. The other point I wanted to make is there is an element, um, of. Almost like the older son's response. You know, I just talked about how that's the insane response. It's almost like the father is surprised by it, right? And he goes out and he's like, what do you mean you're not exci? Like he's, he is, he's shock, sort of shocked that this son is not willing to come in and, and rejoice. And it, it's almost like it catches him off guard when his, his older son says, you've never even given me a young goat,  right? Because he's like, what are you talking about? Everything I have is yours. Like, it, like it doesn't even register with him that he had to offer that a, a young goat like you, it's almost like you didn't even even have to ask. Like you didn't even have to ask, it's already yours. You wanted a young goat to have a party with your friends, like, the flock is yours. Just take the young goat. There's this sense of, of sadness and surprise and. Um, betrayal almost in the words of the father of, I'm always with you. You are always with me, and all that's mine is yours. What do you mean you're not going to celebrate? Because all that's mine is yours, including this son who's come back. He's also yours, and you're not willing to celebrate. So I think there's so much in this parable about God's nature too. We often, um. We often treat God as though he sort of grudgingly saved us. And I think in a lot of theological circles, this takes, takes the form of kind of like pitting the son against the father, like the, the God, the Son against God, the Father in, in the idea that like. The son placated the father. And so like, because the father was wrathful and angry, and so Jesus had to come down and die and, and now the Father can love us. The reality is that the, the love of the Father, the love of God the father, um, is the motivating factor that, that drives the plan of redemption, right? And that's the same love of the Son and the same love of the spirit. But in, in the most famous verse in the Bible, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that's God the Father it's talking about,  right?  So it's, it's God the Father's love that drives the whole plan of salvation. The whole covenant of redemption is initiated in light of the Father's love for, for the elect. Um, it's not as though he was some frustrated, angry deity and his son somehow got the better of him and placated him. And that's exactly what we see in this parable. There is never a point in the parable where there's anything shown by the father except for love for his people. Including the servants. I mean, in a, in a real sense, the celebration is not like, all right, servants, get outta here. I'm gonna have a fatted calf with my son who's come back.  Right.  The celebration is for the whole household. So this tells us so much about God's nature. Once that old, old quote, the par the puritans say is, you know, wrath is God's alien work. Yes. Right. It's, it's not to say that wrath is somehow outside of God or it, it's, it's contrary to God, but it, it is his alien work. It's his work, but it's work that is sort of opposed to his natural inclination. I mean, that's a really risky way to talk about it, but it's sort of like. It's alien to God in a sense because it's alien to God's intention for the world, right? God's intention was, and again, it's so hard to even talk about this stuff, so I'm just gonna say people, we got 480 episodes of us, you  know,  us being really precise technical theology of, of impassability and inseparable operations. Like just right. Hear this in that context, it, it is God's intention. It was God's intention, right? It was not the way it was supposed to be that Adam fell. God knew it was gonna happen. It was part of his decree, it as part of his plan, but it also was not the way it was supposed to be. And I know those two statements are co decree, but I think you guys understand what I'm getting at because humans fell and that was not the way they were intended to be. God's wrath towards sin, which was never intended, is alien to his. Sort of inclinations. Again, it's really hard to talk about this stuff.  No,  but the father in this parable has no wrath to speak of, right? Like that's the, that's the crazy part about this parable. He has no wrath to speak of. He shows no wrath to the older son. He shows no wrath to the younger son. He has nothing but gracious disposition and an intention to redeem and rescue his children. And that's amazing,  [00:55:59] Jesse Schwamb: right? It's not like wrath is foreign to God. I agree with you. I think what you said I think was fine because this is something we hold intention it, but we're all saying that it is like alien to his primary disposition. It's not foreign to him. So like you said, the father is going out everywhere. It's all act of volitional love. He goes out to the younger, goes out to the elder. And in the, you know, former, the father's purpose is not only to just restore the prodigals, but also to unmasks the elder brothers slavery to wages, status, resentment. And it's a good reminder for all of us that legalism is now obedience. Right? It's a different kind of lostness. But the great encouragement is in both of those lostness, is that Jesus comes running, he comes out, he comes to restore. He comes in mercy first. Just say, come it back into the kingdom. And that lostness of self-righteousness and distance from the father's heart is equally saveable. Though it might look like it's some kind of respectable rebellion. It's not. And the point here, I, I think again, like when he gets to Jesus telling the story again, we gotta remember He's telling it when he says like, we had to celebrate. I wonder if he's looking in the eyes of the scribes of Pharisees because he basically, like we, all of us had to celebrate. Are you not celebrating? Now, all I can think of is like gladiator when he is like, are you not entertained? Do you know what I mean? Like, are you, are we not celebrating, you know, what's happening here in the kingdom of God where sinners are being restored, where the down and out, the downtrodden and the marginalized and the priors are coming back in and finding relief and restoration and redemption. Are we not celebrating? I think that's like the high calling, the exalted finale of this whole part of Luke 15. And there is an emphasis, especially in reform theology, which is right. Everything you just said. God's saving disposition is grounded in God's own will and love. It's not extracted some from kind of like human improvement or point of view or perspective, and that matters for Luke 15 because the parable can always be misread as God loves you once you come back. Right. The father's running corrects this. He's going out to the elder son corrects us in this. Let me just read from Ephesians chapter one starting at verse four. Just as God chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we would be wholly and blameless before him in love by predestining us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, to himself according to the pleasure of His goodwill, to the praise and the glory of His grace, which he graciously bestowed on us in the beloved. That's it.  [00:58:34] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I I don't think there's anything better to say than that. This is, um. It's funny, we could continue. I mean, we make this joke all the time, but it's not even a joke here. Like, we could continue to talk about this parable for many more weeks.  [00:58:51] Upcoming Discussions and Series Continuation [00:58:51] Tony Arsenal: We're not going to, I know like some people get a little bit of, uh, fatigue when we're going really deep diving in this, and I get that. Um, but, but there's so much here to unpack. So we are gonna keep marching through the parables. We're not totally done with this little trio of parables. Because if, if you remember, I don't even remember when it was, if you remember way back, like four months ago, three months ago, we were working our way through Matthew. We hadn't even got out of the first chapter of parables in Matthew,  right  when we had to jump over to Luke because of the way that it, it worked out. But Matthew uses these parables, not the parable of the, of the, um, father son, you know, whatever. Not this parable, but the parable of the lost sheep and the coins he uses. For a different reason. So we're gonna come back to those a little bit. We're gonna talk about that a little bit next week. Um, and, and then we're gonna keep plugging along so you're not so far into this series that if you missed, if this is your first episode and you want to go back and catch up, um, you can do that. There's not a huge, huge, huge amount of episodes, um, you know, set aside a work week worth of hours to, to go and listen to it. Um, you can trim that down if you can listen to a couple, couple times speed. Um, but we got a long way to go, so jump in with us. Grab your commentaries Next week we're gonna be back in Matthew 13, I think it was. Um, we're gonna be talking about the lost, the lost sheep and the lost coin and why it is that Matthew positions it differently than Luke does. So I'm excited about that. This is actually something that's been bubbling up in my head for a long time, so I'm excited to get it out. Then we're gonna keep plugging along in the parables. We're gonna keep going primarily in Matthew, but we'll jump in in other places when it's appropriate. Uh, and we're gonna keep going until we finish 'em all. It's like, it's like the Pokemon version of podcasting. You gotta catch 'em all and, and it's the parables instead of, you know, little Pokemon creatures. [01:00:49] Jesse Schwamb: Catch 'em all. I'm not trying to be that guy honest, but just in case people are attracted with us. 'cause we, we don't want the commentary. It's Matthew 18. This will be. 18, I mean, the eight and the three look pretty close. So I, I think they're right on. Remember everybody's, I, I'm just picturing now like this is a game show. You know, like game shows sometimes have that like al like there's a question up some point in the game show. I think everybody's gonna remember that. The question like, does it parallel? So we're gonna be going to not just like one version of this, but the different versions and the reason why I think we've been like pretty dutiful trying to set up what we think is like a groundwork by deliberately choosing one of the gospels to like kind of center us. And then we're gonna be going around that because Matthew 18, while it is the same parallel like you and I were just talking about before we started recording, it does have some different perspective for us to take away from it. Yes. And so this is the beauty. We really can't get to the fun of the parallelism. Like it's, it's no fun or it's not quite as good or effective to like do them side by side in real time. It's much better I think for us to sink in. A process and then to say like, okay, we just went through a lot of the great beautiful details here. What is this other version of the same thing? Tell us, or what are we picking up that even in, in its like perspective or approach that was slightly different from the first version that we looked at. Yeah, that's the whole joy. So don't, don't like skip the next one. It's not gonna be the same conversation. It's actually gonna be a remarkably different conversation. And speaking of conversation.  [01:02:12] Join the Conversation and Community [01:02:12] Jesse Schwamb: Tony people want to get in touch with you or they wanna get in touch with me if they wanna talk about what's going around in the world or converse us about the, the theology that we're speaking of here. If you're new to reform theology and you think, you know, I might have to talk to somebody about that, uh, that we're not experts and not your pastor, what you should do is what, how can you find us?  [01:02:30] Tony Arsenal: You can join our telegram chat. Uh, we have a little corner of the internet that we've carved out. Uh, there's lots of great Christians in there, reform brothers and sisters, so it's not even just like, come talk to Jesse and Tony. There's a whole group of people that love the Lord and love reform theology. Uh, you can go to, uh, t.me, the letter t.me/reformed brotherhood, and that will point you either to download a little app to use, or if you already have Telegram, which is the messaging app we use, it'll jump you right in there. Um, there's lots of prayer requests going on. Um, conversations about books, people are reading. Um, you know, today there was a conversation about whether or not the first, uh, the things leading up to the eating of the forbidden fruit were, were actually thin, or whether they were some other category of, uh, sort of like moral neglect. Um, which was, is an interesting, you know, sort of theological conversation. Um, but most of all, like it's just a place for us to, to. Fellowship with each other. It's not a replacement for your church. It can never be a replacement for your church, but it is a place where you can have some good, genuine, um, fellowship and some good fun times with other people who love the Lord.  [01:03:41] Jesse Schwamb: I love it. So come hang out with us and if you don't, you can always come back here because as until the Lord comes, if he tarries another week, we will be back here talking about Matthew 18 and lostness all over again because there's some new stuff in there for us to explore and enjoy. So until next time, if you got it, go out in the cold. And while you're there, honor everyone,  [01:04:05] Tony Arsenal: love that brotherhood. 
• Self-Righteousness: The Subtle Distance from the Father's Heart 02.02.2026 1ч 7мин

  In this episode of The Reformed Brotherhood, Tony and Jesse continue their deep dive into the Parable of the Prodigal Son by examining the often-overlooked character of the elder brother. While the younger son's rebellion is obvious, the elder brother's self-righteous moralism represents a more subtle—and perhaps more dangerous—form of lostness. Through careful exegesis of Luke 15:25-32, the hosts explore how religious performance, resentment of grace, and merit-based thinking can keep us far from the Father's heart even while we remain close to the Father's house. This conversation challenges listeners to examine their own hearts for traces of elder brother theology and calls us to celebrate the scandalous grace that restores sinners to sonship. Key Takeaways Two ways to be lost: The parable presents both flagrant rebellion (the younger son) and respectable self-righteousness (the elder son) as forms of spiritual lostness that require God's grace. The elder brother's geographic and spiritual position: Though physically near the house and faithful in service, the elder brother was spiritually distant from the father's heart, unable to celebrate grace extended to others. Moralism as a subtle distance: Self-righteous religion can be more deceptive than open rebellion because it appears virtuous while actually rejecting the father's character and values. The father pursues both sons: God's gracious pursuit extends not only to the openly rebellious but also to the self-righteous, demonstrating that election and grace are sovereign gifts, not earned rewards. The unresolved ending: The parable intentionally leaves the elder brother's response unstated, creating narrative tension that challenges the original audience (Pharisees and scribes) and modern readers to examine their own response to grace. Adoption as the frame of obedience: True Christian obedience flows from sonship and inheritance ("all that I have is yours"), not from a wage-earning, transactional relationship with God. Resentment reveals our theology: When we find ourselves unable to celebrate the restoration of repentant sinners, we expose our own need for repentance—not from scandal, but from envy and pride. Key Concepts The Elder Brother's Subtle Lostness The genius of Jesus' parable is that it exposes a form of lostness that religious people rarely recognize in themselves. The elder brother never left home, never squandered his inheritance, and never violated explicit commands. Yet his response to his brother's restoration reveals a heart fundamentally opposed to the father's character. His complaint—"I have served you all these years and never disobeyed your command"—demonstrates that he viewed his relationship with the father transactionally, as an employer-employee arrangement rather than a father-son bond. This is the essence of legalism: performing religious duties while remaining distant from God's heart. The tragedy is that the elder brother stood within reach of everything the father had to offer yet experienced none of the joy, fellowship, or security of sonship. This form of lostness is particularly dangerous because it wears the mask of righteousness and often goes undetected until grace is extended to someone we deem less deserving. The Father's Gracious Pursuit of the Self-Righteous Just as the father ran to meet the returning younger son, he also went out to plead with the elder brother to come into the feast. This detail is theologically significant: God pursues both the openly rebellious and the self-righteous with the same gracious initiative. The father's response to the elder brother's complaint is not harsh correction but tender invitation: "Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours." This reveals that the problem was never scarcity or the father's favoritism—the elder brother had always possessed full access to the father's resources and affection. The barrier was entirely on the son's side: his inability to receive sonship as a gift rather than a wage. This mirrors the historical situation of the Pharisees and scribes who grumbled at Jesus for receiving sinners. They stood adjacent to the kingdom, surrounded by the promises and covenant blessings of God, yet remained outside because they could not accept grace as the principle of God's dealing with humanity. The invitation still stood, but it required them to abandon their merit-based system and enter the feast as recipients of unearned favor. The Unresolved Ending and Its Challenge to Us Luke deliberately leaves the parable unfinished—we never learn whether the elder brother eventually joined the celebration. This narrative technique places the reader in the position of the elder brother, forcing us to answer for ourselves: will we enter the feast or remain outside in bitter resentment? For the original audience of Pharisees and scribes, this unresolved ending was a direct challenge to their response to Jesus' ministry. Would they continue to grumble at God's grace toward tax collectors and sinners, or would they recognize their own need and join the celebration? For contemporary readers, the question remains equally pressing. When we hear of a notorious sinner coming to faith, do we genuinely rejoice, or do we scrutinize their repentance with suspicion? When churches extend membership to those with broken pasts, do we celebrate restoration or quietly question whether they deserve a place at the table? The parable's open ending is not a literary flaw but a pastoral strategy: it refuses to let us remain passive observers and demands that we examine whether we harbor elder brother theology in our own hearts. Memorable Quotes The father's household is a place where grace produces joy, not just merely relief. The elder brother hears the joy before he sees it. That's often how resentment works, isn't it? We're alerted to the happiness of others and somehow there's this visceral response of wanting to be resentful toward that joy, toward that unmerited favor. — Jesse Schwamb There is a way to be near the house, church adjacent, religiously active, yet to be really far from the father's heart. The elder brother is not portrayed as an atheist, but as a moralist. And moralism can be a more subtle distance than open rebellion. — Jesse Schwamb God doesn't keep sinners from repenting. The reprobate are not prohibited or prevented by God from coming to faith. They're being kept out by their own stubborn refusal to come in. That's where this punchline hits so hard. — Tony Arsenal Full Transcript [00:00:44] Jesse Schwamb: Welcome to episode 477 of The Reformed Brotherhood. I'm Jesse.  [00:00:51] Tony Arsenal: And I'm Tony. And this is the podcast with ears to hear. Hey brother.  [00:00:55] Jesse Schwamb: Hey brother.  [00:00:56] Parables and God's Word [00:00:56] Jesse Schwamb: Speaking of ears to hear, it struck me that this whole thing we've been doing all this parable talk is really after the manner of God's words. And one of the things I've really grown to appreciate is how God speaks to the condition of those whom he addresses. He considers our ability, our capacity as his hearers to process what he's saying, and that leads into these amazing parables that we've been talking about. He doesn't speak as he is able to speak. So to speak, but I didn't mean that to happen. But as we were able to hear, and that means he spoke in these lovely parables so that we might better understand him. And today we're gonna get into some of the drama of the best, like the crown jewel as we've been saying, of maybe all the parables. The Parable of the Lost Son. We spoke a little bit about it in the last episode. Definitely want to hit that up because it's setting you up for this one, which is the definitive episode. But now we're gonna talk about this first, this younger lost son. Get into some of all of these like juicy details about what takes place, and really, again, see if we can find the heart of God. Spoiler. We can and we'll,  [00:02:04] Tony Arsenal: yeah,  [00:02:04] Affirmations and Denials [00:02:04] Jesse Schwamb: but before we do both of those things, it's of course always time at this moment to do a little affirming with or denying against. Of course, if you haven't heard us before, that's where we take a moment to say, is there something that we think is undervalued that we wanna bring forward that we'd recommend or think is awesome? Or conversely, is there something that's overvalued that's just, we're over it. The vibe is done. We're gonna deny against that. So I say to you, as I often do, Tony, are you affirming with or deny against?  [00:02:31] Tony's Nerdy Hobby: Dungeons and Dragons [00:02:31] Tony Arsenal: I'm affirming tonight. Um, I don't know how much the audience realizes of a giant ridiculous nerd I am, but we're about to go to entirely new giant nerd depths. [00:02:43] Jesse Schwamb: All right. I  [00:02:43] Tony Arsenal: think,  [00:02:44] Jesse Schwamb: let's hear it.  [00:02:44] Tony Arsenal: So, um, I was a huge fan of Stranger Things. Some, there's some issues with the show, and I understand why some people might not, um, might not feel great about watching it. You know, I think it falls within Christian liberty. But one of the main themes of the show, this is not a spoiler, you learn about this in episode one, is the whole game. The whole show frames itself around Dungeons and Dragons, right? It's kind of like a storytelling device within the show that the kids play, Dungeons and Dragons, and everything that happens in the Dungeons and Dragons game that they're playing, sort of like, um, foreshadows what's actually gonna happen in the show. Which funny if, you know Dungeons and Dragons lore, you kind of learn the entire plot of the story like ahead of time. Um, but so I, stranger Things just finished up and I've kind of been like itching to get into Dungeons and Dragons. I used to play a little bit of tabletop when I was in high school, in early college and um, I just really like the idea of sort of this collaborative storytelling game. Um, whether it's Dungeon Dragons or one of the other systems, um, Dungeons and Dragons is the most popular. It's the most well published. It's the most well established and it's probably the easiest to find a group to play with. Although it is very hard to find a group to play with, especially, uh, kind of out in the middle of nowhere where I live. So this is where the ultra super nerdy part comes in.  [00:04:02] Jesse Schwamb: Alright, here we  [00:04:03] Tony Arsenal: go. I have been painstakingly over the last week teaching Google Gemini. To be a dungeon master for me. So I've been playing Dungeons and Dragons more or less by myself with, uh, with Google Gemini, and I'm just having a lot of fun with it. Um, you can get a free copy of the rules online if you, I think it's DND, the letter NDND beyond.com. They have a full suite of like tools to create your character. Access to a basic set of the core rules. Um, you can spend a lot of money on Dungeons and Dragons, uh, and if you want to like really get into it, the books are basically textbooks. Like you're buying $300 or 300 page, $300, 300 page textbooks, um, that are not all that differently costs than like college textbooks. You'll buy a 300 page Dungeon master guide that's like $50 if you want a paper copy. So, but you can get into it for free. You can get the free rolls online, you can use their dungeon, the d and d Beyond app and do all your dice rolls for free. Um, you, you can get a free dice roller online if you don't want to do their, their app. Um, but it's just a lot of fun. I've just been having a lot of fun and I found that the, I mean. When you play a couple sessions with it, you see that the, the um, the A IDM that I've created, like it follows the same story beats 'cause it's only got so much to work with in its language model. Um, but I'm finding ways to sort of like break it out of that model by forcing it to refer to certain websites that are like Dungeons and Dragons lore websites and things like build your, build your campaign from this repository of Dungeons and Dragons stuff. So. I think you could do this with just about any sort of narrative storytelling game like this, whether you're playing a different system or d and d Pathfinders. I mean, there's all sorts of different versions of it, but it's just been a lot of fun to see, see it going. I'm trying to get a group together. 'cause I think I would, I would probably rather play Dungeons and Dragons with people, um, and rather do it in person. But it's hard to do up here. It's hard to get a, get a group going. So that's my super nerdy affirmation. I'm not just affirming Dungeons and Dragons, which would already be super nerdy. I'm affirming playing it by myself on my phone, on the bus with Google Gemini, AI acting like I'm not. Just this weird antisocial lunatic. So I'm having a lot of fun with it.  [00:06:20] Jesse Schwamb: So there are so many levels of inception there. Yeah. Like the inception and everything you just said. I love it.  [00:06:27] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Well, what I'm learning is, um, you can give an, and, and this is something I didn't realize, what ai, I guess I probably should have, you know, it's not like an infinite thing. Um, you can give an AI instructions and if your chat gets long enough, it actually isn't referring back to the very beginning of the chat most of the time. Right. There's a, there's like a win context window of about 30 responses. So like if you tell the AI, don't roll the dice for me, like, let me roll dices that are related to my actions, eventually it will forget that. So part of what I've been doing is basically building, I'm using Google Gemini when the AI does something I don't want it to do, I say, you just did something I don't want it to do. Gimme a diagnostic report of why you did that. It will explain to me why it did what it did. Right. Why it didn't observe the rules. And then I'm feeding that into another. Prompt that is helping me generate better prompts that it refers back to. So it's kind of this weird iterative, um, yeah, I, I don't, I'm like, I maybe I'm gonna create the singularity. I'm not sure. Maybe this is gonna be possible. We should sit over the edge. It's gonna, it's gonna learn how to cast magic spells and it's gonna fire bolt us in the face or something like that. Right. But, uh, again, high risk. I, I, for one, welcome our AO AI dungeon masters. So check it out. You should try it. If you could do this with chat GPT, you could do it with any ai. Um, it, it, it is going to get a little, I have the benefit because I have a Google Workspace account. I have access to Google Pro or the Gemini Pro, which is a better model for this kind of thing. But you could do this with, with chat GPT or something like that. And it's gonna be more or less the same experience, I think. But I'm having a, I'm having a ton of fun with it. Um. Again, I, I, there's something about just this, Dungeons and Dragons at its core is a, it's like a, an exercise in joint storytelling, which is really fascinating and interesting to me. Um, and that's what most tabletop RPGs are like. I suppose you get into something like War Hammer and it's a little bit more like a board. It's a mixture of that plus a board game. But Dungeons and Dragons, the DM is creating the, I mean, not the entire world, but is creating the narrative. And then you as a player are an actor within that narrative. And then there's a certain element of chance that dice rolls play. But for the most part, um, you're driving the story along. You're telling the story together. So it's, it's pretty interesting. I've also been watching live recordings of Dungeons and Dragon Sessions on YouTube. Oh,  [00:08:50] Jesse Schwamb: wow.  [00:08:51] Tony Arsenal: Like, there's a, there's a channel called Critical Role. Like these sessions are like three and a half hours long. So, wow. I just kinda have 'em on in the background when I'm, when I'm, uh, working or if I'm, you know, doing something else. Um, but it's really interesting stuff. It's, it's pretty cool. I think it's fun. I'm a super nerd. I'm, I'm no shame in that. Um, I'm just really enjoying it.  [00:09:09] Jesse Schwamb: Listen, nerdery is great. That's like part of the zeitgeist now. Listen to culture. It's cool to be a nerd. I don't know much about d and d. I've heard a lot about this idea of this community that forms around. Yeah. The story, correct me if I'm wrong, can't these things go on for like years, decades?  [00:09:25] Tony Arsenal: Oh yeah, yeah. Like, you can do there. There, some of this has made its way into the official rule books, but basically you could do what's called a one shot, which is like a self-contained story. Usually a single session, you know, like you get a Dungeon master, game master, whichever you wanna call the person. Three to four, maybe five characters, player characters. And one session is usually about two hours long. So it's not like you sit down for 20 minutes, 30 minutes at a time and play this right. And you could do a one shot, which is a story that's designed to, to live all within that two hour session. Um, some people will do it where there isn't really any planned like, outcome of the story. The, the DM just kind of makes up things to do as they go. And then you can have campaigns, which is like, sometimes it's like a series of one shots, but more, it is more like a long term serialized period, you know, serialized campaign where you're doing many, um, many, many kinds of, uh, things all in one driving to like a big epic goal or battle at the end, right? Um, some groups stay together for a really long time and they might do multiple campaigns, so there's a lot to it. Game's been going on for like 50, 60, 70 years, something like that. I don't remember exactly when it started, but  [00:10:41] Jesse Schwamb: yeah.  [00:10:41] Tony Arsenal: Um, it's an old game. It's kinda like the doctor who of of poor games and it's like the original tabletop role playing game, I think. [00:10:47] Jesse Schwamb: Right. Yeah, that makes sense. Again, there's something really appealing to me about not just that cooperative storytelling, but cooperative gameplay. Everybody's kind of in it together for the most part. Yeah. Those conquest, as I understand them, are joint in nature. You build solidarity, but if you're meeting with people and having fun together and telling stories and interacting with one another, there's a lot of good that comes out of that stuff there. A lot of lovely common grace in those kind of building, those long-term interactions, relationships, entertainment built on being together and having good, clean, fun together.  [00:11:17] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Well, and it's, you know, it's, um. It's an interesting exercise. It's it, in some ways it's very much like improv. Like you, you think of like an improv comedy like show I've been to somewhere. Like, you know, you go to the show and it's an improv troupe, but they're like calling people from the crowd up and asking them for like different scenarios they might do. It's kind of like that in that like the GM can plan a whole, can plan a whole thing. But if I as a player character, um. And I've done this to the virtual one just to see what it does, and it's done some interesting things. One of the campaigns I was playing, I had rescued a merchant from some giant spiders and I was helping, like, I was helping like navigate them through the woods to the next town. And we kept on getting attacked and just outta nowhere. I was like, what if I sort of act as though I'm suspicious of this merchant now because why are we getting attacked all the time? And so I, I typed in sort of like a little. A mini role play of me accusing this guy. And it was something like, Randall, we get, we're getting attacked a lot for a simple merchant, Randall merchant. What happens if I cast a tech magic? What am I gonna find? And he's like, I don't know what I'm gonna find. I know I don't know anything. And then I cast a tech magic and it shifted. I mean, I don't know where the campaign was gonna go before that, but it shifted the whole thing now where the person who gave him the package he was carrying had betrayed him. It was, so that happens in real life too in these games, real life in these games. That happens in real, in-person sessions too, where a player or a group of players may just decide instead of talking to the contact person that is supposed to give them the clue to find the dungeon they're supposed to go to, instead they ambush them and murder them in gold blood. And now the, the dungeon master has to figure out, how do I get them back to this dungeon when this is the only person that was supposed to know where it is? So it, it does end up really stretching your thinking skills and sort of your improvisational skills. There's an element of, um, you know, like chance with the dice, um, I guess like the dice falls in the lot, but the lot is in the handle. Or like, obviously that's all ordained as well too, but there is this element of chance where even the DM doesn't get to determine everything. Um, if, if I say I want to, I want to try to sneak into this room, but I'm a giant barbarian who has, you know, is wearing like chain mail, there's still a chance I could do it, but the dice roll determines that. It's not like the, the GM just says you can't do that. Um, so it's, it's a, I, I like it. I'm, I'm really looking forward to trying to, getting into it. It is hard to start a group and to get going and, um, there's a part of me that's a little bit. Gun shy of maybe like getting too invested with a group of non-Christians for something like this. 'cause it can get a little weird sometimes. But I think that, I think that'll work out. It'll be fun. I know there's actually some people in our telegram chat. Bing, bing, bing segue. There we go. There's some people in our telegram chat actually, that we're already planning to do a campaign. Um, so we might even do like a virtual reform brotherhood, Dungeons and Dragons group. So that might be a new sub channel in the telegram at some point.  [00:14:13] Jesse Schwamb: There you go. You could jump right in. Go to t.me back slash reform brotherhood.  [00:14:18] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Jesse, what are you affirming since I just spent the last 15 minutes gushing about my nerdy hobby?  [00:14:23] Jesse Schwamb: Uh, no, that was great. Can I, can I just say two things? One is, so you're basically saying it's a bit like, like a troll shows up and everybody's like, yes. And yeah. So I love that idea. Second thing, which is follow up question, very brief. What kind of merchant was Randall.  [00:14:39] Tony Arsenal: Uh, he was a spice trader actually.  [00:14:42] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. I don't trust that.  [00:14:43] Tony Arsenal: And, and silk, silk and spices.  [00:14:45] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. That's double, that's too strict.  [00:14:47] Tony Arsenal: He was actually good guy in the, in the story that developed out of this campaign. He actually became part of my family and like, like, like got adopted into the family because he lost everything on his own. Randy we're  [00:15:00] Jesse Schwamb: talking about Randy.  [00:15:01] Tony Arsenal: Randy Randall with one L. Yeah. The AI was very specific about  that.  [00:15:05] Jesse Schwamb: There's, there's nothing about this guy I trust. I, is this still ongoing? Because I think he's just trying to make his way deeper in,  [00:15:11] Tony Arsenal: uh, no, no. It, I'll, I'll wait for next week to tell you how much, even more nerdy this thing gets. But there's a whole thing that ha there was a whole thing out of this That's a tease. Tease. There was a, there was a horse and the horse died and there was lots of tears and there was a wedding and a baby. It was, it's all sorts of stuff going on in this campaign. [00:15:27] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. And I'm sure. Randy was somewhere near that horse when it happened. Right?  [00:15:32] Tony Arsenal: It was his horse.  [00:15:33] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, exactly. That's  [00:15:35] Tony Arsenal: exactly, he didn't, he didn't kill the horse. He had no power to knock down the bridge The horse was standing on.  [00:15:40] Jesse Schwamb: Listen, next week, I'm pretty sure that's what we're gonna learn is that it was all him. [00:15:45] Tony Arsenal: Alright, Jesse, save us from this. Save us from this, please. Uh,  [00:15:49] Jesse Schwamb: no.  What  [00:15:50] Tony Arsenal: you affirming, this is  [00:15:50] Jesse Schwamb: great.  [00:15:50] Jesse's Affirmation: Church Community [00:15:50] Jesse Schwamb: It's possible that there is a crossover between yours and mine if we consider. That the church is like playing a d and d game in the dungeon Masters Christ, and the campaigns, the gospel. So I was thinking maybe is it possible, uh, maybe this is just the, the theology of the cross, but that sometimes, like you need the denial to get to the affirmation. Have we talked about that kind of truth? Yeah,  [00:16:14] Tony Arsenal: yeah,  [00:16:15] Jesse Schwamb: for sure. So here's a little bit of that. I'll be very, very brief and I'm using this not as like just one thing that happened today, but what I know is for sure happening all over the world. And I mean that very literally, not just figuratively when it comes to the body of Christ, the local church. So it snowed here overnight. This was, this is the Lord's Day. We're hanging out in the Lord's Day, which is always a beautiful day to talk about God. And overnight it snowed. The snow stopped relatively late in the morning around the time that everybody would be saying, Hey, it's time to go and worship the Lord. So for those in my area, I got up, we did the whole clearing off the Kai thing. I went to church and I was there a little bit early for a practice for music. And when I pulled in, there weren't many there yet, but the whole parking lot unplowed. So there's like three inches of snow, unplowed parking lot. So I guess the denial is like the plow people decided like, not this time I, I don't think so. They understood they were contracted with the church, but my understanding is that when one of the deacons called, they were like, Ooh, yeah, we're like 35 minutes away right now, so that's gonna be a problem. So when I pulled in, here's what I was. Like surprise to find, but in a totally unexpected way, even though I understand what a surprise is. And that is that, uh, that first the elders and the deacons, everybody was just decided we're going to shovel an entire parking lot. And at some point big, I was a little bit early there, but at some point then this massive text change just started with everybody, which was, Hey, when you come to church, bring your shovel. And I, I will tell you like when I got out of the car. I was so like somebody was immediately running to clear a path with me. One of those like snow pushers, you know what I mean? Yeah. Like one, those beastly kind of like blade things.  [00:17:57] Tony Arsenal: Those things are, those things are the best.  [00:17:59] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. You just run. And so you have never met a group of people that was more happy to shovel an entire large asphalt area, which normally shouldn't even be required. And. It just struck me, even in hindsight now thinking about it, it was this lovely confluence of people serving each other and serving God. It was as if they got up that morning and said, do you know what would be the best thing in the world for me to do is to shovel. And so everybody was coming out. Everybody was shoveling it. It was to protect everyone and to allow one into elaborate, one access. It was just incredible. And so I started this because the affirmation is, I know this happens in, in all of our churches, every God fearing God, loving God serving church, something like this is happening, I think on almost every Lord's day or maybe every day of the week in various capacities. And I just think this is God's people coming together because everybody, I think when we sat down for the message was exhausted, but. But there was so much joy in doing this. I think what you normally would find to be a mundane and annoying task, and the fact that it wasn't just, it was redeemed as if like we, we found a greater purpose in it. But that's, everyone saw this as a way to love each other and to love God, and it became unexpected worship in the parking lot. That's really what it was, and it was fantastic. I really almost hope that we just get rid of the plow company and just do it this way from now on. Yeah, so I'm affirming, recognize people, recognize brothers and sisters that your, your church is doing this stuff all the time and, and be a part of it. Jump in with the kinda stuff because I love how it brings forward the gospel.  [00:19:35] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. That's a great story. It's a great, uh, a great example of the body of Christ being, what the body of Christ is and just pulling together to get it done. Um, which, you know, we do on a spiritual level, I think, more often than a physical level these days. Right, right. But, um, that's great. I'm sitting here going three inches of snow. I would've just pulled into the lot and then pulled out of the lot. But New Hampshire, it hits different in New Hampshire. Like we all d have snow tires and four wheel drive.  [00:20:02] Jesse Schwamb: It's, it's enough snow where it was like pretty wet and heavy that it, if, you know, you pack that stuff down, it gets slick. You can't see the people, like you can't have your elderly people just flying in, coming in hot and then trying to get outta the vehicle, like making their way into church.  [00:20:14] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:20:15] Jesse Schwamb: So there was, there was a lot more of that. But I think again, you would, one of the options would've been like, Hey, why don't we shovel out some sp spaces for the, for those who need it, for, you know, those who need to have access in a way that's a little bit less encumbered. Oh, no, no. These people are like, I see your challenge and I am going to shovel the entire parking lots.  [00:20:35] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. It used to happen once in a while, uh, at the last church, uh, at, um, your dad's church. We would, where the plow would just not come on a Sunday morning or, or more often than not. Um, you know, what happens a lot of times is the plows don't want to come more than once. Right. If they don't have to. Or sometimes they won't come if they think it's gonna melt because they don't want to deal with, uh, with like customers who are mad that you plowed and that it all melts. But either way, once in a while. The plow wouldn't come or it wouldn't come in time. And what we would do is instead of trying to shovel an entire driveway thing, we would just went, the first couple people who would get there, the young guys in the church, there was only a couple of us, but the younger guys in the church would just, we would just be making trips, helping people into the, yeah. Helping people into the building. So, um, it was a pretty, you know, it was a small church, so it was like six trips and we'd have everybody in, but um, we just kind of, that was the way we pulled together. Um, yeah, that's a great, it's a great story. I love, I love stuff like that. Yeah, me too. Whether it's, whether it's, you know, plowing a, a parking lot with shovels instead of a plow, or it's just watching, um, watching the tables and the chairs from the fellowship, you know, all just like disappear because everybody's just, uh, picks up after themselves and cleans and stuff. That's, that's like the most concrete example of the body of Christ doing what the body of Christ does. Um, it's always nice, you know, we always hear jokes about like, who can carry the most, the most chairs,  [00:22:04] Jesse Schwamb: most  [00:22:04] Tony Arsenal: chairs. Uh, I think it's true. Like a lot of times I think like I could do like seven or eight sometimes. [00:22:10] Jesse Schwamb: Uh, you, that's, so, one more thing I wanna say. I, I wanted to tell you this privately, Tony, 'cause it just cracked me up 'cause I, you'll appreciate this. But now I'm realizing I think the brothers and sisters who listened to us talk for any length of time and in the context of this conversation, but the church will appreciate this too. On my way out, I, I happened because I was there early and the snow was crazy. I parked way further out, way on the edge of the lot to just allow for greater access because of all the shoveling that was happening. And by the way, I really hope there were a ton of visitors this morning because they were like, wow, this, this church is wild. They love to shovel their own lot and they're the happiest people doing it. Some sweaty person just ushered me in while they were casting snow. Like,  [00:22:47] Tony Arsenal: is this some new version of snake handling? You shovel your own lot and your impervious to back injuries.  [00:22:53] Jesse Schwamb: Uh. So I was walking out and as I walked past, uh, there was a, uh, two young gentlemen who were congregating by this very large lifted pickup truck, which I don't have much experience with, but it looked super cool and it was started, it was warming up, and they were just like casually, like in the way that only like people with large beards wearing flannel and Carhartt kind of do, like casually leaning against the truck, talking in a way that you're like, wow, these guys are rugged. And they sound, they're super cool, and they're probably like in their twenties. And all I hear as I pass by is one guy going, yeah, well, I mean that's, I was, I said to them too, but I said, listen, I'd rather go to a church with God-fearing women than anywhere else.  [00:23:36] Tony Arsenal: Nice.  [00:23:37] Jesse Schwamb: I was just like, yep. On the prowl and I love it. And they're not wrong. This is the place to be.  [00:23:42] Tony Arsenal: It is.  [00:23:43] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. This is the place to be. Yeah. So all kinds of, all kinds of good things I think going on in that in the house of the Lord and where wherever you're at, I would say be happy and be joyful and look for those things and participate in, like you said, whether it's physical or not, but as soon as you said like the, our young men, our youth somehow have this competition of when we need to like pack up the sanctuary. How many chairs can I take at one time? Yeah. It's like the classic and it just happens. Nobody says like, okay, everybody line up. We're about to embark on the competition now. Like the strong man usher competition. It's just like, it just happens and  [00:24:17] Tony Arsenal: it's  [00:24:17] Jesse Schwamb: incredible.  [00:24:18] Tony Arsenal: I mean, peacocks fan out their tail feathers. Young Christian guys fan out. All of the table chairs, chairs they can carry. It's uh, it's a real phenomena. So I feel like if you watch after a men's gathering, everybody is like carrying one chair at a time because they don't wanna hurt their backs and their arms. Oh, that's  [00:24:36] Jesse Schwamb: true. That's  [00:24:37] Tony Arsenal: what I do. Yeah. But it's when the women are around, that's when you see guys carrying like 19 chairs. Yeah. Putting themselves in the hospital.  [00:24:42] Jesse Schwamb: That's what I, listen, it comes for all of us. Like I, you know, I'm certainly not young anymore by almost any definition, but even when I'm in the mix, I'm like, oh, I see you guys. You wanna play this game? Mm-hmm. Let's do this. And then, you know, I'm stacking chairs until I hurt myself. So it's great. That's, that is what we do for each other. It's  [00:25:01] Tony Arsenal: just, I hurt my neck getting outta bed the other day. So it happens. It's real.  [00:25:05] Jesse Schwamb: The struggle. Yeah, the struggle is real.  [00:25:07] The Parable of the Lost Son [00:25:07] Jesse Schwamb: Speaking of struggle, speaking of family issues, speaking of all kinds of drama, let's get into Luke 15 and let me read just, I would say the first part of this parable, which as we've agreed to talk about, if we can even get this far, it's just the younger son. [00:25:24] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:25:25] Jesse Schwamb: And again, don't worry, we're gonna get to all of it, but let me read beginning in, uh, verse 11 here. This is Luke chapter 15. Come follow along as you will accept if you're operating heavy machinery. And Jesus said, A man had two sons and the younger of them said to his father, father, give me the share of the estate that falls to me. So he divided his wealth between them. And not many days later, the younger son gathered everything together and went on a journey into a distant country. And there he squandered his estate living recklessly. Now, when he had spent everything, a severe famine occurred in that country and it began to be impoverished. So he went and hired himself to one of the citizens of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. So he went and as he was desiring to be fed with the pods that the swine were eating because no one was giving anything to him. But when he came to himself, he said, how many of my father's men have more than enough bread, but I am dying here with hunger. I'll rise up and go to my father, and I'll say to him, father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me as one of your hired men. So he rose up, came to his father, but while he was still a long way off. His father saw him and felt compassion and ran and embraced him. And the son said to him, father, I've sinned against heaven and before you, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father said to his slaves, quickly, bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet and bring the fat in calf and slaughter it and let us celebrate. For the son of mine was dead and has come to life again. He was lost and he has been found and they began to celebrate.  [00:27:09] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. This is such a, um, such a, I don't know, like pivotal seminal parable in the Ministry of Christ. Um, it's one of those parables and we, we mentioned this briefly last week that even most. It, it hasn't passed out of the cultural zeitgeist yet. A lot of biblical teaching has, I mean, a lot, I think a lot of things that used to be common knowledge where, where you could make a reference to something in the Bible and people would just get it. Um, even if they weren't Christian or weren't believers, they would still know what you were talking about. There's a lot of things in the Bible that have passed out of that cultural memory. The, the parable of the prodigal son, lost son, however you wanna phrase it, um, that's not one of them. Right. So I think it's really important for us, um, and especially since it is such a beautiful picture of the gospel and it has so many different theological touch points, it's really incumbent on us to spend time thinking about this because I would be willing to bet that if you weave. Elements of this parable into your conversations with nonbelievers that you are praying for and, and, you know, witnessing to and sharing the gospel with, if you weave this in there, you're gonna help like plant some seeds that when it comes time to try to harvest, are gonna pay dividends. Right. So I think it's a really, it's a really great thing that we're gonna be able to spend, you know, a couple weeks really just digging into this. [00:28:40] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, and to define the beginning, maybe from the end, just slightly here, I like what you said about this cultural acknowledgement of this. I think one of the correctives we can provide, which is clear in the story, is in the general cultural sense. We speak of this prodigal as something that just returns comes back, was lost, but now is found. And often maybe there is this component of, in the familial relationship, it's as if they've been restored. Here we're gonna of course find that this coming to one senses is in fact the work of God. That there is, again, a little bit of denial that has to bring forward the affirmation here that is the return. And so again, from the beginning here, we're just talking about the younger son. We have more than youthful ambition.  [00:29:19] The Essence of Idolatry and Sin [00:29:19] Jesse Schwamb: This heart of, give me the stuff now, like so many have said before, is really to say. Give me the gifts and not you, which is, I think, a common fault of all Christians. We think, for instance of heaven, and we think of all the blessings that come with it, but not necessarily of the joy of just being with our savior, being with Christ. And I think there's something here right from the beginning, there's a little bit of this betrayal in showing idolatry, the ugliness of treating God's gifts as if there's something owed. And then this idea that of course. He receives these things and imme more or less immediately sometime after he goes and takes these things and squanderers them. And sin and idolatry, I think tends to accelerate in this way. The distance from the father becomes distance from wisdom. We are pulled away from that, which is good. The father here being in his presence and being under his care and his wisdom and in his fear of influence and concern, desiring then to say, I don't want you just give me the gifts that you allegedly owe me. And then you see how quickly like sin does everything you, we always say like, sin always costs more than you want to pay. And it always takes you further than you want to go. And that's exactly what we see here. Like encapsulated in an actual story of relationship and distance.  [00:30:33] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, I think, um. It's interesting to me.  [00:30:39] The Greek Words for Property [00:30:39] Tony Arsenal: You know, I, I, I'm a big fan of saying you don't need to study Greek to understand your Bible, but I'm also a big fan of saying understanding a little bit of Greek is really helpful. And one of the things that I think is really intriguing, and I haven't quite parsed out exactly what I think this means, but the word property in this parable, it actually is two different Greek words that is translated as property, at least in the ESV. And neither one of them really fit. What our normal understanding of property would be. And there are Greek words that refer to like all of your material possessions, but it says, father, give me the share of property. And he uses the word usia, which those of us who have heard anything about the trinity, which is all of us, um, know that that word means something about existence. It's the core essence of a person. So it says, father, give me the share of usia that is coming to me. And then it says, and he divided his bias, his, his life between them. Then it says, not many days later, the younger son gathered all that he had took a journey into the far country. There he squandered his usia again. So this, this parable, Christ is not using the ordinary words to refer to material, uh, material accumulation and property like. I think probably, you know, Christ isn't like randomly using these words. So there probably is an element that these were somehow figuratively used of one's life possessions. But the fact that he's using them in these particular ways, I think is significant. [00:32:10] The Prodigal Son's Misconception [00:32:10] Tony Arsenal: And so the, the, the younger son here, and I don't even like calling this the prodigal sun parable because the word prodigal doesn't like the equivalent word in Greek doesn't appear in this passage. And prodigal doesn't mean like the lost in returned, like prodigal is a word that means like the one who spends lavishly, right? So we call him the prodigal son because he went and he squandered all of his stuff and he spent all of his money. So it doesn't even really describe the main feature or the main point of why this, this parable is here. It's just sort of like a random adjective that gets attached to it. But all of that aside, um. This parable starts off not just about wasting our property, like wasting our things, but it's a parable that even within the very embedded language of the parable itself is talking about squandering our very life, our very essence, our very existence is squandered and wasted as we depart from the Father. Right? And this is so like, um, it's almost so on the head, on the on the nose that it's almost a little like, really Jesus. Like this is, this is so like, slap you in the face kind of stuff. This is right outta like Romans, uh, Romans one, like they did not give thanks to God. They did not show gratitude to God or acknowledge him as God. This is what's happening in this parable. The son doesn't go to his father and say, father, I love you. I'm so happy to stay with you. I'm so happy to be here. He, he basically says like. Give me your very life essence, and I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go spend it on prostitutes. I'm gonna go waste your life, father, I'm gonna waste your life, your existence, your bias. I'm gonna go take that and I'm gonna squander it on reckless living. And I guess we don't know for sure. He, it doesn't say he spends it on prostitutes. That's something his brother says later and assumes he did. So I, I don't know that we do that. But either way, I'm gonna take what's yours, your very life, your very essence. And also that my life, my essence, the gift you've given me as my father, you've given me my life. In addition now to your life or a portion of your life. And I'm gonna go squander that on reckless living, right? Like, how much of a picture of sin is that, that we, we take what we've been given by God, our very life, our very essence, we owe him everything, and we squander that on sinful, reckless living. That that's just a slap in the face in the best way right out of the gate here.  [00:34:28] Jesse Schwamb: Yes, that, that's a great point because it's, it would be one thing to rebel over disobedience, another thing to use the very life essence that you've been given for destructive, self-destructive purposes. And then to use that very energy, which is not yours to begin with, but has been imbued in yours, external, all of these things. And then to use that very thing as the force of your rebellion. So it's double insult all the way around. I'm with you in the use of Greek there. Thank you. Locus Bio software. Not a sponsor of the podcast, but could be. And I think that's why sometimes in translations you get the word like a state because it's like the closest thing we can have to understanding that it's property earned through someone's life more or less. Yeah. And then is passed down, but as representative, not just of like, here's like 20 bucks of cash, but something that I spent all of me trying to earn and. And to your point, also emphasizing in the same way that this son felt it was owed him. So it's like really bad all around and I think we would really be doing ourselves a disservice if we didn't think that there's like a little bit of Paul washer saying in this, like I'm talking about you though. So like just be like, look at how disrespectful the sun is. Yeah. Haven't we all done this? To God and bringing up the idea of prodigal being, so that, that is like the amazing juxtaposition, isn't it? Like Prodigal is, is spent recklessly, parsimonious would be like to, to save recklessly, so to speak. And then you have the love the father demonstrates coming against all of that in the same way with like a totally different kind of force. So.  [00:36:02] The Famine and Realization [00:36:02] Jesse Schwamb: What I find interesting, and I think this is like set up in exactly what you said, is that when you get to verse 14 and this famine comes, it's showing us, I think that like providence exposes what Sin conceals.  [00:36:16] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:36:16] Jesse Schwamb: And want arrives. Not just because like the money ran out, but because again, like these idols, what he's replaced the father with, they don't satisfy. And repentance then often begins when God shows the emptiness of light apart life apart from him. That's like the affirmation being born out of the denial. And so I think that this also is evolving for us, this idea that God is going to use hardship, not as mere punishment, but as mercy that wakes us up and that the son here is being woken up, but not, of course, it's not as if he goes into the land, like you said, starts to spend, is like, whoa, hold on a second. This seems like a bad idea. It's not until all of that sin ever, like the worship of false things collapses under its own weight before it, which is like the precursor of the antecedent, I think, to this grand repentance or this waking up.  [00:37:05] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I also think it's, um.  [00:37:08] The Depths of Desperation [00:37:08] Tony Arsenal: A feature of this that I haven't reflected on too deeply, but is, is worth thinking about is the famine that's described here only occurs in this far country that he's in. [00:37:17] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah.  [00:37:17] Tony Arsenal: Right. So even that's right. And this is like a multitude of foolish decisions. This is compounding foolish decisions that don't, don't make any sense. Like they don't really actually make any sense. Um. There's not a logic to this, this lost son's decision making. He takes the property. Okay. I guess maybe like you could be anxious to get your inheritance, but then like he takes it to a far country. Like there's no reason for him to do that. If at any point through this sort of insane process he had stopped short, he would not have been in the situation he was in. Yes. And that, I love that phrase, that providence, you know, reveals, I don't know exactly how you said it, but like providence reveals what our sin can bring to us. Like he first see sins against his father by sort of like demanding, demanding his inheritance early. Then he takes it and he leaves his country for no reason. He goes to this far country, then he spends everything and then the famine arises. Right? And the famine arises in this other country.  [00:38:13] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:38:13] Tony Arsenal: And that's, I think that is still again, like a picture of sin. Like we. We don't just, we don't just take what the father has and, and like spend it like that would be bad enough if we weren't grateful for what we have and what we've been given, and we just waste it. But on top of that, now we also have taken ourselves to a far country. Like we've gone away from the good, the good land of the Lord, as those who are not regenerate. We've gone away from the, the Lord into this far country. And it's not until we start to have this famine that we recognize what we've done. And again, this is, this is where I think we get a picture. There's so many theological, like points in this parable particular that it almost feels a little bit like a, like a. Parable that's intended to teach some systematic theology about for sure, the oral salus, which I think there's probably a lot of like biblical theology people that are ready to just crawl through the screen and strangle me for saying that. But this is such a glorious picture of, of regeneration too. [00:39:16] The Journey Back to the Father [00:39:16] Tony Arsenal: Like he comes to himself, there's nothing, there's nothing in the story that's like, oh, and the servant that he was, the other servant he was talking to mentioned that the famine, like there's nothing here that should prompt him to want to go back to his home, to think that his father could or would do anything about it, except that he comes to himself. He just comes to the realization that his father is a good man and is wise and has resources, and has takes care of his, of his servants on top of how he takes care of his sons. That is a picture of regeneration. There's no, yeah. Logical, like I'm thinking my way into it, he just one day realizes how much, how many of my father's servants have more than enough bread. Right. But I'm perishing here in this, this foolish other country with nothing. Right. I can't even, and the, the pods that the pigs ate, we can even, we can get into the pods a little bit here, but like. He wants to eat the pods. The pods that he's giving the pigs are not something that's even edible to humans. He's that destitute, that he's willing to eat these pods that are like, this is the leftover stuff that you throw to the pigs because no, no, nobody and nothing else can actually eat it. And that's the state he's in at the very bottom, in the very end of himself where he realizes my father is good and he loves me, and even if I can never be his son again, surely he'll take care of me. I mentioned it last week, like he wasn't going back thinking that this was gonna be a failing proposition. He went back because he knew or he, he was confident that his father was going to be able to take care of him and would accept him back. Right. Otherwise, what would be the point of going back? It wasn't like a, it wasn't like a, um, a mission he expected to fail at. He expected there to be a positive outcome or he wouldn't have done it. Like, it wouldn't make any sense to try that if there wasn't the hope of some sort of realistic option.  [00:41:09] Jesse Schwamb: And I think his confidence in that option, as you were saying, is in this way where he's constructed a transaction. Yeah. That he's gonna go back and say, if you'll just take me out as a slave, I know you have slaves, I will work for you. Right. Therefore, I feel confident that you'll accept me under those terms because I'll humble myself. And why would you not want to remunerate? Me for the work that I put forward. So you're right, like it's, it's strange that he basically comes to this, I think, sense that slavery exists in his life and who would he rather be the slave of,  [00:41:38] Tony Arsenal: right? [00:41:39] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. And so he says, listen, I'm gonna come to the father and give him this offer. And I'm very confident that given that offer and his behavior, what I know about how he treats his other slaves, that he will hire me back because there's work to do. And therefore, as a result of the work I put forward, he will take care of me. How much of like contemporary theology is being preached in that very way right now?  [00:41:58] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:41:59] Jesse Schwamb: And that's really like why the minimum wages of sin is all of this stuff. It's death. It's the consequences that we're speaking about here. By the way, the idea about famine is really interesting. I hadn't thought about that. It is interesting, again, that sin casts him out into this foreign place where the famine occurs. And that famine is the beginning of his realization of the true destruction, really how far he's devolved and degraded in his person and in his relationships and in his current states. And then of course, the Bible is replete with references and God moving through famine. And whereas in Genesis, we have a local famine, essentially casting Joseph brothers into a foreign land to be freed and to be saved.  [00:42:39] Tony Arsenal: Right.  [00:42:40] Jesse Schwamb: We have the exact opposite, which is really kind of interesting. Yeah. So we probably should talk about, you know, verse 15 and the, and the pig stuff. I mean, I think the obvious statement here is that. It would be scandalous, like a Jewish hero would certainly feel the shame of the pigs. They represent UNC cleanliness and social humiliation. I'm interested again, in, in this idea, like you've started us on that the freedom that this younger brother sought for becomes slavery. It's kind of bondage of the wills style. Yeah. Stuff. There's like an, an attentiveness in the story to the degrading reversal in his condition. And it is interesting that we get there finally, like the bottom of the pit maybe, or the barrel is like you said, the pods, which it's a bit like looking at Tide pods and being like, these are delicious. I wish I could just eat these. So I, I think your point isn't lost. Like it's not just that like he looked at something gross and was so his stomach was grumbling so much that he might find something in there that he would find palatable. It, it's more than that. It's like this is just total nonsense. It, this is Romans one. [00:43:45] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And these pods, like, these aren't, um, you know, I guess I, I don't know exactly what these are. I'm sure somebody has done all of the historical linguistic studies, but the Greek word is related to the, the word for keratin. So like the, the same, the same root word. And we have to be careful not to define a Greek word based on how we use it. That's a reverse etymology fallacy. Like dunamis doesn't mean dynamite, it's the other direction. But the Greek word is used in other places, in Greek literature to describe like the horns of rhinoc, like,  [00:44:21] Jesse Schwamb: right,  [00:44:21] Tony Arsenal: this, these aren't like. These aren't pea pods. I've heard this described like these are like little vegetable pods. No, this is like they're throwing pieces of bone to the pigs.  [00:44:31] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah.  [00:44:31] Tony Arsenal: And the pigs, the pigs can manage it. And this is what this also like, reinforces how destitute and how deep the famine is. Like this isn't as though, like this is the normal food you give to pigs. Like usually you feed pigs, like you feed pigs, like the extra scraps from your table and like other kinds of like agricultural waste. These are, these are like chunks of bony keratin that are being fed to the pigs. So that's how terrible the famine is that not even the pigs are able to get food.  [00:45:00] Jesse Schwamb: Right?  [00:45:00] Tony Arsenal: They're given things that are basically inedible, but the pigs can manage it. And this, this kid is so hungry, he's so destitute that he says, man, I wish I could chew on those bony, those bony pods that I'm feeding them because that's how hungry and starved I am. You get the picture that this, um. This lost son is actually probably not just metaphorically on the brink of death, but he's in real risk of starvation, real risk of death that he, he can't even steal. He can't even steal from the pigs what they're eating, right? Like he can't even, he can't even glean off of what the pigs are eating just to stay alive. He, he's literally in a position where he has no hope of actually rescuing himself. The only thing that he can do, and this is the realization he has, the only thing he can do is throw himself back on the mercy of his father.  [00:45:50] Jesse Schwamb: That's  [00:45:50] Tony Arsenal: right. And, and hope, again, I think hope with confidence, but hope that his father will show mercy on him and his, his conception. I wanna be careful in this parable not to, I, I think there's something to what you're getting at or kinda what you're hinting at, that like his conception of mercy is. Not the full picture of the gospel. Yes. His conception of mercy is that he's going to be able to go and work and be rewarded for his laborers in a way that he can survive. And the gospel is so much broader and so much bigger than that. But at the same time, I think it's, it's actually also a confident hope, a faith-filled hope that his father's mercy is going to rescue him, is going to save him. So it is this picture of what we do. And, and I think, I think sometimes, um, I want to be careful how we say this 'cause I don't wanna, I don't want to get a bunch of angry emails and letters, but I think sometimes we, um, we make salvation too much of a theology test. And there's probably people that are like, Tony, did you really just say that? I think there are people who trust in the Lord Jesus thinking that that means something akin to what. This lost son thinks  [00:47:03] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:47:03] Tony Arsenal: Exactly. They trust. They trust that Jesus is merciful and, and I'm not necessarily thinking of Roman Catholics. I'm not thinking of Roman Catholic theology for sure. I do think there are a fair number of Roman Catholic individuals that fall into this category where they trust Jesus to save them. Right. They just don't fully understand exactly what Jesus means, what that means for them to be saved. They think that Christ is a savior who will provide a way for them to be saved by His grace that requires them to contribute something to it. Arminians fall into that category. Right. I actually think, and I, I think there's gonna be if, if there's, if the one Lutheran who listens to our show hears this is gonna be mad, but I actually think Lutheran theology kind of falls into this in a sort of negative fashion in that you have to not resist grace in order to be saved. So I think. That is something we should grapple with is that there are people who fit into that category, but this is still a faith-filled, hope-filled confidence in the mercy of the father in this parable that he's even willing to make the journey back. Right? This isn't like right, he walks from his house down the street or from the other side of town. He's wandering back from a far country. He, he went into a far country. He has to come back from a far country. And yes, the father greets him from afar and sees him from afar. But we're not talking about like from a far country. Like he sees him coming down the road, it, he has to travel to him, and this is a picture of. The hope and the faith that we have to have to return to God, to throw ourselves on the mercy of Christ, trusting that he has our best interest in mind, that he has died for us, and that it is for us. Right? There's the, the knowledge of what Christ has done, and then there's the ascent to the truth of it. And then the final part of faith is the confidence or the, the faith in trust in the fact that, that is for me as well, right? This, this is a picture of that right here. I, I don't know why we thought we were gonna get through the whole thing in one week, Jesse. We're gonna spend at least two weeks on this lost son, or at least part of the second week here. But he, this is, this is also like a picture of faith. This is why I say this as like a systematic theology lesson on soteriology all packed into here. Because not only do we have, like what is repentance and or what does regeneration look like? It's coming to himself. What does repentance look like? Yes. Turning from your sins and coming back. What is, what is the orde solis? Well, there's a whole, there's a whole thing in here. What is the definition of faith? Well, he knows that his father is good. That he has more than enough food for his servants. He, uh, is willing to acknowledge the truth of that, and he's willing to trust in that, in that he's willing to walk back from a far country in order to lay claim to that or to try to lay claim to it. That's a picture of faith right there, just in all three parts. Right. It's, it's really quite amazing how, how in depth this parable goes on this stuff,  [00:49:54] Jesse Schwamb: right? Yeah. It's wild to note that as he comes to himself, he's still working. Yeah, in that far off country. So this shows again that sin is this cruel master. He hits the bottom, he wants the animal food, but he's still unfed. And this is all the while again, he has some kind of arrangement where he is trying to work his way out of that and he sees the desperation. And so I'm with you, you know, before coming to Christ, A person really, I think must come to themselves and that really is like to say they need to have a sober self-knowledge under God, right? Yeah. Which is, as we said before, like all this talk about, well Jesus is the answer. We better be sure what the question is. And that question is who am I before God? And this is why, of course, you have to have the law and gospel, or you have to have the the bad news before you can have the good news. And really, there's all of this bad news that's delivered here and this repentance, like you've been saying, it's not just mere regret, we know this. It's a turning, it's a reorientation back to the father. He says, I will arise and go to my father. So yeah, also it demonstrates to me. When we do come to ourselves when there's a sober self-knowledge under God, there is a true working out of salvation that necessarily requires and results in some kind of action, right? And that is the mortification of sin that is moving toward God again, under his power and direction of the Holy Spirit. But still there is some kind of movement on our part. And so that I think is what leads then in verse 19, as you're saying, the son and I do love this 'cause I think this goes right back to like the true hope that he has, even though it might be slightly corrupted or slightly washed out because it's not like the full, bright colors of the gospel in its entirety. But he doesn't deny that he's the son. He just ows that he's his worthiness. And so there's like a tender conscience somewhere in there concluding like I must, we can say like, well, I must not really be truly God's own, or God would never take me as I am. And so what we have here, I think is this lesson reminder of God, the difference between identity and harmony with God. That harmony often gets disrupted because of our own sin, but this son here recognizes that he is still the son. And so I think he, he knows his father, like you're saying. I think he hopes for the best, but what he wants to put forward is, can I just come and be a slave in your house? Which incidentally is what he will become, but under better pretenses of saying, well, you will maintain you sonship because of some kind of meritorious earning, which is where we're all tempted to go because it feels better. It feels more safe than trusting and embracing and receiving the fathers recklessly spend thrift love, which actually is the thing that keeps us in the identity of being a son or a daughter of God. So you're right, there's so much that's happening. Underneath there that, I mean, I'm sure some Puritan has written about that in probably 50,000 words. [00:52:36] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:52:36] Jesse Schwamb: But there's so much there because I'm with you. I think there is a great hope because of understanding his identity, and yet he knows the harmony is disrupted to such a degree that what he also trusts in is that worst case scenario, I would rather be a slave for my father than I would rather be a slave to sin. And I think only until you come to that place, only when you understand that you are a slave to something, into someone, that you actually start to ask, well, how good is my master? That there is a coming to yourself, which leads to repentance and God uses in his grand providence, all kinds of past, all kinds of undertakings, all kinds of campaigns, if you will, to bring us to that place. But he must bring us to that place before we can have true repentance.  [00:53:19] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.  [00:53:20] The Father's Unconditional Mercy [00:53:20] Tony Arsenal: And, you know, we'll, we'll get into it more, but just because I, I don't feel great about, uh. Sort of throwing out the law in some ways and not finishing with the gospel.  [00:53:30] Jesse Schwamb: Let's get to the gospel.  [00:53:31] Tony Arsenal: The, the father's correction of this is again, like this is the systematic theology correction. The son comes and he says, or he's planning on saying, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants. When we get to the father. The father cuts him off as I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.  [00:53:49] Jesse Schwamb: Right? Right.  [00:53:49] Tony Arsenal: So he doesn't, he doesn't let him get to the point of, of proposing the meritorious salvation that he thought he was going to get. He, he lets him acknowledge, right? He, the father, lets him acknowledge that he's no longer worthy of being his son, and then essentially says, but that doesn't matter because I am worthy of being your father, and I will make you my son again. That that's what he does. He brings the robe, he brings the sandal, he brings the ring, he restores and elevates him to a position of sonship that he didn't even before he left, didn't fully have. We'll talk about that and we'll talk about it again. He, he doesn't come home and come back to being the second son. He comes back home. And this is part of why the older son is so annoyed, is he's actually elevated to the place of the firstborn.  [00:54:35] Jesse Schwamb: That's right.  [00:54:36] Tony Arsenal: By, by begin being given all these symbols of inheritance. And, and this is, you know, this is the other thing, and maybe we'll talk about this more when we get to the, get to what the father gives him. But in Jewish custom and in the Jewish law, the second born son would get, would get one third of the estate. And so he comes back and one third of, I mean, who knows? We don't know how long this trip is. We don't know how long he's been gone. We don't know how, um, how much the estate has been rebuilt. Obviously, the father is still working. It's not as though like his estate is just like stagnant and neutral, but when he comes back, a third of the estate has been wiped out by his reckless living. When he comes back, he's  basically  given all the symbols to say  that  he's now guaranteed to have  the,  the two thirds.  [00:55:22] Jesse Schwamb: Right?  [00:55:23] Tony Arsenal: So he comes back to this position,  into this estate  where the father elevates him  back to and  above his previous station  of sonship.  That is the gospel of Jesus Christ  right there. [00:55:34] Jesse Schwamb: That's right.  [00:55:34] Tony Arsenal: That's double imputation baked into the pie.  Amen. It's not,  it's not just that. He goes, well.  Yeah,  you spent all this stuff, but I guess  like we can,  we can overlook that. That would be more akin to come back.  You can  start at zero,  I guess.  Zero is a servant in my house.  Go ahead and  work your way back up if you can. Right. He comes back and the father says like, well, I've been working hard. I mean, I'm kind of like importing this into the text a little bit, but I've been working hard to rebuild the estate while you were gone. You took a third of it and I've been working hard and now I'm granting you at the, at a minimum, like I'm granting you back what you took away, what you squandered. I'm giving it back to you. I'm restoring you, not just to neutral. I'm restoring you to this place of positive, favorable, gracious, loving communion with me, such that I'm gonna celebrate, I'm gonna give you the best things. I'm gonna kill the animal, and we're gonna have the best feasts, we're gonna have the most fun, we're gonna celebrate because you're alive. You're back, and you're alive. Right. That's an element that I had never even thought of in this. You know, the, the father is not supposed to be pictured in this parable as omniscient, right? He has to see the son coming back. I, I don't, you know, I'm, I'm my kid's only almost four years old, but I know a lot of people who have teenagers that they go out and like, they don't come back for days at a time. And that's a terrifying thing for a parent. Now imagine if he was off in a far country and you don't have phones, you don't have a cell phone, you can't track him on your iPhone. This, this father is, so, he probably had counted his son as dead right there. There probably wasn't another conclusion to make that when he disappears like that, this is a, this is a real return and a real resurrection in a sense, in this parable that we, we should not overlook, right? I think we think about the, the phrasing at the end there that your brother was lost and now he's fine. He was, he was dead and now he's alive. We think of that as like poetic or metaphorical or, or, or some sort of like hyperbolic statement. But in a very real sense in this instance, this son really did come back to life for this family and he was brought back to life and restored back to life by the grace of the father in in restoring him to this place of sonship. [00:57:45] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, I think that's right. That initial interaction, that requesting, that demanding is like a severing of the relationship. Yeah. It's basically saying, I wish to go away and to disconnect with you completely as if you were dead and I was a different person.  [00:58:00] Concluding Thoughts and Reflections [00:58:00] Jesse Schwamb: And so I think a great place to end, like you said, is let's be reminded that God's mercy is not reluctant, like God's mercy comes in hot. The embrace comes faster than the son's repair attempts. That's exactly how God treats us. He delights to bring that mercy to his children when they come before him in repentance day after day after day. Thank goodness. Praise God that his mercies are new every day. And here there are mercies for this son Yeah. By the way, before we end, I have to ask Tony, what flavor is the double imputation pie? Is that like a, is it a fruit pie or is that like a more of a cold, like custard based pie?  [00:58:42] Tony Arsenal: Well, you know, we do have a precedent on this podcast of talking about Exactly. Salvation.  [00:58:46] Jesse Schwamb: Exactly.  [00:58:46] Tony Arsenal: Being the pie or the cake, right? So the cake is salvation. I don't know. Whatever it is, it's sweet and delicious. Maybe it's like a meat pie. Maybe it's like a good, like minced meat pie with all the, like, are you  [00:58:57] Jesse Schwamb: going  [00:58:57] Tony Arsenal: savory? Good protein? Yeah. Maybe it's a savory pie. Okay. I don't know.  [00:59:00] Jesse Schwamb: Okay.  [00:59:00] Tony Arsenal: I've never had a savory pie.  [00:59:02] Jesse Schwamb: I, I like, I, you know how you say that? I haven't either, but I would love like, what's it like steak and kidney? Isn't that like a famous.  [00:59:09] Tony Arsenal: That sounds awful.  [00:59:11] Jesse Schwamb: Well, isn't that like a, listen, do we have any brothers, sisters who are listening in in any of like the, yeah, the United Kingdom. Where are you guys at? Yeah, Daniel is a steak and kidney. Daniel, you  [00:59:19] Tony Arsenal: tell us. Daniel Steak and kidney a real thing.  [00:59:22] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, we need to know.  [00:59:24] Tony Arsenal: Okay.  [00:59:24] Jesse Schwamb: Is it good? Is it delicious? Would you describe it as a pie of double imputation again, steak, kidney? I'm thinking,  [00:59:34] Tony Arsenal: I don't even  [00:59:34] Jesse Schwamb: know. Tony's not, not convinced. So look at his face is like, we need to end this episode right  [00:59:39] Tony Arsenal: now. Yeah. Well, Jesse, I know how to end the episode. It's funny, it's funny. People, I'm glad people picked up on the little joke from last week, although it wasn't really a joke.  [00:59:49] Jesse Schwamb: No.  [00:59:50] Tony Arsenal: And I still have this recurring nightmare than we're gonna forget how to end the podcast. But last week we were trying a, a slightly different recording setup. [00:59:57] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.  [00:59:57] Tony Arsenal: And somehow, maybe this is our AI overlords playing some sort of joke on us. Somehow, right after talking about how we were gonna blow the ending, the system magically muted Jesse's microphone. I could see his hands. They were nowhere near the keyboard. There's no possible way  [01:00:13] Jesse Schwamb: in the air.  [01:00:14] Tony Arsenal: Just absolutely. The, the, the phone was like, or the recording software was like, not today boys. So we're on a different platform this time. Hopefully it won't do it.  [01:00:25] Jesse Schwamb: We're about to find out.  [01:00:27] Tony Arsenal: We will. When I say until next time, Jesse Honor. Everyone  [01:00:33] Jesse Schwamb: just kidding. Everybody  [01:00:34] Tony Arsenal: love the brotherhood. 
• The Parable of the Lost Son: A Portrait of Regeneration and Repentance 23.01.2026 1ч 1мин

  What happens when a son demands his father's life essence, squanders it in a far country, and returns expecting servanthood? In this theologically rich episode, Tony Arsenal and Jesse Schwamb conduct a detailed exegetical study of Luke 15:11-24, revealing how the Parable of the Lost Son illustrates the core doctrines of regeneration, repentance, and double imputation. Through careful attention to the Greek text and systematic theology, the hosts demonstrate how this familiar parable captures the entire ordo salutis—the order of salvation. From the son's rebellion and spiritual death to his miraculous "coming to himself" and the father's extravagant restoration, this episode unpacks the gospel embedded in one of Scripture's most beloved stories, showing how God's mercy isn't reluctant but runs to meet repentant sinners. Key Takeaways The Son's Demand Reveals the Essence of Idolatry - When the younger son asks for his inheritance, he's not just requesting property but demanding his father's very life essence (Greek: ousia and bios), demonstrating how sin is fundamentally about wanting God's gifts without God Himself. Providence Exposes What Sin Conceals - The famine that strikes only in the far country reveals a theological pattern: hardship is not merely punishment but God's mercy waking us to the emptiness of life apart from Him. "Coming to Himself" Pictures Regeneration - The son's sudden realization about his father's goodness isn't the result of logical reasoning but represents the supernatural work of regeneration—coming to spiritual life and self-awareness under God. The Son's Planned Speech Reveals Works-Righteousness - The son's intention to ask for servanthood rather than sonship mirrors how many approach God, seeking to earn their standing through labor rather than trusting in grace alone. The Father's Response Demonstrates Double Imputation - By restoring the son not just to his former position but elevating him with robe, ring, and sandals, the father illustrates the gospel: our sins are removed and Christ's righteousness is credited to us. The Depths of Depravity Are Pictured in the Pig Pods - The "pods" (Greek: related to keratin) that the son desires are not edible vegetation but bone-like material, illustrating humanity's complete spiritual destitution apart from God. This Parable Contains a Complete Systematic Theology of Salvation - Luke 15:11-24 presents regeneration, repentance, faith (knowledge, assent, and trust), justification, and adoption in narrative form, making it one of Scripture's most comprehensive soteriological lessons. Key Concepts The Essence of Idolatry: Demanding God's Gifts Without God The Greek words used in this parable are theologically significant. When the son asks for "the share of property," Luke uses ousia (verse 12)—a word meaning "essence" or "being," familiar to students of Trinitarian theology. Later, the text says the father divided his bios (life) between them. As Tony Arsenal notes, these aren't the ordinary Greek words for material possessions. This linguistic choice reveals that the son isn't just asking for money—he's demanding his father's very life essence while rejecting the father himself. This captures the core nature of sin and idolatry: we want God's blessings, provisions, and gifts while spurning relationship with Him. We desire heaven's benefits without heaven's God. We want meaning, purpose, love, and satisfaction—all gifts that flow from the Father—but we want them on our terms, in our timing, apart from submission to His lordship. The parable's opening immediately confronts us with the audacity of our own hearts, which daily make the same demand: "Give me what I want, and then leave me alone." Every act of sin is fundamentally this request: the demand for God's good gifts while rejecting the Giver. Providence Exposes What Sin Conceals: The Mercy of Hardship Verse 14 marks a turning point: "When he had spent everything, a severe famine occurred in that country, and he began to be impoverished." Jesse Schwamb's observation is crucial: "Providence exposes what sin conceals." The famine doesn't occur everywhere—only in the far country where the son has fled. This isn't random; it's part of the parable's theological architecture. Sin promises freedom, pleasure, and satisfaction, but these promises are lies that only hardship exposes. The son believed his father's house was restrictive and that true life existed elsewhere. Only when famine struck did the deception become clear. God often uses difficulty not as mere punishment but as mercy—a severe mercy that strips away sin's facade and reveals its bankruptcy. The son needed to hit bottom, to desire even the inedible pods fed to pigs, before he could "come to himself." This pattern appears throughout Scripture and Christian experience. God allows us to taste the bitter fruit of our choices, not because He delights in our suffering, but because He loves us too much to leave us comfortable in our delusions. Hardship becomes the catalyst for repentance, the circumstance that makes us reconsider what we've rejected. As C.S. Lewis wrote, "Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world." The famine was God's megaphone to this lost son. The Father's Response: Double Imputation in Narrative Form When the father sees his son returning, he doesn't wait for the full confession. He doesn't require a probationary period of servanthood. He doesn't negotiate terms. Instead, he runs—a shocking image in ancient Middle Eastern culture where patriarchs maintained dignity—and embraces his son before any words are spoken. Then come the symbols: the best robe, a ring, and sandals. These aren't random acts of generosity; they're covenant symbols of restored sonship and, remarkably, symbols of the firstborn's inheritance. The second-born son, who was entitled to one-third of the estate (which he'd already squandered), is now given the symbols that mark him as having the firstborn's two-thirds inheritance. He's elevated beyond his original position. This is the gospel of double imputation in parable form. In justification, God doesn't merely forgive our sins (removing our debt); He credits us with Christ's perfect righteousness (giving us Christ's inheritance). We don't return to spiritual neutrality; we're adopted as sons and daughters, made co-heirs with Christ, given "every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 1:3). The father's response to the lost son illustrates what Paul teaches in Romans 5:1-2: we have not just peace with God but access into grace and the hope of glory. We're not merely forgiven servants—we're beloved children clothed in our Elder Brother's righteousness, welcomed into the family feast. Memorable Quotes This son felt it was owed to him. Haven't we all done this to God? We take what we've been given by God, our very life, our very essence, we owe him everything, and we squander that on sinful, reckless living. That's just a slap in the face in the best way right out of the gate here. - Tony Arsenal He comes to himself. There's nothing in the story that should prompt him to want to go back to his home, to think that his father could or would do anything about it, except that he comes to himself. He just comes to the realization that his father is a good man and is wise and has resources. That is a picture of regeneration. - Tony Arsenal God's mercy is not reluctant. God's mercy comes in hot. The embrace comes faster than the son's repair attempts. That's exactly how God treats us. He delights to bring that mercy to his children when they come before him in repentance day after day after day. Thank goodness his mercies are new every day. - Jesse Schwamb Full Episode Transcript [00:00:08] Tony Arsenal: When he comes back, he's given all the symbols to say he's now guaranteed to have the two thirds. So he comes back to this position, where the father elevates him above his previous station That is the gospel of Jesus Christ that's double imputation baked into the pie. It's not just that. He goes, well. you spent all this stuff, but I guess we can overlook that. That would be more akin to come back. start at zero, Zero is a servant in my house. work your way back up if you can.  [00:00:44] Jesse Schwamb: Welcome to episode 477 of The Reformed Brotherhood. I'm Jesse.  [00:00:51] Tony Arsenal: And I'm Tony. And this is the podcast with ears to hear. Hey brother.  [00:00:55] Jesse Schwamb: Hey brother.  [00:00:56] Parables and God's Word [00:00:56] Jesse Schwamb: Speaking of ears to hear, it struck me that this whole thing we've been doing all this parable talk is really after the manner of God's words. And one of the things I've really grown to appreciate is how God speaks to the condition of those whom he addresses. He considers our ability, our capacity as his hearers to process what he's saying, and that leads into these amazing parables that we've been talking about. He doesn't speak as he is able to speak. So to speak, but I didn't mean that to happen. But as we were able to hear, and that means he spoke in these lovely parables so that we might better understand him. And today we're gonna get into some of the drama of the best, like the crown jewel as we've been saying, of maybe all the parables. The Parable of the Lost Son. We spoke a little bit about it in the last episode. Definitely want to hit that up because it's setting you up for this one, which is the definitive episode. But now we're gonna talk about this first, this younger lost son. Get into some of all of these like juicy details about what takes place, and really, again, see if we can find the heart of God. Spoiler. We can and we'll,  [00:02:04] Tony Arsenal: yeah,  [00:02:04] Affirmations and Denials [00:02:04] Jesse Schwamb: but before we do both of those things, it's of course always time at this moment to do a little affirming with or denying against. Of course, if you haven't heard us before, that's where we take a moment to say, is there something that we think is undervalued that we wanna bring forward that we'd recommend or think is awesome? Or conversely, is there something that's overvalued that's just, we're over it. The vibe is done. We're gonna deny against that. So I say to you, as I often do, Tony, are you affirming with or deny against?  [00:02:31] Tony's Nerdy Hobby: Dungeons and Dragons [00:02:31] Tony Arsenal: I'm affirming tonight. Um, I don't know how much the audience realizes of a giant ridiculous nerd I am, but we're about to go to entirely new giant nerd depths. [00:02:43] Jesse Schwamb: All right. I  [00:02:43] Tony Arsenal: think,  [00:02:44] Jesse Schwamb: let's hear it.  [00:02:44] Tony Arsenal: So, um, I was a huge fan of Stranger Things. Some, there's some issues with the show, and I understand why some people might not, um, might not feel great about watching it. You know, I think it falls within Christian liberty. But one of the main themes of the show, this is not a spoiler, you learn about this in episode one, is the whole game. The whole show frames itself around Dungeons and Dragons, right? It's kind of like a storytelling device within the show that the kids play, Dungeons and Dragons, and everything that happens in the Dungeons and Dragons game that they're playing, sort of like, um, foreshadows what's actually gonna happen in the show. Which funny if, you know Dungeons and Dragons lore, you kind of learn the entire plot of the story like ahead of time. Um, but so I, stranger Things just finished up and I've kind of been like itching to get into Dungeons and Dragons. I used to play a little bit of tabletop when I was in high school, in early college and um, I just really like the idea of sort of this collaborative storytelling game. Um, whether it's Dungeon Dragons or one of the other systems, um, Dungeons and Dragons is the most popular. It's the most well published. It's the most well established and it's probably the easiest to find a group to play with. Although it is very hard to find a group to play with, especially, uh, kind of out in the middle of nowhere where I live. So this is where the ultra super nerdy part comes in.  [00:04:02] Jesse Schwamb: Alright, here we  [00:04:03] Tony Arsenal: go. I have been painstakingly over the last week teaching Google Gemini. To be a dungeon master for me. So I've been playing Dungeons and Dragons more or less by myself with, uh, with Google Gemini, and I'm just having a lot of fun with it. Um, you can get a free copy of the rules online if you, I think it's DND, the letter NDND beyond.com. They have a full suite of like tools to create your character. Access to a basic set of the core rules. Um, you can spend a lot of money on Dungeons and Dragons, uh, and if you want to like really get into it, the books are basically textbooks. Like you're buying $300 or 300 page, $300, 300 page textbooks, um, that are not all that differently costs than like college textbooks. You'll buy a 300 page Dungeon master guide that's like $50 if you want a paper copy. So, but you can get into it for free. You can get the free rolls online, you can use their dungeon, the d and d Beyond app and do all your dice rolls for free. Um, you, you can get a free dice roller online if you don't want to do their, their app. Um, but it's just a lot of fun. I've just been having a lot of fun and I found that the, I mean. When you play a couple sessions with it, you see that the, the um, the A IDM that I've created, like it follows the same story beats 'cause it's only got so much to work with in its language model. Um, but I'm finding ways to sort of like break it out of that model by forcing it to refer to certain websites that are like Dungeons and Dragons lore websites and things like build your, build your campaign from this repository of Dungeons and Dragons stuff. So. I think you could do this with just about any sort of narrative storytelling game like this, whether you're playing a different system or d and d Pathfinders. I mean, there's all sorts of different versions of it, but it's just been a lot of fun to see, see it going. I'm trying to get a group together. 'cause I think I would, I would probably rather play Dungeons and Dragons with people, um, and rather do it in person. But it's hard to do up here. It's hard to get a, get a group going. So that's my super nerdy affirmation. I'm not just affirming Dungeons and Dragons, which would already be super nerdy. I'm affirming playing it by myself on my phone, on the bus with Google Gemini, AI acting like I'm not. Just this weird antisocial lunatic. So I'm having a lot of fun with it.  [00:06:20] Jesse Schwamb: So there are so many levels of inception there. Yeah. Like the inception and everything you just said. I love it.  [00:06:27] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Well, what I'm learning is, um, you can give an, and, and this is something I didn't realize, what ai, I guess I probably should have, you know, it's not like an infinite thing. Um, you can give an AI instructions and if your chat gets long enough, it actually isn't referring back to the very beginning of the chat most of the time. Right. There's a, there's like a win context window of about 30 responses. So like if you tell the AI, don't roll the dice for me, like, let me roll dices that are related to my actions, eventually it will forget that. So part of what I've been doing is basically building, I'm using Google Gemini when the AI does something I don't want it to do, I say, you just did something I don't want it to do. Gimme a diagnostic report of why you did that. It will explain to me why it did what it did. Right. Why it didn't observe the rules. And then I'm feeding that into another. Prompt that is helping me generate better prompts that it refers back to. So it's kind of this weird iterative, um, yeah, I, I don't, I'm like, I maybe I'm gonna create the singularity. I'm not sure. Maybe this is gonna be possible. We should sit over the edge. It's gonna, it's gonna learn how to cast magic spells and it's gonna fire bolt us in the face or something like that. Right. But, uh, again, high risk. I, I, for one, welcome our AO AI dungeon masters. So check it out. You should try it. If you could do this with chat GPT, you could do it with any ai. Um, it, it, it is going to get a little, I have the benefit because I have a Google Workspace account. I have access to Google Pro or the Gemini Pro, which is a better model for this kind of thing. But you could do this with, with chat GPT or something like that. And it's gonna be more or less the same experience, I think. But I'm having a, I'm having a ton of fun with it. Um. Again, I, I, there's something about just this, Dungeons and Dragons at its core is a, it's like a, an exercise in joint storytelling, which is really fascinating and interesting to me. Um, and that's what most tabletop RPGs are like. I suppose you get into something like War Hammer and it's a little bit more like a board. It's a mixture of that plus a board game. But Dungeons and Dragons, the DM is creating the, I mean, not the entire world, but is creating the narrative. And then you as a player are an actor within that narrative. And then there's a certain element of chance that dice rolls play. But for the most part, um, you're driving the story along. You're telling the story together. So it's, it's pretty interesting. I've also been watching live recordings of Dungeons and Dragon Sessions on YouTube. Oh,  [00:08:50] Jesse Schwamb: wow.  [00:08:51] Tony Arsenal: Like, there's a, there's a channel called Critical Role. Like these sessions are like three and a half hours long. So, wow. I just kinda have 'em on in the background when I'm, when I'm, uh, working or if I'm, you know, doing something else. Um, but it's really interesting stuff. It's, it's pretty cool. I think it's fun. I'm a super nerd. I'm, I'm no shame in that. Um, I'm just really enjoying it.  [00:09:09] Jesse Schwamb: Listen, nerdery is great. That's like part of the zeitgeist now. Listen to culture. It's cool to be a nerd. I don't know much about d and d. I've heard a lot about this idea of this community that forms around. Yeah. The story, correct me if I'm wrong, can't these things go on for like years, decades?  [00:09:25] Tony Arsenal: Oh yeah, yeah. Like, you can do there. There, some of this has made its way into the official rule books, but basically you could do what's called a one shot, which is like a self-contained story. Usually a single session, you know, like you get a Dungeon master, game master, whichever you wanna call the person. Three to four, maybe five characters, player characters. And one session is usually about two hours long. So it's not like you sit down for 20 minutes, 30 minutes at a time and play this right. And you could do a one shot, which is a story that's designed to, to live all within that two hour session. Um, some people will do it where there isn't really any planned like, outcome of the story. The, the DM just kind of makes up things to do as they go. And then you can have campaigns, which is like, sometimes it's like a series of one shots, but more, it is more like a long term serialized period, you know, serialized campaign where you're doing many, um, many, many kinds of, uh, things all in one driving to like a big epic goal or battle at the end, right? Um, some groups stay together for a really long time and they might do multiple campaigns, so there's a lot to it. Game's been going on for like 50, 60, 70 years, something like that. I don't remember exactly when it started, but  [00:10:41] Jesse Schwamb: yeah.  [00:10:41] Tony Arsenal: Um, it's an old game. It's kinda like the doctor who of of poor games and it's like the original tabletop role playing game, I think. [00:10:47] Jesse Schwamb: Right. Yeah, that makes sense. Again, there's something really appealing to me about not just that cooperative storytelling, but cooperative gameplay. Everybody's kind of in it together for the most part. Yeah. Those conquest, as I understand them, are joint in nature. You build solidarity, but if you're meeting with people and having fun together and telling stories and interacting with one another, there's a lot of good that comes out of that stuff there. A lot of lovely common grace in those kind of building, those long-term interactions, relationships, entertainment built on being together and having good, clean, fun together.  [00:11:17] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Well, and it's, you know, it's, um. It's an interesting exercise. It's it, in some ways it's very much like improv. Like you, you think of like an improv comedy like show I've been to somewhere. Like, you know, you go to the show and it's an improv troupe, but they're like calling people from the crowd up and asking them for like different scenarios they might do. It's kind of like that in that like the GM can plan a whole, can plan a whole thing. But if I as a player character, um. And I've done this to the virtual one just to see what it does, and it's done some interesting things. One of the campaigns I was playing, I had rescued a merchant from some giant spiders and I was helping, like, I was helping like navigate them through the woods to the next town. And we kept on getting attacked and just outta nowhere. I was like, what if I sort of act as though I'm suspicious of this merchant now because why are we getting attacked all the time? And so I, I typed in sort of like a little. A mini role play of me accusing this guy. And it was something like, Randall, we get, we're getting attacked a lot for a simple merchant, Randall merchant. What happens if I cast a tech magic? What am I gonna find? And he's like, I don't know what I'm gonna find. I know I don't know anything. And then I cast a tech magic and it shifted. I mean, I don't know where the campaign was gonna go before that, but it shifted the whole thing now where the person who gave him the package he was carrying had betrayed him. It was, so that happens in real life too in these games, real life in these games. That happens in real, in-person sessions too, where a player or a group of players may just decide instead of talking to the contact person that is supposed to give them the clue to find the dungeon they're supposed to go to, instead they ambush them and murder them in gold blood. And now the, the dungeon master has to figure out, how do I get them back to this dungeon when this is the only person that was supposed to know where it is? So it, it does end up really stretching your thinking skills and sort of your improvisational skills. There's an element of, um, you know, like chance with the dice, um, I guess like the dice falls in the lot, but the lot is in the handle. Or like, obviously that's all ordained as well too, but there is this element of chance where even the DM doesn't get to determine everything. Um, if, if I say I want to, I want to try to sneak into this room, but I'm a giant barbarian who has, you know, is wearing like chain mail, there's still a chance I could do it, but the dice roll determines that. It's not like the, the GM just says you can't do that. Um, so it's, it's a, I, I like it. I'm, I'm really looking forward to trying to, getting into it. It is hard to start a group and to get going and, um, there's a part of me that's a little bit. Gun shy of maybe like getting too invested with a group of non-Christians for something like this. 'cause it can get a little weird sometimes. But I think that, I think that'll work out. It'll be fun. I know there's actually some people in our telegram chat. Bing, bing, bing segue. There we go. There's some people in our telegram chat actually, that we're already planning to do a campaign. Um, so we might even do like a virtual reform brotherhood, Dungeons and Dragons group. So that might be a new sub channel in the telegram at some point.  [00:14:13] Jesse Schwamb: There you go. You could jump right in. Go to t.me back slash reform brotherhood.  [00:14:18] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Jesse, what are you affirming since I just spent the last 15 minutes gushing about my nerdy hobby?  [00:14:23] Jesse Schwamb: Uh, no, that was great. Can I, can I just say two things? One is, so you're basically saying it's a bit like, like a troll shows up and everybody's like, yes. And yeah. So I love that idea. Second thing, which is follow up question, very brief. What kind of merchant was Randall.  [00:14:39] Tony Arsenal: Uh, he was a spice trader actually.  [00:14:42] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. I don't trust that.  [00:14:43] Tony Arsenal: And, and silk, silk and spices.  [00:14:45] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. That's double, that's too strict.  [00:14:47] Tony Arsenal: He was actually good guy in the, in the story that developed out of this campaign. He actually became part of my family and like, like, like got adopted into the family because he lost everything on his own. Randy we're  [00:15:00] Jesse Schwamb: talking about Randy.  [00:15:01] Tony Arsenal: Randy Randall with one L. Yeah. The AI was very specific about  that.  [00:15:05] Jesse Schwamb: There's, there's nothing about this guy I trust. I, is this still ongoing? Because I think he's just trying to make his way deeper in,  [00:15:11] Tony Arsenal: uh, no, no. It, I'll, I'll wait for next week to tell you how much, even more nerdy this thing gets. But there's a whole thing that ha there was a whole thing out of this That's a tease. Tease. There was a, there was a horse and the horse died and there was lots of tears and there was a wedding and a baby. It was, it's all sorts of stuff going on in this campaign. [00:15:27] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. And I'm sure. Randy was somewhere near that horse when it happened. Right?  [00:15:32] Tony Arsenal: It was his horse.  [00:15:33] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, exactly. That's  [00:15:35] Tony Arsenal: exactly, he didn't, he didn't kill the horse. He had no power to knock down the bridge The horse was standing on.  [00:15:40] Jesse Schwamb: Listen, next week, I'm pretty sure that's what we're gonna learn is that it was all him. [00:15:45] Tony Arsenal: Alright, Jesse, save us from this. Save us from this, please. Uh,  [00:15:49] Jesse Schwamb: no.  What  [00:15:50] Tony Arsenal: you affirming, this is  [00:15:50] Jesse Schwamb: great.  [00:15:50] Jesse's Affirmation: Church Community [00:15:50] Jesse Schwamb: It's possible that there is a crossover between yours and mine if we consider. That the church is like playing a d and d game in the dungeon Masters Christ, and the campaigns, the gospel. So I was thinking maybe is it possible, uh, maybe this is just the, the theology of the cross, but that sometimes, like you need the denial to get to the affirmation. Have we talked about that kind of truth? Yeah,  [00:16:14] Tony Arsenal: yeah,  [00:16:15] Jesse Schwamb: for sure. So here's a little bit of that. I'll be very, very brief and I'm using this not as like just one thing that happened today, but what I know is for sure happening all over the world. And I mean that very literally, not just figuratively when it comes to the body of Christ, the local church. So it snowed here overnight. This was, this is the Lord's Day. We're hanging out in the Lord's Day, which is always a beautiful day to talk about God. And overnight it snowed. The snow stopped relatively late in the morning around the time that everybody would be saying, Hey, it's time to go and worship the Lord. So for those in my area, I got up, we did the whole clearing off the Kai thing. I went to church and I was there a little bit early for a practice for music. And when I pulled in, there weren't many there yet, but the whole parking lot unplowed. So there's like three inches of snow, unplowed parking lot. So I guess the denial is like the plow people decided like, not this time I, I don't think so. They understood they were contracted with the church, but my understanding is that when one of the deacons called, they were like, Ooh, yeah, we're like 35 minutes away right now, so that's gonna be a problem. So when I pulled in, here's what I was. Like surprise to find, but in a totally unexpected way, even though I understand what a surprise is. And that is that, uh, that first the elders and the deacons, everybody was just decided we're going to shovel an entire parking lot. And at some point big, I was a little bit early there, but at some point then this massive text change just started with everybody, which was, Hey, when you come to church, bring your shovel. And I, I will tell you like when I got out of the car. I was so like somebody was immediately running to clear a path with me. One of those like snow pushers, you know what I mean? Yeah. Like one, those beastly kind of like blade things.  [00:17:57] Tony Arsenal: Those things are, those things are the best.  [00:17:59] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. You just run. And so you have never met a group of people that was more happy to shovel an entire large asphalt area, which normally shouldn't even be required. And. It just struck me, even in hindsight now thinking about it, it was this lovely confluence of people serving each other and serving God. It was as if they got up that morning and said, do you know what would be the best thing in the world for me to do is to shovel. And so everybody was coming out. Everybody was shoveling it. It was to protect everyone and to allow one into elaborate, one access. It was just incredible. And so I started this because the affirmation is, I know this happens in, in all of our churches, every God fearing God, loving God serving church, something like this is happening, I think on almost every Lord's day or maybe every day of the week in various capacities. And I just think this is God's people coming together because everybody, I think when we sat down for the message was exhausted, but. But there was so much joy in doing this. I think what you normally would find to be a mundane and annoying task, and the fact that it wasn't just, it was redeemed as if like we, we found a greater purpose in it. But that's, everyone saw this as a way to love each other and to love God, and it became unexpected worship in the parking lot. That's really what it was, and it was fantastic. I really almost hope that we just get rid of the plow company and just do it this way from now on. Yeah, so I'm affirming, recognize people, recognize brothers and sisters that your, your church is doing this stuff all the time and, and be a part of it. Jump in with the kinda stuff because I love how it brings forward the gospel.  [00:19:35] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. That's a great story. It's a great, uh, a great example of the body of Christ being, what the body of Christ is and just pulling together to get it done. Um, which, you know, we do on a spiritual level, I think, more often than a physical level these days. Right, right. But, um, that's great. I'm sitting here going three inches of snow. I would've just pulled into the lot and then pulled out of the lot. But New Hampshire, it hits different in New Hampshire. Like we all d have snow tires and four wheel drive.  [00:20:02] Jesse Schwamb: It's, it's enough snow where it was like pretty wet and heavy that it, if, you know, you pack that stuff down, it gets slick. You can't see the people, like you can't have your elderly people just flying in, coming in hot and then trying to get outta the vehicle, like making their way into church.  [00:20:14] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:20:15] Jesse Schwamb: So there was, there was a lot more of that. But I think again, you would, one of the options would've been like, Hey, why don't we shovel out some sp spaces for the, for those who need it, for, you know, those who need to have access in a way that's a little bit less encumbered. Oh, no, no. These people are like, I see your challenge and I am going to shovel the entire parking lots.  [00:20:35] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. It used to happen once in a while, uh, at the last church, uh, at, um, your dad's church. We would, where the plow would just not come on a Sunday morning or, or more often than not. Um, you know, what happens a lot of times is the plows don't want to come more than once. Right. If they don't have to. Or sometimes they won't come if they think it's gonna melt because they don't want to deal with, uh, with like customers who are mad that you plowed and that it all melts. But either way, once in a while. The plow wouldn't come or it wouldn't come in time. And what we would do is instead of trying to shovel an entire driveway thing, we would just went, the first couple people who would get there, the young guys in the church, there was only a couple of us, but the younger guys in the church would just, we would just be making trips, helping people into the, yeah. Helping people into the building. So, um, it was a pretty, you know, it was a small church, so it was like six trips and we'd have everybody in, but um, we just kind of, that was the way we pulled together. Um, yeah, that's a great, it's a great story. I love, I love stuff like that. Yeah, me too. Whether it's, whether it's, you know, plowing a, a parking lot with shovels instead of a plow, or it's just watching, um, watching the tables and the chairs from the fellowship, you know, all just like disappear because everybody's just, uh, picks up after themselves and cleans and stuff. That's, that's like the most concrete example of the body of Christ doing what the body of Christ does. Um, it's always nice, you know, we always hear jokes about like, who can carry the most, the most chairs,  [00:22:04] Jesse Schwamb: most  [00:22:04] Tony Arsenal: chairs. Uh, I think it's true. Like a lot of times I think like I could do like seven or eight sometimes. [00:22:10] Jesse Schwamb: Uh, you, that's, so, one more thing I wanna say. I, I wanted to tell you this privately, Tony, 'cause it just cracked me up 'cause I, you'll appreciate this. But now I'm realizing I think the brothers and sisters who listened to us talk for any length of time and in the context of this conversation, but the church will appreciate this too. On my way out, I, I happened because I was there early and the snow was crazy. I parked way further out, way on the edge of the lot to just allow for greater access because of all the shoveling that was happening. And by the way, I really hope there were a ton of visitors this morning because they were like, wow, this, this church is wild. They love to shovel their own lot and they're the happiest people doing it. Some sweaty person just ushered me in while they were casting snow. Like,  [00:22:47] Tony Arsenal: is this some new version of snake handling? You shovel your own lot and your impervious to back injuries.  [00:22:53] Jesse Schwamb: Uh. So I was walking out and as I walked past, uh, there was a, uh, two young gentlemen who were congregating by this very large lifted pickup truck, which I don't have much experience with, but it looked super cool and it was started, it was warming up, and they were just like casually, like in the way that only like people with large beards wearing flannel and Carhartt kind of do, like casually leaning against the truck, talking in a way that you're like, wow, these guys are rugged. And they sound, they're super cool, and they're probably like in their twenties. And all I hear as I pass by is one guy going, yeah, well, I mean that's, I was, I said to them too, but I said, listen, I'd rather go to a church with God-fearing women than anywhere else.  [00:23:36] Tony Arsenal: Nice.  [00:23:37] Jesse Schwamb: I was just like, yep. On the prowl and I love it. And they're not wrong. This is the place to be.  [00:23:42] Tony Arsenal: It is.  [00:23:43] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. This is the place to be. Yeah. So all kinds of, all kinds of good things I think going on in that in the house of the Lord and where wherever you're at, I would say be happy and be joyful and look for those things and participate in, like you said, whether it's physical or not, but as soon as you said like the, our young men, our youth somehow have this competition of when we need to like pack up the sanctuary. How many chairs can I take at one time? Yeah. It's like the classic and it just happens. Nobody says like, okay, everybody line up. We're about to embark on the competition now. Like the strong man usher competition. It's just like, it just happens and  [00:24:17] Tony Arsenal: it's  [00:24:17] Jesse Schwamb: incredible.  [00:24:18] Tony Arsenal: I mean, peacocks fan out their tail feathers. Young Christian guys fan out. All of the table chairs, chairs they can carry. It's uh, it's a real phenomena. So I feel like if you watch after a men's gathering, everybody is like carrying one chair at a time because they don't wanna hurt their backs and their arms. Oh, that's  [00:24:36] Jesse Schwamb: true. That's  [00:24:37] Tony Arsenal: what I do. Yeah. But it's when the women are around, that's when you see guys carrying like 19 chairs. Yeah. Putting themselves in the hospital.  [00:24:42] Jesse Schwamb: That's what I, listen, it comes for all of us. Like I, you know, I'm certainly not young anymore by almost any definition, but even when I'm in the mix, I'm like, oh, I see you guys. You wanna play this game? Mm-hmm. Let's do this. And then, you know, I'm stacking chairs until I hurt myself. So it's great. That's, that is what we do for each other. It's  [00:25:01] Tony Arsenal: just, I hurt my neck getting outta bed the other day. So it happens. It's real.  [00:25:05] Jesse Schwamb: The struggle. Yeah, the struggle is real.  [00:25:07] The Parable of the Lost Son [00:25:07] Jesse Schwamb: Speaking of struggle, speaking of family issues, speaking of all kinds of drama, let's get into Luke 15 and let me read just, I would say the first part of this parable, which as we've agreed to talk about, if we can even get this far, it's just the younger son. [00:25:24] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:25:25] Jesse Schwamb: And again, don't worry, we're gonna get to all of it, but let me read beginning in, uh, verse 11 here. This is Luke chapter 15. Come follow along as you will accept if you're operating heavy machinery. And Jesus said, A man had two sons and the younger of them said to his father, father, give me the share of the estate that falls to me. So he divided his wealth between them. And not many days later, the younger son gathered everything together and went on a journey into a distant country. And there he squandered his estate living recklessly. Now, when he had spent everything, a severe famine occurred in that country and it began to be impoverished. So he went and hired himself to one of the citizens of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. So he went and as he was desiring to be fed with the pods that the swine were eating because no one was giving anything to him. But when he came to himself, he said, how many of my father's men have more than enough bread, but I am dying here with hunger. I'll rise up and go to my father, and I'll say to him, father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me as one of your hired men. So he rose up, came to his father, but while he was still a long way off. His father saw him and felt compassion and ran and embraced him. And the son said to him, father, I've sinned against heaven and before you, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father said to his slaves, quickly, bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet and bring the fat in calf and slaughter it and let us celebrate. For the son of mine was dead and has come to life again. He was lost and he has been found and they began to celebrate.  [00:27:09] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. This is such a, um, such a, I don't know, like pivotal seminal parable in the Ministry of Christ. Um, it's one of those parables and we, we mentioned this briefly last week that even most. It, it hasn't passed out of the cultural zeitgeist yet. A lot of biblical teaching has, I mean, a lot, I think a lot of things that used to be common knowledge where, where you could make a reference to something in the Bible and people would just get it. Um, even if they weren't Christian or weren't believers, they would still know what you were talking about. There's a lot of things in the Bible that have passed out of that cultural memory. The, the parable of the prodigal son, lost son, however you wanna phrase it, um, that's not one of them. Right. So I think it's really important for us, um, and especially since it is such a beautiful picture of the gospel and it has so many different theological touch points, it's really incumbent on us to spend time thinking about this because I would be willing to bet that if you weave. Elements of this parable into your conversations with nonbelievers that you are praying for and, and, you know, witnessing to and sharing the gospel with, if you weave this in there, you're gonna help like plant some seeds that when it comes time to try to harvest, are gonna pay dividends. Right. So I think it's a really, it's a really great thing that we're gonna be able to spend, you know, a couple weeks really just digging into this. [00:28:40] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, and to define the beginning, maybe from the end, just slightly here, I like what you said about this cultural acknowledgement of this. I think one of the correctives we can provide, which is clear in the story, is in the general cultural sense. We speak of this prodigal as something that just returns comes back, was lost, but now is found. And often maybe there is this component of, in the familial relationship, it's as if they've been restored. Here we're gonna of course find that this coming to one senses is in fact the work of God. That there is, again, a little bit of denial that has to bring forward the affirmation here that is the return. And so again, from the beginning here, we're just talking about the younger son. We have more than youthful ambition.  [00:29:19] The Essence of Idolatry and Sin [00:29:19] Jesse Schwamb: This heart of, give me the stuff now, like so many have said before, is really to say. Give me the gifts and not you, which is, I think, a common fault of all Christians. We think, for instance of heaven, and we think of all the blessings that come with it, but not necessarily of the joy of just being with our savior, being with Christ. And I think there's something here right from the beginning, there's a little bit of this betrayal in showing idolatry, the ugliness of treating God's gifts as if there's something owed. And then this idea that of course. He receives these things and imme more or less immediately sometime after he goes and takes these things and squanderers them. And sin and idolatry, I think tends to accelerate in this way. The distance from the father becomes distance from wisdom. We are pulled away from that, which is good. The father here being in his presence and being under his care and his wisdom and in his fear of influence and concern, desiring then to say, I don't want you just give me the gifts that you allegedly owe me. And then you see how quickly like sin does everything you, we always say like, sin always costs more than you want to pay. And it always takes you further than you want to go. And that's exactly what we see here. Like encapsulated in an actual story of relationship and distance.  [00:30:33] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, I think, um. It's interesting to me.  [00:30:39] The Greek Words for Property [00:30:39] Tony Arsenal: You know, I, I, I'm a big fan of saying you don't need to study Greek to understand your Bible, but I'm also a big fan of saying understanding a little bit of Greek is really helpful. And one of the things that I think is really intriguing, and I haven't quite parsed out exactly what I think this means, but the word property in this parable, it actually is two different Greek words that is translated as property, at least in the ESV. And neither one of them really fit. What our normal understanding of property would be. And there are Greek words that refer to like all of your material possessions, but it says, father, give me the share of property. And he uses the word usia, which those of us who have heard anything about the trinity, which is all of us, um, know that that word means something about existence. It's the core essence of a person. So it says, father, give me the share of usia that is coming to me. And then it says, and he divided his bias, his, his life between them. Then it says, not many days later, the younger son gathered all that he had took a journey into the far country. There he squandered his usia again. So this, this parable, Christ is not using the ordinary words to refer to material, uh, material accumulation and property like. I think probably, you know, Christ isn't like randomly using these words. So there probably is an element that these were somehow figuratively used of one's life possessions. But the fact that he's using them in these particular ways, I think is significant. [00:32:10] The Prodigal Son's Misconception [00:32:10] Tony Arsenal: And so the, the, the younger son here, and I don't even like calling this the prodigal sun parable because the word prodigal doesn't like the equivalent word in Greek doesn't appear in this passage. And prodigal doesn't mean like the lost in returned, like prodigal is a word that means like the one who spends lavishly, right? So we call him the prodigal son because he went and he squandered all of his stuff and he spent all of his money. So it doesn't even really describe the main feature or the main point of why this, this parable is here. It's just sort of like a random adjective that gets attached to it. But all of that aside, um. This parable starts off not just about wasting our property, like wasting our things, but it's a parable that even within the very embedded language of the parable itself is talking about squandering our very life, our very essence, our very existence is squandered and wasted as we depart from the Father. Right? And this is so like, um, it's almost so on the head, on the on the nose that it's almost a little like, really Jesus. Like this is, this is so like, slap you in the face kind of stuff. This is right outta like Romans, uh, Romans one, like they did not give thanks to God. They did not show gratitude to God or acknowledge him as God. This is what's happening in this parable. The son doesn't go to his father and say, father, I love you. I'm so happy to stay with you. I'm so happy to be here. He, he basically says like. Give me your very life essence, and I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go spend it on prostitutes. I'm gonna go waste your life, father, I'm gonna waste your life, your existence, your bias. I'm gonna go take that and I'm gonna squander it on reckless living. And I guess we don't know for sure. He, it doesn't say he spends it on prostitutes. That's something his brother says later and assumes he did. So I, I don't know that we do that. But either way, I'm gonna take what's yours, your very life, your very essence. And also that my life, my essence, the gift you've given me as my father, you've given me my life. In addition now to your life or a portion of your life. And I'm gonna go squander that on reckless living, right? Like, how much of a picture of sin is that, that we, we take what we've been given by God, our very life, our very essence, we owe him everything, and we squander that on sinful, reckless living. That that's just a slap in the face in the best way right out of the gate here.  [00:34:28] Jesse Schwamb: Yes, that, that's a great point because it's, it would be one thing to rebel over disobedience, another thing to use the very life essence that you've been given for destructive, self-destructive purposes. And then to use that very energy, which is not yours to begin with, but has been imbued in yours, external, all of these things. And then to use that very thing as the force of your rebellion. So it's double insult all the way around. I'm with you in the use of Greek there. Thank you. Locus Bio software. Not a sponsor of the podcast, but could be. And I think that's why sometimes in translations you get the word like a state because it's like the closest thing we can have to understanding that it's property earned through someone's life more or less. Yeah. And then is passed down, but as representative, not just of like, here's like 20 bucks of cash, but something that I spent all of me trying to earn and. And to your point, also emphasizing in the same way that this son felt it was owed him. So it's like really bad all around and I think we would really be doing ourselves a disservice if we didn't think that there's like a little bit of Paul washer saying in this, like I'm talking about you though. So like just be like, look at how disrespectful the sun is. Yeah. Haven't we all done this? To God and bringing up the idea of prodigal being, so that, that is like the amazing juxtaposition, isn't it? Like Prodigal is, is spent recklessly, parsimonious would be like to, to save recklessly, so to speak. And then you have the love the father demonstrates coming against all of that in the same way with like a totally different kind of force. So.  [00:36:02] The Famine and Realization [00:36:02] Jesse Schwamb: What I find interesting, and I think this is like set up in exactly what you said, is that when you get to verse 14 and this famine comes, it's showing us, I think that like providence exposes what Sin conceals.  [00:36:16] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:36:16] Jesse Schwamb: And want arrives. Not just because like the money ran out, but because again, like these idols, what he's replaced the father with, they don't satisfy. And repentance then often begins when God shows the emptiness of light apart life apart from him. That's like the affirmation being born out of the denial. And so I think that this also is evolving for us, this idea that God is going to use hardship, not as mere punishment, but as mercy that wakes us up and that the son here is being woken up, but not, of course, it's not as if he goes into the land, like you said, starts to spend, is like, whoa, hold on a second. This seems like a bad idea. It's not until all of that sin ever, like the worship of false things collapses under its own weight before it, which is like the precursor of the antecedent, I think, to this grand repentance or this waking up.  [00:37:05] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I also think it's, um.  [00:37:08] The Depths of Desperation [00:37:08] Tony Arsenal: A feature of this that I haven't reflected on too deeply, but is, is worth thinking about is the famine that's described here only occurs in this far country that he's in. [00:37:17] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah.  [00:37:17] Tony Arsenal: Right. So even that's right. And this is like a multitude of foolish decisions. This is compounding foolish decisions that don't, don't make any sense. Like they don't really actually make any sense. Um. There's not a logic to this, this lost son's decision making. He takes the property. Okay. I guess maybe like you could be anxious to get your inheritance, but then like he takes it to a far country. Like there's no reason for him to do that. If at any point through this sort of insane process he had stopped short, he would not have been in the situation he was in. Yes. And that, I love that phrase, that providence, you know, reveals, I don't know exactly how you said it, but like providence reveals what our sin can bring to us. Like he first see sins against his father by sort of like demanding, demanding his inheritance early. Then he takes it and he leaves his country for no reason. He goes to this far country, then he spends everything and then the famine arises. Right? And the famine arises in this other country.  [00:38:13] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:38:13] Tony Arsenal: And that's, I think that is still again, like a picture of sin. Like we. We don't just, we don't just take what the father has and, and like spend it like that would be bad enough if we weren't grateful for what we have and what we've been given, and we just waste it. But on top of that, now we also have taken ourselves to a far country. Like we've gone away from the good, the good land of the Lord, as those who are not regenerate. We've gone away from the, the Lord into this far country. And it's not until we start to have this famine that we recognize what we've done. And again, this is, this is where I think we get a picture. There's so many theological, like points in this parable particular that it almost feels a little bit like a, like a. Parable that's intended to teach some systematic theology about for sure, the oral salus, which I think there's probably a lot of like biblical theology people that are ready to just crawl through the screen and strangle me for saying that. But this is such a glorious picture of, of regeneration too. [00:39:16] The Journey Back to the Father [00:39:16] Tony Arsenal: Like he comes to himself, there's nothing, there's nothing in the story that's like, oh, and the servant that he was, the other servant he was talking to mentioned that the famine, like there's nothing here that should prompt him to want to go back to his home, to think that his father could or would do anything about it, except that he comes to himself. He just comes to the realization that his father is a good man and is wise and has resources, and has takes care of his, of his servants on top of how he takes care of his sons. That is a picture of regeneration. There's no, yeah. Logical, like I'm thinking my way into it, he just one day realizes how much, how many of my father's servants have more than enough bread. Right. But I'm perishing here in this, this foolish other country with nothing. Right. I can't even, and the, the pods that the pigs ate, we can even, we can get into the pods a little bit here, but like. He wants to eat the pods. The pods that he's giving the pigs are not something that's even edible to humans. He's that destitute, that he's willing to eat these pods that are like, this is the leftover stuff that you throw to the pigs because no, no, nobody and nothing else can actually eat it. And that's the state he's in at the very bottom, in the very end of himself where he realizes my father is good and he loves me, and even if I can never be his son again, surely he'll take care of me. I mentioned it last week, like he wasn't going back thinking that this was gonna be a failing proposition. He went back because he knew or he, he was confident that his father was going to be able to take care of him and would accept him back. Right. Otherwise, what would be the point of going back? It wasn't like a, it wasn't like a, um, a mission he expected to fail at. He expected there to be a positive outcome or he wouldn't have done it. Like, it wouldn't make any sense to try that if there wasn't the hope of some sort of realistic option.  [00:41:09] Jesse Schwamb: And I think his confidence in that option, as you were saying, is in this way where he's constructed a transaction. Yeah. That he's gonna go back and say, if you'll just take me out as a slave, I know you have slaves, I will work for you. Right. Therefore, I feel confident that you'll accept me under those terms because I'll humble myself. And why would you not want to remunerate? Me for the work that I put forward. So you're right, like it's, it's strange that he basically comes to this, I think, sense that slavery exists in his life and who would he rather be the slave of,  [00:41:38] Tony Arsenal: right? [00:41:39] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. And so he says, listen, I'm gonna come to the father and give him this offer. And I'm very confident that given that offer and his behavior, what I know about how he treats his other slaves, that he will hire me back because there's work to do. And therefore, as a result of the work I put forward, he will take care of me. How much of like contemporary theology is being preached in that very way right now?  [00:41:58] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:41:59] Jesse Schwamb: And that's really like why the minimum wages of sin is all of this stuff. It's death. It's the consequences that we're speaking about here. By the way, the idea about famine is really interesting. I hadn't thought about that. It is interesting, again, that sin casts him out into this foreign place where the famine occurs. And that famine is the beginning of his realization of the true destruction, really how far he's devolved and degraded in his person and in his relationships and in his current states. And then of course, the Bible is replete with references and God moving through famine. And whereas in Genesis, we have a local famine, essentially casting Joseph brothers into a foreign land to be freed and to be saved.  [00:42:39] Tony Arsenal: Right.  [00:42:40] Jesse Schwamb: We have the exact opposite, which is really kind of interesting. Yeah. So we probably should talk about, you know, verse 15 and the, and the pig stuff. I mean, I think the obvious statement here is that. It would be scandalous, like a Jewish hero would certainly feel the shame of the pigs. They represent UNC cleanliness and social humiliation. I'm interested again, in, in this idea, like you've started us on that the freedom that this younger brother sought for becomes slavery. It's kind of bondage of the wills style. Yeah. Stuff. There's like an, an attentiveness in the story to the degrading reversal in his condition. And it is interesting that we get there finally, like the bottom of the pit maybe, or the barrel is like you said, the pods, which it's a bit like looking at Tide pods and being like, these are delicious. I wish I could just eat these. So I, I think your point isn't lost. Like it's not just that like he looked at something gross and was so his stomach was grumbling so much that he might find something in there that he would find palatable. It, it's more than that. It's like this is just total nonsense. It, this is Romans one. [00:43:45] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And these pods, like, these aren't, um, you know, I guess I, I don't know exactly what these are. I'm sure somebody has done all of the historical linguistic studies, but the Greek word is related to the, the word for keratin. So like the, the same, the same root word. And we have to be careful not to define a Greek word based on how we use it. That's a reverse etymology fallacy. Like dunamis doesn't mean dynamite, it's the other direction. But the Greek word is used in other places, in Greek literature to describe like the horns of rhinoc, like,  [00:44:21] Jesse Schwamb: right,  [00:44:21] Tony Arsenal: this, these aren't like. These aren't pea pods. I've heard this described like these are like little vegetable pods. No, this is like they're throwing pieces of bone to the pigs.  [00:44:31] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah.  [00:44:31] Tony Arsenal: And the pigs, the pigs can manage it. And this is what this also like, reinforces how destitute and how deep the famine is. Like this isn't as though, like this is the normal food you give to pigs. Like usually you feed pigs, like you feed pigs, like the extra scraps from your table and like other kinds of like agricultural waste. These are, these are like chunks of bony keratin that are being fed to the pigs. So that's how terrible the famine is that not even the pigs are able to get food.  [00:45:00] Jesse Schwamb: Right?  [00:45:00] Tony Arsenal: They're given things that are basically inedible, but the pigs can manage it. And this, this kid is so hungry, he's so destitute that he says, man, I wish I could chew on those bony, those bony pods that I'm feeding them because that's how hungry and starved I am. You get the picture that this, um. This lost son is actually probably not just metaphorically on the brink of death, but he's in real risk of starvation, real risk of death that he, he can't even steal. He can't even steal from the pigs what they're eating, right? Like he can't even, he can't even glean off of what the pigs are eating just to stay alive. He, he's literally in a position where he has no hope of actually rescuing himself. The only thing that he can do, and this is the realization he has, the only thing he can do is throw himself back on the mercy of his father.  [00:45:50] Jesse Schwamb: That's  [00:45:50] Tony Arsenal: right. And, and hope, again, I think hope with confidence, but hope that his father will show mercy on him and his, his conception. I wanna be careful in this parable not to, I, I think there's something to what you're getting at or kinda what you're hinting at, that like his conception of mercy is. Not the full picture of the gospel. Yes. His conception of mercy is that he's going to be able to go and work and be rewarded for his laborers in a way that he can survive. And the gospel is so much broader and so much bigger than that. But at the same time, I think it's, it's actually also a confident hope, a faith-filled hope that his father's mercy is going to rescue him, is going to save him. So it is this picture of what we do. And, and I think, I think sometimes, um, I want to be careful how we say this 'cause I don't wanna, I don't want to get a bunch of angry emails and letters, but I think sometimes we, um, we make salvation too much of a theology test. And there's probably people that are like, Tony, did you really just say that? I think there are people who trust in the Lord Jesus thinking that that means something akin to what. This lost son thinks  [00:47:03] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:47:03] Tony Arsenal: Exactly. They trust. They trust that Jesus is merciful and, and I'm not necessarily thinking of Roman Catholics. I'm not thinking of Roman Catholic theology for sure. I do think there are a fair number of Roman Catholic individuals that fall into this category where they trust Jesus to save them. Right. They just don't fully understand exactly what Jesus means, what that means for them to be saved. They think that Christ is a savior who will provide a way for them to be saved by His grace that requires them to contribute something to it. Arminians fall into that category. Right. I actually think, and I, I think there's gonna be if, if there's, if the one Lutheran who listens to our show hears this is gonna be mad, but I actually think Lutheran theology kind of falls into this in a sort of negative fashion in that you have to not resist grace in order to be saved. So I think. That is something we should grapple with is that there are people who fit into that category, but this is still a faith-filled, hope-filled confidence in the mercy of the father in this parable that he's even willing to make the journey back. Right? This isn't like right, he walks from his house down the street or from the other side of town. He's wandering back from a far country. He, he went into a far country. He has to come back from a far country. And yes, the father greets him from afar and sees him from afar. But we're not talking about like from a far country. Like he sees him coming down the road, it, he has to travel to him, and this is a picture of. The hope and the faith that we have to have to return to God, to throw ourselves on the mercy of Christ, trusting that he has our best interest in mind, that he has died for us, and that it is for us. Right? There's the, the knowledge of what Christ has done, and then there's the ascent to the truth of it. And then the final part of faith is the confidence or the, the faith in trust in the fact that, that is for me as well, right? This, this is a picture of that right here. I, I don't know why we thought we were gonna get through the whole thing in one week, Jesse. We're gonna spend at least two weeks on this lost son, or at least part of the second week here. But he, this is, this is also like a picture of faith. This is why I say this as like a systematic theology lesson on soteriology all packed into here. Because not only do we have, like what is repentance and or what does regeneration look like? It's coming to himself. What does repentance look like? Yes. Turning from your sins and coming back. What is, what is the orde solis? Well, there's a whole, there's a whole thing in here. What is the definition of faith? Well, he knows that his father is good. That he has more than enough food for his servants. He, uh, is willing to acknowledge the truth of that, and he's willing to trust in that, in that he's willing to walk back from a far country in order to lay claim to that or to try to lay claim to it. That's a picture of faith right there, just in all three parts. Right. It's, it's really quite amazing how, how in depth this parable goes on this stuff,  [00:49:54] Jesse Schwamb: right? Yeah. It's wild to note that as he comes to himself, he's still working. Yeah, in that far off country. So this shows again that sin is this cruel master. He hits the bottom, he wants the animal food, but he's still unfed. And this is all the while again, he has some kind of arrangement where he is trying to work his way out of that and he sees the desperation. And so I'm with you, you know, before coming to Christ, A person really, I think must come to themselves and that really is like to say they need to have a sober self-knowledge under God, right? Yeah. Which is, as we said before, like all this talk about, well Jesus is the answer. We better be sure what the question is. And that question is who am I before God? And this is why, of course, you have to have the law and gospel, or you have to have the the bad news before you can have the good news. And really, there's all of this bad news that's delivered here and this repentance, like you've been saying, it's not just mere regret, we know this. It's a turning, it's a reorientation back to the father. He says, I will arise and go to my father. So yeah, also it demonstrates to me. When we do come to ourselves when there's a sober self-knowledge under God, there is a true working out of salvation that necessarily requires and results in some kind of action, right? And that is the mortification of sin that is moving toward God again, under his power and direction of the Holy Spirit. But still there is some kind of movement on our part. And so that I think is what leads then in verse 19, as you're saying, the son and I do love this 'cause I think this goes right back to like the true hope that he has, even though it might be slightly corrupted or slightly washed out because it's not like the full, bright colors of the gospel in its entirety. But he doesn't deny that he's the son. He just ows that he's his worthiness. And so there's like a tender conscience somewhere in there concluding like I must, we can say like, well, I must not really be truly God's own, or God would never take me as I am. And so what we have here, I think is this lesson reminder of God, the difference between identity and harmony with God. That harmony often gets disrupted because of our own sin, but this son here recognizes that he is still the son. And so I think he, he knows his father, like you're saying. I think he hopes for the best, but what he wants to put forward is, can I just come and be a slave in your house? Which incidentally is what he will become, but under better pretenses of saying, well, you will maintain you sonship because of some kind of meritorious earning, which is where we're all tempted to go because it feels better. It feels more safe than trusting and embracing and receiving the fathers recklessly spend thrift love, which actually is the thing that keeps us in the identity of being a son or a daughter of God. So you're right, there's so much that's happening. Underneath there that, I mean, I'm sure some Puritan has written about that in probably 50,000 words. [00:52:36] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:52:36] Jesse Schwamb: But there's so much there because I'm with you. I think there is a great hope because of understanding his identity, and yet he knows the harmony is disrupted to such a degree that what he also trusts in is that worst case scenario, I would rather be a slave for my father than I would rather be a slave to sin. And I think only until you come to that place, only when you understand that you are a slave to something, into someone, that you actually start to ask, well, how good is my master? That there is a coming to yourself, which leads to repentance and God uses in his grand providence, all kinds of past, all kinds of undertakings, all kinds of campaigns, if you will, to bring us to that place. But he must bring us to that place before we can have true repentance.  [00:53:19] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.  [00:53:20] The Father's Unconditional Mercy [00:53:20] Tony Arsenal: And, you know, we'll, we'll get into it more, but just because I, I don't feel great about, uh. Sort of throwing out the law in some ways and not finishing with the gospel.  [00:53:30] Jesse Schwamb: Let's get to the gospel.  [00:53:31] Tony Arsenal: The, the father's correction of this is again, like this is the systematic theology correction. The son comes and he says, or he's planning on saying, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants. When we get to the father. The father cuts him off as I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.  [00:53:49] Jesse Schwamb: Right? Right.  [00:53:49] Tony Arsenal: So he doesn't, he doesn't let him get to the point of, of proposing the meritorious salvation that he thought he was going to get. He, he lets him acknowledge, right? He, the father, lets him acknowledge that he's no longer worthy of being his son, and then essentially says, but that doesn't matter because I am worthy of being your father, and I will make you my son again. That that's what he does. He brings the robe, he brings the sandal, he brings the ring, he restores and elevates him to a position of sonship that he didn't even before he left, didn't fully have. We'll talk about that and we'll talk about it again. He, he doesn't come home and come back to being the second son. He comes back home. And this is part of why the older son is so annoyed, is he's actually elevated to the place of the firstborn.  [00:54:35] Jesse Schwamb: That's right.  [00:54:36] Tony Arsenal: By, by begin being given all these symbols of inheritance. And, and this is, you know, this is the other thing, and maybe we'll talk about this more when we get to the, get to what the father gives him. But in Jewish custom and in the Jewish law, the second born son would get, would get one third of the estate. And so he comes back and one third of, I mean, who knows? We don't know how long this trip is. We don't know how long he's been gone. We don't know how, um, how much the estate has been rebuilt. Obviously, the father is still working. It's not as though like his estate is just like stagnant and neutral, but when he comes back, a third of the estate has been wiped out by his reckless living. When he comes back, he's  basically  given all the symbols to say  that  he's now guaranteed to have  the,  the two thirds.  [00:55:22] Jesse Schwamb: Right?  [00:55:23] Tony Arsenal: So he comes back to this position,  into this estate  where the father elevates him  back to and  above his previous station  of sonship.  That is the gospel of Jesus Christ  right there. [00:55:34] Jesse Schwamb: That's right.  [00:55:34] Tony Arsenal: That's double imputation baked into the pie.  Amen. It's not,  it's not just that. He goes, well.  Yeah,  you spent all this stuff, but I guess  like we can,  we can overlook that. That would be more akin to come back.  You can  start at zero,  I guess.  Zero is a servant in my house.  Go ahead and  work your way back up if you can. Right. He comes back and the father says like, well, I've been working hard. I mean, I'm kind of like importing this into the text a little bit, but I've been working hard to rebuild the estate while you were gone. You took a third of it and I've been working hard and now I'm granting you at the, at a minimum, like I'm granting you back what you took away, what you squandered. I'm giving it back to you. I'm restoring you, not just to neutral. I'm restoring you to this place of positive, favorable, gracious, loving communion with me, such that I'm gonna celebrate, I'm gonna give you the best things. I'm gonna kill the animal, and we're gonna have the best feasts, we're gonna have the most fun, we're gonna celebrate because you're alive. You're back, and you're alive. Right. That's an element that I had never even thought of in this. You know, the, the father is not supposed to be pictured in this parable as omniscient, right? He has to see the son coming back. I, I don't, you know, I'm, I'm my kid's only almost four years old, but I know a lot of people who have teenagers that they go out and like, they don't come back for days at a time. And that's a terrifying thing for a parent. Now imagine if he was off in a far country and you don't have phones, you don't have a cell phone, you can't track him on your iPhone. This, this father is, so, he probably had counted his son as dead right there. There probably wasn't another conclusion to make that when he disappears like that, this is a, this is a real return and a real resurrection in a sense, in this parable that we, we should not overlook, right? I think we think about the, the phrasing at the end there that your brother was lost and now he's fine. He was, he was dead and now he's alive. We think of that as like poetic or metaphorical or, or, or some sort of like hyperbolic statement. But in a very real sense in this instance, this son really did come back to life for this family and he was brought back to life and restored back to life by the grace of the father in in restoring him to this place of sonship. [00:57:45] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, I think that's right. That initial interaction, that requesting, that demanding is like a severing of the relationship. Yeah. It's basically saying, I wish to go away and to disconnect with you completely as if you were dead and I was a different person.  [00:58:00] Concluding Thoughts and Reflections [00:58:00] Jesse Schwamb: And so I think a great place to end, like you said, is let's be reminded that God's mercy is not reluctant, like God's mercy comes in hot. The embrace comes faster than the son's repair attempts. That's exactly how God treats us. He delights to bring that mercy to his children when they come before him in repentance day after day after day. Thank goodness. Praise God that his mercies are new every day. And here there are mercies for this son Yeah. By the way, before we end, I have to ask Tony, what flavor is the double imputation pie? Is that like a, is it a fruit pie or is that like a more of a cold, like custard based pie?  [00:58:42] Tony Arsenal: Well, you know, we do have a precedent on this podcast of talking about Exactly. Salvation.  [00:58:46] Jesse Schwamb: Exactly.  [00:58:46] Tony Arsenal: Being the pie or the cake, right? So the cake is salvation. I don't know. Whatever it is, it's sweet and delicious. Maybe it's like a meat pie. Maybe it's like a good, like minced meat pie with all the, like, are you  [00:58:57] Jesse Schwamb: going  [00:58:57] Tony Arsenal: savory? Good protein? Yeah. Maybe it's a savory pie. Okay. I don't know.  [00:59:00] Jesse Schwamb: Okay.  [00:59:00] Tony Arsenal: I've never had a savory pie.  [00:59:02] Jesse Schwamb: I, I like, I, you know how you say that? I haven't either, but I would love like, what's it like steak and kidney? Isn't that like a famous.  [00:59:09] Tony Arsenal: That sounds awful.  [00:59:11] Jesse Schwamb: Well, isn't that like a, listen, do we have any brothers, sisters who are listening in in any of like the, yeah, the United Kingdom. Where are you guys at? Yeah, Daniel is a steak and kidney. Daniel, you  [00:59:19] Tony Arsenal: tell us. Daniel Steak and kidney a real thing.  [00:59:22] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, we need to know.  [00:59:24] Tony Arsenal: Okay.  [00:59:24] Jesse Schwamb: Is it good? Is it delicious? Would you describe it as a pie of double imputation again, steak, kidney? I'm thinking,  [00:59:34] Tony Arsenal: I don't even  [00:59:34] Jesse Schwamb: know. Tony's not, not convinced. So look at his face is like, we need to end this episode right  [00:59:39] Tony Arsenal: now. Yeah. Well, Jesse, I know how to end the episode. It's funny, it's funny. People, I'm glad people picked up on the little joke from last week, although it wasn't really a joke.  [00:59:49] Jesse Schwamb: No.  [00:59:50] Tony Arsenal: And I still have this recurring nightmare than we're gonna forget how to end the podcast. But last week we were trying a, a slightly different recording setup. [00:59:57] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.  [00:59:57] Tony Arsenal: And somehow, maybe this is our AI overlords playing some sort of joke on us. Somehow, right after talking about how we were gonna blow the ending, the system magically muted Jesse's microphone. I could see his hands. They were nowhere near the keyboard. There's no possible way  [01:00:13] Jesse Schwamb: in the air.  [01:00:14] Tony Arsenal: Just absolutely. The, the, the phone was like, or the recording software was like, not today boys. So we're on a different platform this time. Hopefully it won't do it.  [01:00:25] Jesse Schwamb: We're about to find out.  [01:00:27] Tony Arsenal: We will. When I say until next time, Jesse Honor. Everyone  [01:00:33] Jesse Schwamb: just kidding. Everybody  [01:00:34] Tony Arsenal: love the brotherhood. 
• The Parable of the Lost Son: The Father's Grace as Central Message 16.01.2026 56мин

  What if the most famous parable in Scripture isn't primarily about the prodigal son at all? In this episode of The Reformed Brotherhood, Tony Arsenal and Jesse Schwamb begin an in-depth exploration of Luke 15:11-32, arguing that this beloved parable is fundamentally about the Father's lavish, shocking grace rather than the son's waywardness. The hosts unpack how Jesus uses this story to reveal God's character as one who not only forgives repentant sinners but elevates them to the status of beloved children and heirs—a grace so radical it scandalizes our human sensibilities. They also examine the often-overlooked older brother as a picture of "gospel complainers" who struggle to rejoice in God's mercy. This episode sets the foundation for a multi-part series that promises to reveal new depths in one of the Bible's most profound stories. Key Takeaways The parable's central focus is the Father, not the sons. While commonly called "The Parable of the Prodigal Son," the story's main point is to reveal the gracious, generous character of God who eagerly forgives and restores sinners. God's salvation elevates us beyond mere forgiveness. The returning son isn't simply pardoned—he's clothed in the best robe, given a ring, and celebrated with a feast. Similarly, salvation doesn't just remove our guilt; it grants us adoption as God's children and heirs. The parable addresses both repentant sinners and "gospel complainers." The younger son represents those who have come to themselves and returned to the Father, while the older brother represents those who resent God's grace toward the undeserving. Christian salvation is unique among world religions. Unlike other religious systems that offer moral improvement or merger with the divine, Christianity offers actual adoption into God's family—a relationship of love and inheritance. The scandal of grace should shock us. The father's response to the returning son is deliberately shocking and countercultural, revealing a love so lavish it transcends human logic and fairness. Repentance involves recognizing the Father's gracious disposition. The son "came to himself" not merely by acknowledging his foolishness, but by remembering his father's character and trusting in his mercy. This parable contains multiple theological lessons. Rather than having a single point, this rich story teaches us about God's nature, the process of repentance, the reality of regeneration, the joy of restoration, and the danger of self-righteousness. Key Concepts The Father as the True Center of the Parable Throughout church history, interpreters have often focused on the journey of the younger son—his rebellion, his descent into poverty, his moment of realization, and his return home. However, Tony and Jesse argue compellingly that this emphasis misses the parable's primary purpose. Jesus tells this story in response to the Pharisees' complaint that he welcomes sinners and eats with them. The parable's answer isn't primarily about how sinners should behave, but about who God is—a Father who runs to meet returning sinners, who interrupts their prepared speeches of repentance with immediate restoration, who celebrates extravagantly rather than reluctantly. Every detail—the best robe, the ring, the fatted calf, the music and dancing—points to a God whose grace overflows beyond what we could ask or imagine. When we shift our focus from the son's unworthiness to the Father's overwhelming generosity, the gospel comes into sharper focus. Salvation as Elevation, Not Mere Restoration One of the most striking insights in this episode is the observation that the younger son returns expecting at best to be treated as a hired servant, but instead receives treatment that appears to elevate him even beyond his original status as a son. The father doesn't simply restore him to his previous position; he clothes him in the best robe, places a ring on his finger (a symbol of authority), puts shoes on his feet (distinguishing him from barefoot servants), and throws a celebration with the fatted calf (reserved for the most special occasions). This, Tony and Jesse argue, is a picture of what God's salvation accomplishes. We don't simply receive forgiveness that neutralizes our debt; we receive adoption that makes us heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ. First John 1:9 doesn't merely promise forgiveness of sins, but cleansing from all unrighteousness—the removal of our guilt and the imputation of Christ's righteousness. This is the scandal of the gospel: God doesn't merely pardon rebels; he makes them sons and daughters. The Older Brother and the Danger of Gospel Complaining The parable's second half introduces the older brother, whose response to his father's grace reveals a different kind of lostness. His complaint seems, on the surface, entirely reasonable: he has been faithful and obedient, yet never received such celebration, while his wasteful brother returns and is honored. Yet his anger reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of grace. He sees his relationship with the father in transactional terms—work deserves reward, and his brother's work deserves punishment. He cannot rejoice in mercy shown to another because he doesn't recognize his own need for mercy. The hosts connect this to the Pharisees who complained about Jesus welcoming sinners, and to the persistent temptation among believers to resent God's grace toward those we deem less deserving. The older brother's position outside the celebration—in the "outer darkness" of the parable—serves as a sobering warning about the possibility of being near to the Father's house while remaining far from the Father's heart. Memorable Quotes This parable has something to tell us about the nature of the Father, the nature of God as the gracious God who is eager and ready to forgive his people, to forgive his son. It tells us about people who have come to faith, who have been regenerated, who have come to ourselves and have recognized the nature of the Father and recognized the gracious disposition of the Father. — Tony Arsenal No human mind could invent or conceive of the gospel... You could give people all the time in the world to write some kind of amazing, try to come up with some kind of story, some kind of redemption narrative that would be this good, and we wouldn't be able to do it because it is just so far away from how our minds think. — Jesse Schwamb He could have redeemed us from destruction and brought us out of that, but he's chosen not only to redeem us from destruction, to protect us from destruction and to bring us out of that, but he's chosen to make us his children, to adopt us as his heirs, as his inheritors. — Tony Arsenal Full Transcript [00:00:48] Jesse Schwamb: Welcome to episode 476. Of the Reformed Brotherhood, I'm Jesse. [00:00:55] Tony Arsenal: and I'm Tony, and this is the podcast that Tony is actually on. Hey brother. [00:01:02] Jesse Schwamb: Hey, brother. [00:01:03] Tony Arsenal: lives, I'm alive. Yes. It's, [00:01:07] Jesse Schwamb: As, as I said, the rumors of your demise were greatly exaggerated and here you are. [00:01:12] Tony Arsenal: just barely. Yeah. I mean, the words your brother who was once lost has now been found, have double meaning on this episode. [00:01:21] Jesse Schwamb: That's right. You're leading us right into this topic, which we've teased and teased and teased to extreme lengths, but finally, brothers and sisters, I think today on this episode we're gonna talk a little bit about the Parable of the Lost Son. After all of that, I think it was good buildup, but it's time. [00:01:40] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. And it's worth the buildup. This is one of the, uh, one of the like, big daddy parables. I mean, all the parables are profitable and useful, of course. But, uh, as far as like the, the, the major parables, this is, I don't know if this is probably the most major parable or the, it's certainly the most famous. It's right up there with the Good Samaritan. So I'm, I'm stoked. I've been like wrestling and chewing on this parable for like a month now. [00:02:07] Jesse Schwamb: I know. How about it? We're finally here. There's so much to talk about. I don't wanna bury the lead. We're gonna get there. It, there's just. There's so much ex escalation, like so much evolution, evolution, evolution and escalation of this idea of like, it's three parables in one and really it's one parable in three parts, and we're, you're going from the sheep to the coin to a person now, and then there's this like, you can complain about the gospel. All that's happening within this, I mean, there's, we could just do a, a podcast or an episode of the podcast. You could do a whole podcast just on the setup, but we're not gonna do that.  [00:02:43] Affirmations and Denials [00:02:43] Jesse Schwamb: Well, we'll probably do part of that, but the other thing I'm sure that people have missed are affirmations, denials. And they're back. It's 2026. We've got 'em. You want 'em? So as I've been want to do, Tony, my brother, are you affirming with, are you denying against. [00:02:58] Book Review: Strength of the Few [00:02:58] Tony Arsenal: I am going to affirm this is a very recent popcorn, coconut oil affirmation. Uh, both of us have been reading, um, James Linton's newest entry in the hierarchy [00:03:10] Jesse Schwamb: Oh, that's right. [00:03:11] Tony Arsenal: and both of us have now finished it. And I do have to [00:03:14] Jesse Schwamb: Yep. [00:03:14] Tony Arsenal: um. The book was better than I thought it was gonna be, and I had pretty high expectations going into it. so if you haven't had a chance to check out the hierarchy, I know it, I think it's either gonna be a trilogy or a Quad trilogy. I've read that there's a plan for three books, maybe four books. Um, if you haven't checked it out despite our several recommendations, please do. It was. It was amazing book and kept you confused in all the right ways until, until suddenly you weren't so confused, which was like a really, it was like the opposite feeling as the first book, which was you thought you knew what was going on the entire time, and then all of a sudden it was just a totally different situation. This I. I kind of felt like I sort of understood what was going on. And then in maybe like the last, I don't know, five pages, everything got upended again. Um, so yeah, it, it was very good. Uh, it's eminently appropriate. Um, there's no sex. There's. Sort of veiled swearing, but it's, it's sort of like fantasy world. Different words, swearing. Um, it can be a little bit, um, violent at some points, but he does a good job of not making it overly graphic. Um, and there are some graphic things that happen, but he does a good job of not describing them overly graphically. So, um, I don't know that I would like read it to your kids at bedtime, but it's a. It's a good book and it's worth, it's, it's a little bit of a slog. I mean, it was a long book, but it's worth the [00:04:45] Jesse Schwamb: Right. [00:04:46] Tony Arsenal: you put into it. Um, I don't know when the next book's gonna come out. Probably a year and a half, maybe two years. Um, seems to be the pace. So you got time to go back and read Will of the Mini, which is the first one, uh, strength of the Few, which is the second one. And the forthcoming volume I've heard is called the Justice of One. I don't [00:05:04] Jesse Schwamb: That's right. [00:05:04] Tony Arsenal: if there's a fourth volume, what it's gonna be called. Um, but yeah, check it out. It was super good. It was super, super satisfying. Um, it was shocking in all the right ways. Surprising in all the right ways, but also sort of predictable in some of the right ways. There were some things that happened that. Felt right, and like they're expected and they should have happened, and then they did happen. Um, I I, I get really frustrated with books when you really feel like it's supposed to go some way and then it just doesn't, like something fits and it doesn't happen. So yeah. Strength of the Few by James Islington. I'm gonna try to pick up his other trilogy, I think it's called the Lactus Trilogy, um, just to get a feel for it. And I've heard rumors that, uh, James Islington is actually a reformed Christian, so we are gonna try to hunt him down if anyone happens to have contact information for James is LinkedIn please. Uh, please send it my way 'cause I would love to book him for the show and see if we could get him, uh, get him visiting. [00:06:02] Jesse Schwamb: We got 20, 26 goals. We got those squad goals. Actually, what's a really good way for people to get you? Let's say somebody has the contact information, they're listening and they're saying, we. I do with this hot little ticket that's in my hands. How could they get that information to us in a really fun way? [00:06:17] Engaging with the Audience [00:06:17] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, we have a Telegram channel. Telegram is just this little messaging app. Uh, you just go to t Me slash Reform Brotherhood. Uh, you can use it on any browser or any mobile device. You can access Telegram. If you go to your browser and point it to t me slash Reform Brotherhood, it will take you either to download the app or if you already have the app, it'll jump you straight into the, uh, into the conversation. Uh, there's several different channels or a little. Categories in there. Um, you know, anything from memes to, um, like a book reading club to prayer requests, um, there's a lot going on in there and it really is just a friendly place. There's about a hundred people in there, so it's not gonna blow up your phone all the time. Um, but if you have a question or you want to chat things or you happen to have James Linton's email address and you wanna share it with me, that is the place to do it. t.me/reform brotherhood. [00:07:08] Jesse Schwamb: This is a great book. Like you said, the storytelling is epic's. Super fun. It keeps you guessing. In fact, you almost can't even guess at certain points. You've just gotta come along for the ride. And one of the things I also appreciate about James Islington is he's pretty responsive. So he has a website and he posts regular updates. So I'm looking at an update that was dated December 2nd. He talks about the justice of one. He says he's got it up to 150,000 words in draft form, but he also is saying that he's going to release like a shorter sci-fi novel this year. So that man is just cranking books. [00:07:40] Tony Arsenal: He [00:07:40] Jesse Schwamb: He's just out there crushing it. [00:07:43] Tony Arsenal: of [00:07:43] Jesse Schwamb: Yes, that's, you just stole that. That's exactly what I was gonna say. He's the Sin Sinclair Ferguson of fantasy authorship. So he's doing his thing. But I love that he keeps touch kind of with his readership and he provides these little tidbits to just say like, I'm out here and I'm work. 'cause isn't there you, you and I have talked about this before. There's almost nothing less satisfying than a really good series that you either start reading or you think is gonna be complete and at some point like it drops off and you have no idea what happened to the author. It's, it's hard. I mean, it's a small thing in the world of course, but there's nothing more satisfying than knowing that you're gonna get this whole series. And I kind of like the breaks in between 'cause it allows you to kind of track and digest. And I've already like looked up videos. Maybe you've done the same thing, reading all this stuff about people's theories about what's going on. 'cause it's that good that like you wanna get. Other people together and talk about, it's that kind of book. [00:08:35] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. And, and Jesse and I have swapped theories about what's going to happen. I think we more or less independently came up with basically [00:08:44] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. [00:08:44] Tony Arsenal: theory. Um, [00:08:45] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. [00:08:46] Tony Arsenal: sure some of the nuances are different, but I would love it if, if, uh, someone in our telegram chat or other people have read, read this book. To hear what your thoughts are about what's gonna happen in the next book and what the kind of the next resolutions. I can't even, like, there's no way I can even tilt my hand about what my theory might be without spoiling like all of the best surprises in the whole book. So I think that's enough. Uh, fanboying over strength of the few. For now, for now. Um, but do check it out. Strength of the few. James Islington. Um, I got it on Kindle. It was, it was easy enough to read on a eReader. Sometimes books aren't formatted well for eBooks. This, the formatting's good. The, the pacing is good. Um, just check it out. You, you won't be sorry. Probably if, if you like science fiction, fantasy kind of books, you won't be sorry that you invested the time in this. [00:09:39] Jesse Schwamb: Agreed. Yeah. Good. That is a good strong starting affirmation. [00:09:44] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Jesse, what do you got for us tonight? [00:09:46] Jesse Schwamb: I'm gonna do an affirmation as well, and I'm just gonna fan boy with two authors and I'm coming in 'cause you, you actually asked me about this for some opinion on it and I'm willing to give some, even though it's too early in the year, I suppose, but I. I have really grown to appreciate some really good quote unquote devotional reads. You know, something that gives you a little bit to process and digest every day. And I was gifted walking in Faith 365 days with John Calvin, which is edited by Joel Beaky. So you got a powerhouse there, and it turns out. Not shockingly, it's good and I'm just loving, again, the ability to have like snippets of really good writing that don't overwhelm you in the volume so you can really slow down and chew on them a bit. And additionally, one of the things I really like about this particular volume is that it's in. Technical order, so it moves you through the scriptures as if like you were perhaps just reading through one book of the Bible and it's taking these like little pieces and snippets along the way. So of course it's in Genesis, we're early in the year as you and I are talking, and so it's just moving you through. I'm just at Jacob and Esau and just drawing out some really lovely distinctions, some theological truths from a little piece of scripture, some commentary on that. Then some kind of additional Bible reading paired along with that for you to take in the process as well. It's just. Good, Joe Bke is great. I mean, what can we say about Calvin? [00:11:08] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. [00:11:09] Jesse Schwamb: So it's really a lovely pairing and he is curated it very nicely. And again, I love that it's kind of moving through the scriptures in a way that's familiar to us, just in terms of the order of the scriptures themselves, at least that they've been ordered for us. So if you're looking for something, it's not too late. I mean, I suppose you could just pick this up and do it whenever you wanted, but still early in the year. So I don't know. Wherever books are sold, I'm sure you can find it. Walking in faith. 3, 6, 5 days with John Calvin, who doesn't wanna spend that much time with John Calvin. Everybody does. So go well. Most everybody does. Go. Go and check it out. [00:11:38] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, I think that curation aspect is really important because anyone, I mean, and people should and do this and it's fine and, and edifying, like you can, you can pick up a like year through the institute's like [00:11:53] Jesse Schwamb: Right. [00:11:53] Tony Arsenal: plan. Um, but some of the institute's, like, it's just not, not theologically bad, but it's just not good writing. Like there are parts of the institutes that are just really. Dull and dry and hard to get through. So a good book like this that's gonna curate and I'm assuming if he's going through the scriptures, they're pulling from his commentaries and other works. Do, um. [00:12:15] Jesse Schwamb: Yes. [00:12:16] Tony Arsenal: It's important because even the best writers have bad parts of their writing, either because the writing is bad or because sometimes the material they're covering is dry and something like a biblical commentary, like you're gonna cover the genealogies. And that's probably not the most compelling commentary to read is what John Calvin thinks about the, the. You know, six chapters at the beginning of First Kings or, uh, first Chronicles, although I don't think he did a [00:12:44] Jesse Schwamb: Right. [00:12:45] Tony Arsenal: on First Chronicles, but. The point stands that having someone who is knowledgeable and has s slugged their way through all of that to curate and to arrange it and to give it thematic cohesion, uh, is really helpful. I would love to see more books like that. Like, like, let's Beaky, can you do one for like a brothel and. And Bob Inc. Can you [00:13:07] Jesse Schwamb: It's a good idea. [00:13:08] Tony Arsenal: go through all of the major reformed, uh, writers and create this resource for us? Please, if you have Joel Bey's email also go to the telegram chat and, uh, and let us know. Uh, it's probably not unrealistic that someone in our Telegram chat actually does have Joel Bey's email. Um, and I would be willing to bet that you could probably just find Joel Bee's email on like the Pure Term Reform Seminary website. He's probably not too hard to get hold of. [00:13:33] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, but that's, that's not the one we're talking about. We, we want the burn it to the ground email. We want the Yahoo or the a OL address. We want that personal one. [00:13:44] Tony Arsenal: it's like j Bke Puritan master@geocities.com. [00:13:50] Jesse Schwamb: That's the one we want. We. Listen, Dr. Pki, we know that you have that email. Just just, just give it to us. Just give it to us. Join our Telegram group. It'll be amazing. And then just give it to us and then you can come and you can talk to us and we will give you all these amazing ideas like you've just done for free. I like that. Think about like if there was like a volume set of these and then you could just have them at your disposal. You might like take one year and go through broccoli. You might go through Calvin. How awesome would that be? Like you just cycle through them just in perpetuity, alongside like your general reading or study of the scriptures. I, I love it because it's like a, it's like a theological, oh, this could be a horrible comparison, but it's kinda like a theological dessert. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, I'm not saying it's, it's full of empty calories. I'm saying it's a rich, it's delicious. It's a great like night cap of your worship, as it were. And. It is the best to have somebody who's gone through it and said, Hey, here's something really worthwhile that you should hear from Calvin every day on a particular part of the scriptures. And that's just how it, it's like it's the greatest hits, so you're just getting them. It's like they just, they're bangers. They don't stop. They just keep hitting you hard every day. So I love your idea of like, can we just get more of that from everybody [00:15:01] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, for sure. Well, Jesse, I have a feeling we're gonna need all the time we can get for this [00:15:08] Jesse Schwamb: the time? [00:15:08] Tony Arsenal: So rather than trying to segue our in our way into some clever transition, why don't [00:15:14] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. Yeah. [00:15:14] Tony Arsenal: why don't we just get at it? [00:15:16] Jesse Schwamb: We, we should get a, and I have a feeling that maybe some of the brothers sisters said that we're gonna need some of the time, but what you actually said was, we need all the time. And that is factually correct. [00:15:26] Tony Arsenal: the times. Yeah, we're gonna [00:15:28] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. [00:15:28] Tony Arsenal: episodes for this one. I think I'll call it now. [00:15:31] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, that's, that is absolutely true. So there is a choice ahead of us though. And that is, and I, this is where I'm at. I dunno where you're at. We're having the meeting as we actually record the conversation.  [00:15:41] Reading the Parable of the Lost Son [00:15:41] Jesse Schwamb: I'm thinking, why don't we just read this whole thing to start with, just to set it up. We're certainly not gonna get through everything and I think even, we probably have some things we'd like to say in this set up itself. But, uh, what, say you, let's just read the whole thing. [00:15:53] Tony Arsenal: do it. Do you want me to read? [00:15:55] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, go ahead. [00:15:56] Tony Arsenal: I'm reading from the ESV and I'm reading out of Luke chapter 15, starting in verse 11. And he said he being Jesus. He said there was a man who had two sons and the younger of them said to his father, father, give me the share of property that is coming to me. He divided his property between them. Not many days later, the young son gathered all he had took a journey into the far country and there he squandered his property in reckless living. And when he had spent everything severe famine arose in the country and he began to be in need. he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country who sent him into the field to feed his pigs. And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself, he said, how many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger. I will arise and go to my father. And I'll say to him, father, I've sinned against heaven and earth before you. I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants. And he arose and came to his father, but while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father said to his servants, bring quickly the best robe and put it on him and bring a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet, and bring the fatted calf and kill it and let us eat and celebrate for this. My son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found, and they began to celebrate. Now, his older son was in the field and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. And he said to him, your brother has come and your father has killed the fatted calf because he received him back safe and sound. But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and and treated him, but he answered his father. Look, these many years I've served you, I've never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him. And he said to him, son, you are always with me, and all that is mine. Is yours. Was fitting to celebrate and be glad for this. Your brother was dead and is alive. He was lost and is found. [00:18:25] Discussion on the Parable's Themes [00:18:25] Jesse Schwamb: So glad those dulce tones are back. It's so easy to really get caught up in this. I mean, just listening to you give it to us, deliver it to us. It's so easy to, to get embedded in this story and to feel something about what's going, especially the end. I was just really struck by that older brother saying very directly like, you know, listen, you didn't gimme anything and this fool over here squatted everything with prostitutes, and now you've come back and you've welcomed him and celebrated him. I mean, there, there's so much here. That is the beauty of this like three in one parable format, isn't it? We get the first two, which I think are really, like we talked about, designed to impress us upon us with this love of God. It's an activity which seeks out the sinner, which takes like infinite trouble in order to find him, rescue him. And then there's this joy that's shown by God and all the host of heaven when even just the one is saved. And we've said again that we gotta remember the setup here. All that message is coming against this great accusation, which of course the Pharisees mean to be pejorative. But what is a true flection of our savior, of his loving and kindness that he welcomes? He makes himself approachable by the least in society. The ones who had rejected religion once, for which like religion was not gonna do anything anymore. They're outside of it. That was for good men, and these were decidedly not good men. And so then there's this. Like I said before, I guess what was the word I used? Evolution, which I think is like an elaboration and an elevation of this whole storyline. And now we're going from sheep and coins to this idea that God is stressing his activity alone, that he goes in this, there's this reaction condition of the sinner. And so the parable, I think here, at least to my mind, and I wanna hear what you have to say even as we start, which is that impresses upon us again, this aspect of this other like side matter. Nobody should be so foolish to think that we should be automatically saved by God's love, even as the sheep and the last coin were found. And so the great outstanding point is still the same, but it's application. It seems to me, even, again, just hearing you say this to us is made more direct and more personal, and so we really need to get well, what is that additional direct and personal message? What, what is the thing that we need to look at here and understand that connects us to the other two parts, being peace wise. Of this whole formulaic approach to salvation from God's view, but also is much more different and much more direct. [00:20:48] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, I mean, I think the, the sort of like intensification of these parables, know, maybe not, it's not like a progressive intensification, but we go from, we go from kind of like a herd animal that's wandered away. Has somewhat of an agency, but like does nothing to bring itself back. We go from that to a coin, which is totally inanimate and it is [00:21:10] Jesse Schwamb: Right? [00:21:11] Tony Arsenal: and, and now we have this like fully orbed, fully fleshed out picture of salvation that fills in some of the gaps, right? I think if you just had the first two parables and you were using those, it gives this impression that we are entirely. Inert, I won't say passive. 'cause we are passive in our justification. We receive justification from external to us, and we don't contribute anything to the effecting of our justification. But we're not inert even in our justification. We're not inert, we're not just sitting there. Um, we, we respond in faith to God's regeneration and calling and justification comes to us through that faith. So this parable really does. Give us a bigger picture because it's not as though the son is dead in a ditch somewhere and the father comes and finds him like the son does and come back. So it's, it's now not just a picture of. The redemption that God, you know, brings to his people and the redemption that Christ purchases, that the Holy Spirit applies to his people. It's also now a picture of what repentance looks like, and it's a picture of what recalcitrant looks like. It's a picture of what it looks like to refuse to trust the grace of God and to rejoice in the grace of God. We have a, all of those pictures are all there and it, it really is a. A pretty complex, it's a complex flavor profile. I, I feel like maybe it's because distilling theology's back and I was listening to it the other day, but it, it, it really is this complex picture of really a lot of elements of soteriology that I don't know that I picked up on, you know, in my casual study of this parable and, you know, and up until now, really kind of deep diving it. [00:23:01] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, I'm with, I'm with you, and there's like a lovely kind of book ending here, or there's maybe like a huge punchline. That's a better way to say it because even as we start at the beginning, of course, with. Two sons, which is a wonderful way to begin this. I mean, that's just like pregnant and poignant with so much meaning. So much like anticipation, because what's gonna happen, what are the two sons they seem to be, even from the beginning at odds or even as you're thinking of the younger you have in your mind. Well, I was told there was two, so they must come into play. They. I love that because there is this enjoin or this kind of attack where the Pharisees are kind of even made to be like the elder brother and 'cause they're not joining in in heaven's joy. And the punchline comes later and of course it's still in response. The very last thing is still in response to the fact that you can say something totally true about Jesus Amina as an accusation and they're gospel complainers and the Bible's actually full of gospel complainers. I sometimes worry and, and as we were. Setting up to talk about this. I was thinking what are the ways that like the modern ways, even the reform circles that we have or complain about grace and. I always think of Jonah and think, I would never be Jonah, but of course, like you get to the end of Jonah's legacy really. And the way that we know him at the end is he's just angry because of God's mercy. And it's almost laughable because at the end of Jonah four, when Jonah's sitting out looking on Nineveh and there's been this grand repentance, and then, you know. Yahweh essentially says to him, do you have a good reason to be angry? And he's like, yes, because I knew you'd be merciful. And then God instill his mercy to Jonah in particular, of course, in the heat of the day, gives a plant to grow beside him and give him shade. And then God brings in his. True providence and control over all things, a scorching east wind and it strikes down that plant. And then Jonah loses his shade and he's angry again. And this is why I chuckle, 'cause it's almost laughable. God says to Jonah, listen, do you have a good reason? He says the same question, do you have a good reason to be angry about the plant? And of course Jonah's response is, yeah, I'm angry enough to die. And it's just like, isn't that our proclivity? And so like even all of this story is to. Challenge the idea that the gospel, I think if we're, if we're honest with ourselves, is sometimes gonna come cause us to complain about this incredible grace, this amazing grace. That's what makes it so amazing. So the whole star story from start to finish puts us in both of the characters, doesn't it? I mean, I know that's a very common interpretation, but it's probably worth, I think, not forgetting that to the, from the beginning, from the end here. That the punchline is that. The Pharisees are being accused to be the elder brothers and we along with them at times, but that it's easy to complain about the gospel, even if you're totally down with, we're presumably gonna get to all the other parables about the workers, for instance, and their pay and all that good stuff. But we're gonna see this theme over and over and over again that the gospel truly is radical. I think for me, the way it summarized the whole thing is that we're seeing like the recklessly spend, thrift love of God. I think I've said before in our conversations elsewhere that like there's so much in here that's not. Not like good earthly human advice. This is probably not good, like in total, like parenting advice, for instance, in every situation it, it is showing though the incredible breadth and scope of God's love. And still, like you said, Tony, I like this. We should go onto this, this elaboration of this point where. I think for many people like myself, one of my favorite parts in this is, and he came to himself, but that coming to himself isn't, he came to himself by himself, but that he came to himself under the realization of the father, that he ought to go back and to humble himself before him. And you're right. There is this confluence of those two things. Maybe it's Erie is a better word in which they're coming together in harmony. They're not opposed to one another. We're not saying that he somehow earned himself the right and still, like he just got smart enough and therefore said, if I just go back to the father and I plead mercy, that maybe I'll have some opportunity to come back into the household. You know, still is all God's work, but we're seeing the work of God in the sinner in this place, in the thing that was lost, which we don't see in the other two parables or the other two parts that proceeded. [00:27:16] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I think, um, this is one of those parables too, where. If you look at a parable and say, it can only have one point, which I know is, is a common interpretive lens that a lot of people look through parables, look at parables through.  [00:27:36] Understanding the Parable's Multiple Messages [00:27:38] Tony Arsenal: Um, if you look at this and say, well, it can only have one point that I think you're really selling yourself short. 'cause this, this parable has something to tell us about. The nature of the Father, right? The nature of God as the gracious God who is eager and ready to forgive his people, right, to forgive his son. it tells us about us. It tells us about people who have come to faith, who have been regenerated, who have come to ourselves and have recognized the nature of the Father and recognized the gracious disposition of the Father. Um, even, even. In the sons, the, the lost sons or the the prodigal sons, even in his, So maybe we should, we should just talk through it a little bit.  [00:28:23] The Son's Return and Father's Grace [00:28:28] Tony Arsenal: The son turns, when he comes to himself, he doesn't think he's gonna go back and become a son again. Right. He doesn't, he doesn't think he's going to achieve full forgiveness and restoration, but even his minimalistic understanding of what his father. Could, and, and I think it's reasonable to say like, likely will, he's going home because he anticipates that it will be successful, right? It's a, it's a [00:28:53] Jesse Schwamb: Right. [00:28:54] Tony Arsenal: effort, but he's not, he's not thinking he's gonna get like thrown out again. He's thinking that when he goes home and he pleads with his father to become a higher, become a hired servant in his house, that the father's going to accept that proposition. So even in that. That still would be a gracious response.  [00:29:14] Cultural Context and Commentary Insights [00:29:14] Tony Arsenal: Um, I've read lots of commentaries on this over the years, and most of them make the point that the disrespect. Shown to the father by this son, um, would've been a justification for stoning under the mosaic economy. so he, he, uh, is going back to someone who has the right to. Take his life, and he's anticipating that he won't. Right? So even that is a recognition of the graciousness of this father. And then he gets there and the graciousness of the father overflows beyond his wildest imaginations, right? He comes back and, and. I have to think, especially since the other son isn't like, oh yeah, we wear the best robes and the best rings and we have feasts all the time. This is not normal. It's not like this is just restoration. Back to the original state of sun sonship, he's now elevated in his sonship. He comes back and he's wearing the best robe. He's given the best ring. He has shoes on his feet. He is, there's a party. The fatted calf is being killed. He's, he's advanced to a higher level of celebration and fellowship than he was. [00:30:24] The Parable's Broader Theological Implications [00:30:24] Tony Arsenal: So this parable has so many different facets to it that tell us about ourselves, tells us about our salvation, tells us about God, tells us about the reprobates, which is. We talked about this in some of the other parables, like there's a judgment element to this. The son who refuses to celebrate the the lost coming home remains in the outer darkness. He sits outside the party. He doesn't enjoy the fellowship of everyone who's, who's. over the restoration of this one. He is in the outer darkness. He is in where the goats are, where, you know, he's, he's out away from the fellowship of God's people in the parable. So, we'll, we'll unpack all of this in more depth as we work our way through the, you know, we'll work way, our way through the parable itself. But there is so much here to unpack it just really is such a rich, beautiful tapestry of. Of theological insight and wisdom, and Jesus is just this master storyteller, right? This is [00:31:27] Jesse Schwamb: Yes. [00:31:27] Tony Arsenal: that he's, he's come up with that weaves all of these themes in. Of course, I mean, of course he's a master storyteller. He's God, but as even as a [00:31:35] Jesse Schwamb: Right, [00:31:35] Tony Arsenal: he's, he's able to weave all these themes together in a way that is surprising, but also not really surprising. Like this [00:31:44] Jesse Schwamb: right, [00:31:45] Tony Arsenal: the way you would want this story to unfold. Like it's a comfortable, um. It's not shocking in the wrong way. Like, you don't look at it, you're not being surprised by, it's not like a, there's no twist to this. If anything, the twist is that the older brother is kind of a bonehead. Right?  [00:32:04] The Scandalous Nature of God's Love [00:32:05] Tony Arsenal: So, so I'm, I'm just really thankful that this is in the Bible. It's such a beautiful thing and it is so well known, even outside of Christian circles. People understand and know this story. It can be a really good touch point for the gospel. 'cause when you talk about the prodigal son. clicks for people. They may not know [00:32:21] Jesse Schwamb: Mm-hmm. [00:32:22] Tony Arsenal: but they're familiar with that language. They know it's something from the Bible and you can use it to really explain the grace of God, the restoration of sinners. So I'm stoked to keep going on this one, [00:32:32] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, and that's why we need multiple conversations because I think that we're trying to start it in the right spot, which we, we gotta talk about the big things first. Like we, we, we, I know we wanna run and go and talk about all the details and people are probably like. Talk about the, like you said, the covenant between father and son and talk. We'll get there, I promise. But I think we need to sit for a second and just think about the, just the grand arc. This, this whole, the whole of what's being communicated here is tremendous and it is captivating and you're rights like God has in his per nation made this to be the kind of thing that, uh. Like, I like what you said, it captivates us in a weird way. It's not like storytelling to which we are drawn because we could conceive of it, but because it's so inconceivable and yet in that ability to like not fully comprehend the depth of this, it's the kind of forgiveness and restoration that we all sense we needed want. [00:33:24] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. [00:33:24] Jesse Schwamb: And of course we're still, you and I are still talking at the beginning of the year here, and one of the. Like, I think incredible themes that jumps out to me on this is truly like the possibility of a new start, a real new beginning for all. Even those who are most desperate, there's no case can be worse than this prodigal son. Yet even he gets to start again. And like you've just said, and I think this is a critical point, he's not starting from a place of. Restored weakness or some kind of subcategory in the hierarchy of the family. He's actually been elevated back up and there's like a true resurrection or restoration here. One might, one might even say like he's had a glorious fall because it's been restored to such a degree where he knows the father's love in a truly profound, in really intimate kind of way that he would not have experienced if he had stayed in the father's household. And so even I think at the beginning with this, him coming forward and asking for the inheritance. Maybe we're getting a little bit of that flavor of Romans one that God turning over that he's working and seeking out that which is idolatrous. He thinks that is the kind of thing that will either satisfy or fulfill him. He quickly finds it to be knots, that kind of thing. And then he touches bottom. I mean, he goes all the way down so low that I'm not sure he could possibly descend any further, and we'll get to these details. Of course, in his culture and his family in this foreign country, he's with husks and pigs. He's Penns friendless. He's hopeless. He's for alone. He's totally desolate and dejected, but even he gets a fresh start even he is called to make a new beginning, and the father, like you said, runs to him in that new beginning. [00:34:59] The Transformative Power of God's Love [00:34:59] Jesse Schwamb: That's the blessed gospel. Loved ones like that's the blessed hope. That's, that's the new thing that we're always longing for, that we find if we could just have that kind of restoration, especially when we fall, which we will continue to fall, we'll continue to sin. What a difference the coming of Jesus makes. And all of that. It says Jesus saying himself again, like he is the messenger and he's the message. And he's saying, here I am. I, uh, here I am declaring freedom for the captives, like true restoration, true rehabilitation, true regeneration. And all of that's happening in the context of this story. And I'm with you. Like, I don't wanna move too quickly into the details, which are cool and fun and support all of that without us kind of trying to process what that even means. [00:35:41] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah, and this is a big one, so buckle up everyone like this is gonna be obviously. We're 30, 30 ish minutes in 30, almost 40 minutes into this episode. Uh, we haven't even, we haven't even started working our way through the text directly. [00:35:57] Jesse Schwamb: True. [00:35:58] Tony Arsenal: gonna be here for at least a couple weeks. So make sure you pick up a good commentary, make sure you pick up some good resources, read through this, really, really like, meditate on it and marinate on it. And I think, you know, this parable has so much to teach us. It really is worth devoting the time to it. 'cause you know, I was thinking about it the other day. It's funny because like the older brother, almost like his annoyance actually makes sense to me. Not, not in the like gospel complainer sense that I think is like the point of the parable, but just on the surface of it, like he's not being unreasonable and, [00:36:35] Jesse Schwamb: Exactly. [00:36:36] Tony Arsenal: tell us something. Not only about our own dispositions, but that is not the, um. not the shocking part of the story, right? The shocking part of the story is that the father is gracious abundantly, above and beyond, not only to the younger son, but also to the older son. Gracious. He's gracious to the servants. I mean, ev, everyone in this parable across the board is benefiting from the beneficence of. father in this parable, the servants, the sons, everyone is benefiting from him. And I, I think that is the part of the parable that we often miss. And this is one of my little bugaboos, like this is, this is my version of broken for you. Um, [00:37:23] Jesse Schwamb: Hit me [00:37:24] Tony Arsenal: we, we call this the parable of the prodigal son. [00:37:28] Jesse Schwamb: right. [00:37:29] Tony Arsenal: the parable is not about the sons, like they're there. And of course, as I said, like the parable has something to teach us about the figures that these sons represent. The, the, the, the theological truths that come to bear in the character and the. The story arcs of these sons as part of the parable. But the main focus of this parable, the main point is to teach us about the grace and the goodness and the generosity and the love of the Lord Jesus Christ and his Father and the Holy Spirit. And if we, if we start to shift our gaze in the parable, we, we get too bogged down in trying to parse out every little element of each.  [00:38:14] Salvation and Adoption as God's Children [00:38:15] Tony Arsenal: and the servants and what do the pods represent and who, what are the pigs and who are the foreign, where's the foreign land and what, what historically, what's with the, in like when we get there? All of those things are good and well, and, and we'll talk about most of those things I think over the coming weeks. But if we miss the point of the parable that this is about the gracious. Love and forgiveness that is ours in Christ and the nature of the God who extends that forgiveness to us and the way that that forgiveness is obtained and, and applied to us. Um, we, we lose a lot. We miss out on a lot. So that, I think that's why we're looping on it so much in this first episode here, is we have to nail what the parable broadly is about before we can invest time in the others, or we're gonna miss the point entirely. Okay. [00:38:59] Jesse Schwamb: That's right on it. This is like truly scandalous. I mean, again, Jesus is clearly addressing the fact that in some ways, like you're saying, I think you can see how the Pharisees have a right to complain, or at least they think they have a right to complain in the same way the older brother does. Like I've been here all along. I've done what you've asked for me, and you know, this fool over here again, went and just squandered everything. But now he's come back and he's celebrating him like he's the hero and. It's this idea, idea again that I, I, I guess it goes back to, I'm thinking of like one John, right? Where John says something like, behold, what manner of love the father has lavished on us, like these verbs. These just almost, it sounds like, I think in a normal conversation, I don't know. I dunno how often we're using the word lavish, but you probably are being hyperbolic, but that John is not there. He's not trying to emphasize like, well, I just can't get to how big God's love. It is big enough. I need you to really understand it. So I'm gonna go well above and beyond and use some kind of like really grandiose language here. But he says lavish. He's talking about this full magnitude of how God feels in his disposition towards us that is so scandalous and everywhere there's just scandal in the Bible, like at the top. Now I'm thinking this of this connection, just having read from John Calvin about Jacob and he saw and just how scandalous it is that God chooses Jacob, who's the deceiver, who's like just as a duplicitous life, who like for the sake can't get out of his own way actually. And here is God a blessing and saving and covenanting with him. And so when God looks upon a sinner to save him, he regards him as loss in the need of being found sovereignly and effectually. And he does this out of his. His own goodwill and by his own prerogative. Not of course, because there's anything in that man that warrants or deserves that salvation. And here you're just seeing that over and over again. It's you. I can understand if you're part of a family and you have siblings as a brother getting upset at that kind of situation, it would be natural, wouldn't it? To be like, are you kidding me right now? And so I think that's why the father of the parable says that my son was. Dead. I mean, he was gone. He was lost. Completely helpless. And by nature, that's exactly where we are. Of course, we're dead. We're cut off from the source of life, God himself. We're lost with respect to God and we're lost from the perspective of God. And all of that's that's happening here. And I think, I can't imagine. What it was like to sit in the telling of this and feel the tension of the parties involved in those who are listening, because I think there were a lot of feelings about what was going on and being said here. And mainly that was because I would sum it up as the, with the question, uh. Are you kidding me? Or how dare you? Like this is crazy what you're talking about, the kind of love you're saying the father has is crazy in the sense that there is no earthly logic where we would be bent towards saying that seems completely undeserved. And I think the point is, you're exactly right. And no matter where you look at it, you might try to point to your own life or someone else's, or look at the little idiosyncrasies. Idiosyncrasies of how we behave and think, well no, there should be some justice here. And that that's exactly right. Jesus has born on that justice being just and justifier through God himself. And in that way we get to have God's love lavishly spent on us. And when we think about how lavish that is, it should trip our minds. Like it should kind of short circuit all of our processing because it is not natural. It is truly supernatural. And that's why I'm with you. Like we really have to, I think, take some time to like go over that over and over and over again. It's like singing the chorus of some kind of psalm or piece of worship music where you probably need to sing it 7, 8, 15 times in that repetition before it really starts to sink in. And I'm not sure it's even sunk it to me. [00:42:50] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, [00:42:51] Jesse Schwamb: Half of the way, and that's why I'm, I'm just saying it over and over again. This is the incredible love of God toward us and it is completely scandalous. It should be shocking if we're not finding it shocking. We, we probably need to evaluate more. I know. I need to evaluate more because it should be more shocking to me. [00:43:09] Tony Arsenal: yeah, yeah. I think, um, I'm not a huge fan of. Theological hypothetical, like counterfactuals. And what I mean by that is we can sometimes, we can sometimes talk about like, well, what God could have done or, or whatever. I don't love [00:43:27] Jesse Schwamb: Right. [00:43:28] Tony Arsenal: of doing theology, but sometimes it's useful and I think, um. I think that we often forget that salvation, like theoretically could have been different.  [00:43:40] The Unique Nature of Christian Salvation [00:43:50] Tony Arsenal: Um, I could conceive of a situation where God saves his people from destruction, but doesn't, doesn't elevate them to the place of his [00:43:51] Jesse Schwamb: Yes. [00:43:51] Tony Arsenal: his sons, [00:43:52] Jesse Schwamb: Right. [00:43:52] Tony Arsenal: um. didn't have to do that. So E, even beyond the fact that he didn't have to save anyone, he wasn't obligated to save or redeem or store anyone. He could have saved us. I mean, we talk about this in like he didn't have to make food taste good, right? He didn't have [00:44:08] Jesse Schwamb: Right. [00:44:08] Tony Arsenal: sunsets beautiful. He did that for our benefit. He did that for our joy, and he delights in us taking joy in those things. The same sort of dynamic is true of salvation. He could have. He could have redeemed us from, and, and maybe this isn't the way to think about it, and I, I don't want to be too firm on this, but salvation could have been less amazing than it is, I think. Um, and we, we still would need to be infinitely, eternally grateful for it. But, but it could be less. Enjoyable. Less delightful, less delectable. Right? But it isn't, he's chosen not only to redeem us from, from destruction, to protect us from destruction and to bring us out of that, but he's chosen to make us his children, to adopt us as his, as his heirs, as his, as his inheritors, right? So. In the same sense that this son comes back and is not just welcomed back as a servant or restored to the position of the second son in some ways, and this is why the anger and sort of the anger might not even be the right word. The annoyed, the annoyedness of the son, the, the older son some ways. The younger son comes back and is actually elevated to the place of the firstborn son. [00:45:29] Jesse Schwamb: That's right. [00:45:29] Tony Arsenal: that is a picture of salvation that is so foreign to other religions, so foreign to any other religious system that has a concept of restoration and reconciliation with the divine. Um, that's not the way it works. They, you don't become, you don't become, um, the family of. Allah, right? You don't become somehow like united to the ta, like to the Tao. Like that's just not the way any of it works in any other religions, and even in some of the Christian sects, when you talk about Jehovah's Witness and Mormons, and one is Pentecostals, they don't have a fully formed understanding of what it means to come and become God's children. Right? As a Mormon, you don't become God's child, you become God. Right. It's not about being united in faith and love and harmony with, with the father, son, and the spirit. It's about elev being elevated to a place where you're in your own divinity now. So this, this parable really does serve to orient us and reorient us, correct our misunderstandings about what salvation is in a really simple, straightforward fashion that is both expected. I think when I think, and this is, this is maybe the last thing I'll say before we, we wrap it up, is when I think about the really good dads that I know, right? The really, really good dads and moms too, but just, we'll just keep this with dads. When I think about the really good dads, they're the ones that just pick up their kid when they fall or don't, don't, um. Accept the apology. Uh, along with the discipline. They're the ones that actually elevate and restore and they, they bring their children to. A higher level, right? We're talking horizontally, of course, but a higher level through that disobedience that all, all children do, right? They don't just discipline their child, but through the discipline that is required because of the disobedience, they actually advance their child, they advance their child to a new place of fellowship and of wholeness. That that is. Really quite remarkable. And that is what the father in this parable does. He, he, this isn't just like a parable about, I mean, I think, like you said earlier, like in some ways this is actually probably really bad parenting advice, right? If your bonehead kid comes and says, gimme my inheritance, like doing it is probably not the best choice, right? And, and then when he comes back like, just acting as though nothing happened, like, that's not good discipline, but that's [00:48:21] Jesse Schwamb: Right, [00:48:22] Tony Arsenal: the parable. Right. The [00:48:23] Jesse Schwamb: exactly. [00:48:24] Tony Arsenal: the character and the love of this father. So I'm excited to, to get into the specifics and the details as we go along. Um, I really think it's gonna be edifying and beneficial and, and I just love that we're in this long series where we're just over the scriptures together. [00:48:41] Jesse Schwamb: I, I agree. I think that, again, I'm drawn to one John in two ways thinking about what you just said, which was so critical. One is going back to First John three again, I just wanna say, because I'm not sure if I read the full verse now, I think about it, but. It ties in exactly what you're saying. The point being that God's love leads to change of identity. It leads to relationship and covenant, not just amnesty. [00:49:03] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. [00:49:04] Jesse Schwamb: So when John says, see where great love, and I do love that, you know, behold, check this out. See where great love the father has given us. Where. What does it result in that we should be called God's children and we are. I love that he has to add, add that at the end to emphasize like, trust me on this, like because of God's love. It's this giving of this love that recklessly spend. Thrift love that amazing grace isn't just the kind of warm and fuzzy philosophy. It isn't just hopefulness. Or some kind of ideology that ought to make you feel good as if somebody's thinking of you. But instead, it changes you. It elevates you. It puts you in relationship identity that cannot be compromised because God himself holds it for you. And so his love leads to being called his child, and you are. And he goes on to say, the reason the world does not know us is that I didn't know him. Dear friends, we are God's children now and what we'll be has not yet been revealed. And I think that's echoed then further on in the book, in that famous verse about what it means when we do come to ourselves by the power of the Holy Spirit for John one, nine, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins. Except that's more than that, right? To your point, Tony, like the, I think this verse proves your exact point. It could have just ended there, right? Like John could have been like, that would've been enough, wouldn't it? That like we have sinned. We are cosmically treasonous against God. We are owed his wrath. We cannot stand in his presence. Our molecules themselves will be torn asunder when our sinfulness comes into any contact with his pure majesty and holiness. And so the verse should probably be in that kind of world if we confess our sins. He's faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins. That would be saying you no longer get the punishment, but it's far better than that, isn't it? If we confess our sins, he's faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That is the righteous and faithful God imparts his own righteousness to us by removing our own unrighteousness, not just in removing the consequences from the punishment explicitly of sin, but to give us the rewards of rightful obedience, which his son undertook in living. And dying and rising for our benefit because he is for us. That is some amazing news and that is crazy scandalous. [00:51:25] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. [00:51:26] Jesse Schwamb: There is a prayer in the valley of vision that begins with no human mind could invent or conceive of the gospel, and I love that. Because it's absolutely true. You could give people all the time in the world to write some kind of amazing, try to come up with some kind of story, some kind of redemption narrative that would be this good, and we wouldn't be able to do it because it is just so far away from how our minds think. Even when we push our minds to their farthest creative end, we just couldn't come up with this. It's that good. It's that amazing. It's that wild. And we all need that wild because we are wild people that are so far apart from God. So I'm with you how amazing it is that we can only really get to, I think, fully processing that in the course of this story. I think even direct teaching would be good, but maybe not as good as what we get here. And so it draws us in, it compels us, it hems us into a plot, and then it kind of reads us or spits us back out as we are digested, I suppose, by the truth that's here. So there's so much for us to talk about, and I think there's so many good things to come, but we had to start here. We had to do it. I'm sure people were just like throwing their phones. Yelling at their earbuds. Like get, get to the details. Talk about, like you said, talk about the country, talk about the, what it meant that he was with the pigs. We'll get there. [00:52:50] Tony Arsenal: We will, we will.  [00:52:52] Encouragement and Call to Action [00:53:06] Tony Arsenal: Well, Jesse, I think that's a good place for us to push pause for the evening. Uh, if you have been blessed by this episode and you're still listening to us, um, we would love it if you would share this with someone else. We spend $0 on advertising. I doubt we will ever spend more than $0 on advertising. Um, this podcast only grows and only spreads. I suppose like some people stumble on it randomly, but for the most part, people come upon the podcast because somebody recommended it. So if you found this conversation helpful, if you have been blessed by it, pick one or two or three friends that you think could, uh, could be drawn closer to the gospel. 'cause that's really what we're trying to do here, and that's really what this parable does, is to draw us closer to God through the gospel, um, and send them the link. Just you're listening to this on your phone, probably, it's probably an Apple phone, statistically speaking. Just hit that share button and send it to their text message and, uh, ask them to listen and then have a conversation with it. That is the single best thing you could do besides praying for us, uh, to [00:54:00] Jesse Schwamb: That's right. [00:54:01] Tony Arsenal: and to bless us, is to share this content with someone else. [00:54:04] Jesse Schwamb: That's right. And hopefully you'll, like you said, Tony, I love this idea of sharing it and then talking about it. Debate amongst yourselves, with your friends, with your family. Get into the scripture yourselves and enjoy it. It, this is here for us. It's here to encourage us to strengthen us and to, I think now, I can't remember the word that I used at the top, but I wanted to coin that. I can't remember what it was. Was it Ella? Evolution? Yeah. And then take evolution into your own sphere of influence. And spread that around a little bit because I think that's like a strange Portman too, that I didn't mean to come up with. That's like doubled. It's got like, I've just, I've combined three words probably in that It's like a Uck in word, do you know what I mean? Like it's, it's just within, its, [00:54:44] Tony Arsenal: inside a word. [00:54:46] Jesse Schwamb: yes. I'd like to think that's because one, it was super brilliant, but I didn't mean for it to happen, but two, because like no single word would do. So I had to like. Bring that. Bring that, bring that together. So listen, make up your own words. Come hang out with us in the telegram chat. We really mean that. It's a new year and so if you've been listening to us, to us for any length of time, and this is the part of the podcast where you tune out 'cause you get tired of us saying you should join the Telegram chat. Don't tune it out this time. Maybe if you join, I'll stop saying it next time. So just come hang out. [00:55:13] Tony Arsenal: Probably [00:55:15] Jesse Schwamb: It's not gonna happen. We'll talk about it forever. [00:55:20] Tony Arsenal: We will. Jesse, I have this had this recurring nightmare over this last month. That I've been away from the podcast, that I would forget how to podcast and the, the way that it always manifests, I'm no joke. Like I had nightmares about this. [00:55:35] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, [00:55:36] Tony Arsenal: is that I would forget how to do the closing line. [00:55:39] Jesse Schwamb: that's fair. [00:55:40] Tony Arsenal: like super nervous right now. I don't know if you can tell. I feel like super nervous. [00:55:44] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, we all heard that pause there. That was normally where we're like, there'd be the step in, and I will confess to you in the time that I got to just hang out with everybody and do it solo, when I knew that time was coming, I was always nervous because you always carry at least half of it. And so I honestly struggled sometimes with the how does it start? So I mean. Do you want to count it down? Like what, what would make you feel comfortable? What what can I do is like your, your emotional support co-host here to help you with a close [00:56:13] Tony Arsenal: like what you could do is honor everyone.