The Meaning of Discipleship - Caleb Speer

Welcoming back Caleb Speer to the Extra Mile, the subject of discussion falls on discipleship. What does it mean to be a disciple of Christ? Obviously, the definition falls on something more than simple belief. 

The level of engagement of a disciple includes wholehearted action. What strategies could we employ in our own lives to bring us closer to God?

Whether these strategies mean more study, extra meetings, small groups, focused work endeavors, volunteer hours, or even world travel to evangelize, the commitment is required for discipleship. 


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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hi everybody. Who knows? Welcome back to the extra mile. I'm Justin, your host, and with me as always is the one and only G5. What's up, George?

SPEAKER_02 0:17

There he is. I'm here.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

And over in the corner, Caleb's corner, which the camera's not going to cut over there because Caleb just stepped out. That's okay. We're running on automation. It'd be funny if it was empty though.

SPEAKER_03 0:27

Where is the camera? It's right there. It's there. It's just no one's there. No, no, no. Is it on George right now? Yeah, it's on whoever's speaking. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

He has he has uh a beautiful automations that he has worked into the programming that when we speak, it triggers the camera.

SPEAKER_03 0:42

So are we actually gonna post this? Because you can't see us.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

It's actually working right now.

SPEAKER_03 0:46

Like it's moving between the cameras by itself, doing this? Yes. My mind is blown. Yeah, it's an amazing thing. This is 2026.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

So even when we first went to video, like after you just after you had left, um, we we tried and we got some of these 4K cameras that were very affordable. We'll just say very affordable rather than as cheap as we could purchase. But they were very affordable, and there was a lot of us with like a uh an SD card dongle and uploading files, and then I had a program, and then I would sit for a couple hours for a 20-minute podcast, and I would edit all of the video feed. And then now we have this amazing switcher, and he has gone way above and beyond and done certain automations, things like that.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

Yeah, he's doing an amazing job. So now he can be on a business call, press the button, leave, and this is just running. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

And if we need to edit this, we can.

SPEAKER_02 1:35

But anyway, so anyway, also Caleb Spears here.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

Yeah, already been here, already done an episode. The the amazing one and only, and uh, and one of the original, the original hosts with George, the original coasts of uh of the extra mile. And so I am actually Caleb's replacement, so it's always a treat to have you back on because whenever I was watching your podcast, I I have a confession to make brothers is that I secretly hated your podcast because I was not on it. Did I ever tell you that?

unknown 2:05

No.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

Everybody's like, we started a podcast. I was like, podcast, and I was always I was always uh poo-pooing your well.

SPEAKER_02 2:12

When I asked you to come on after Caleb left, what was your well?

SPEAKER_00 2:16

So we had had coffee. If you remember, we went over to that Starbucks one night, uh Fourth Street over here.

SPEAKER_03 2:20

That's where I got hit by a tumbleweed in my car at that Starbucks. Really? Yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 2:26

The winds always blow these huge tumbleweeds in the city. Is it working? It's working.

SPEAKER_03 2:31

Thanks, Caleb's corner.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

So Caleb and I had like a little Bible study where he and I just sort of chatted, and he said, Yeah, I think the idea was pitched that you replace me. And I thought that's kind of cool. And then whenever you and I first met, it was just kind of like, okay, yeah, great. And and I said, Justin Duncan cannot be Caleb Spear because um you bring such meat and potatoes to what y'all were doing. And so it actually was a moment where we reinvented uh because my my depth of knowledge of the Bible and church history and all those things uh pales in comparison to even you know y'all's. And so it became more of a emotional appeal to people. So we kind of changed the format a bit.

SPEAKER_03 3:14

You guys are doing a good job. I didn't have matching glasses and shirts, I didn't look suave like you do. I don't have the voice for it. He is an artist. I know he's an artist.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

I have a I have a fun story about these glasses if y'all want to hear it.

SPEAKER_03 3:27

I do.

SPEAKER_00 3:27

I was watching a short on YouTube. I'm always mining for content, as you will. It's like something that would I even sent you some uh stuff from Reddit last night. Yes, you did. Um but uh this one guy was in a fight with a bunch of atheists over evolution, and I was like, oh, this is amazing. Um but anyway, I was watching a short of Matthew Broderick talking uh at a chat show, and he was talking about his experience working with Marlon Brando. Because he they did a movie together when he was younger, and Marlon Brando shows up in this ascot necktie and this shirt, and then he had pink glasses on. And I said, Pink glasses. So I was at the eyeglass place the other day, and they were trying to talk me up, and I said, Well, let me get another pair of lenses just because of how my my calendar worked out with insurance. And I said, Can I get some color? Like, can you do tint? And they go, Yeah. And it was much cheaper than like the mirror and all of the blue light and all the other stuff that you do in glasses. And if you're a glasses wearer, you understand like these things are expensive and you know they're they're a bit of an investment. And I said, uh, I want I want pink. They said, You want pink? What? And so the guy said, Literally, pink does nothing for you. It doesn't filter out UV, it doesn't help augment any colors, it doesn't, and I said, Yeah, but it'll look cool.

SPEAKER_03 4:39

Yeah, it'll give aura.

SPEAKER_00 4:41

Let's give Riz, man. And so he was like, but it literally do nothing for you. And he got upset at me and he goes, Well, my associate will help complete the order. And he went off. This is outrageous. He was completely just I'm above pink glasses. And so she had she and I had more fun. Okay, but what what colored pink do you want? Yeah, she's loving it. So I was excited and it took a couple weeks. And uh so my my wife mentioned, she goes, So you spent hundreds of dollars on your other pair of glasses, and then you just pop new pink ones into your old frames, and now you just wear those all the time. I get so many compliments though.

SPEAKER_03 5:14

I was gonna say, you rock it.

SPEAKER_02 5:17

I know, I know. I saw you on TV. I was on TV wearing.

SPEAKER_03 5:25

If I saw a guy in pink glasses promoting the play, I'd be like, he knows what he's doing.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

The only the only thing I didn't like about my appearance was my receding hairline, but that's middle-age for you. He had a great beard going and everything.

SPEAKER_03 5:36

That's part of the reason why I believe it's gonna be good. Yeah, experience.

SPEAKER_00 5:42

It's all it's all a it's all a facade. But you know what's not a facade is what we trying to do here with this work is Wow, smooth transition. Wow, man. You do you feel that segue? It was like the pull of the earth pulling us back. No, I and what we try to do here is we we have casual conversations. It's a casual listen for Christians, and it's uh hopefully an engaging listen for those considering Christ. That's what we do here on the Extra Mile Podcast. So welcome if you were listening.

SPEAKER_02 6:10

Yeah, if you're here, still here. We're gonna talk about discipleship. Uh when you know, Caleb is uh an amazing friend, and when we talk, he always seems to be talking about discipleship. And so it's a passion. Sorry. And it's a good passion, and I'm glad he talks about it. And uh and it's I think it's something that the church needs to hear as well. Um they need to hear this idea that like we're not just here to check boxes, we're not just here to you know, dip in the water, jump out, and we have now you know eternity insurance. But uh that's that's not how this works.

SPEAKER_00 6:52

It's not a nine to noon commitment on Sunday morning.

SPEAKER_02 6:54

No, Jesus picked people and said, I want you to come and follow me.

SPEAKER_03 6:57

Yeah. Ain't that the truth? And to be fair, I think certainly if you've been a Christian maybe all your life, you ask your average man or woman, is that it? Which I know is somewhat of a caricature, but there's a certain truth to it. Yeah. And it's just this cultural thing you just laid out. It has to start with the heart, obviously. Yeah. I think a lot of people, even if that is their reality, that you just grimly laid out their darkness. Sometimes it's true. Sometimes it's just brutally true. Uh hopefully, people who that they realize I'm in this rut and this this sort of thing you're getting at, hopefully they would say, if the Bible, specifically the New Testament, that's our movement in history. I don't know how much we're gonna talk about history in this. Who knows? It's Caleb, so you never know. But uh, that's our movement, grassroots, restoration, to go back to be to the New Testament. I just want to be a New Testament Christian, I just want to be a follower, a disciple of Jesus. Would I be willing to change my mind and change my actions?

SPEAKER_00 7:54

That's step one before you know you would you even be willing to.

SPEAKER_03 7:59

And we say all the time, like, yes. And and there are people at this very church here in Milwaukee who you've you've done some shows with them, who have some crazy stories by the providence and grace of God, where you're like, wow, there's someone who counted the costs and they they've they're going through it, been through it. Sure, that exists in in in every church. But are you willing to drop your fishing net and go and just follow him? Yeah, I mean, I like we're obviously well, not obvious to everyone, to most reasonable people, obviously we're not the apostles. Right. And so I also don't live in the first century, and da da da da. But you know, the call that Jesus has, I've seen it put by different people in different ways, but he says, right, in literally dropping the net. It's not like Jesus, Jim Gaffigan, the community, he has a whole joke about like you gotta leave everything. And the apostles are like, So do I just leave the fishing pole here or what? Like it was way more than that, as funny as Jim Gaffigan is. They were leaving their whole business, everything of how they did life, their trade to go follow uh Jesus. Now, Jesus doesn't do that for everyone. Again, the apostles are unique, yeah, yeah, yeah. But the principle you see through even the epistles, I think we could talk about with these apostles, is right, right? They're being right called by Jesus in order to go follow Jesus, and then following Jesus, they're being transformed by Jesus and will engage in the mission of Jesus. Right? Come follow me, I will make you transformation, fishers of men. There's the mission. Jesus said in Luke 19, 10, the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost. And that's a duality between evangelism and the church life, discipleship, becoming more and more like Christ. But with all that, there we'd ask if I were missing that, if I weren't experiencing the fullness of that, would I want to be further transformed by Jesus and following him to join him in his mission, like our youth week and the big picture purpose. And I would like us to be just as it's a Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 7. You can't say to the brother, let me remove the speck out of your eye when there's a log in your own eye, you hypocrite. First take the log out of your own eye. Then you'll say clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye, is I'd like us to look just as critically at our movement, and even better, at our local church we're a part of, and then at me individually, before I start looking at my brother and the people behind me, behind me, or the church across the street from me. And I would like to examine the Bible with the same openness and humility to be wrong and to change my mind as I do the rest of the world and the rest of the religious community. I can't ask everyone else on stuff like you know, famously with baptism. Hey, get what does the Bible actually say about it? I really believe if you throw away the presuppositions, as hard as that is, it may be impossible ultimately. But like if you try to throw those away and just read all the baptismal texts, not about the thief on the cross, not asking exceptions to the rule, trusting in God's character. If you just looked at the text on baptism, you'd be like, well, it's linked with salvation. Seems pretty essential. Yeah. Being united with Christ and receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit, even and all these other things, right? And that's something we'll harp on and and perhaps should be. It's part of restoring of like this is what they did in the first century, the New Testament. I want that. I want that same kind of attitude of, are you willing to lay down your preconceived notions? I want that same attitude for me and for us. Because otherwise, if we're not even willing to do that, this whole discipleship thing or anything else for that matter, but discipleship thing, it's not gonna take off. It's not gonna happen.

SPEAKER_02 11:34

I think sometimes it's easy to think that we can do that. Think that we can give up some of our thoughts and our ways and our actions, and uh and then when the rubber meets the road, it's actually not not near as hard. I think it's easier sometimes to imagine than it is to do.

SPEAKER_03 11:49

Way. I I'm still I'm not saying like guys, just so easy. I I'm still in this journey. Um it's not me questioning, or we talked about with our last I don't know which episode we'll post first. We did one recording with the teens, Ephesians 2, you're saved by faith through grace, it's not from yourselves. We're not talking about, have I done enough? Or like it, you know, we're not no, that's that's just the wrong paradigm altogether. Um, but like all things, so you know, doctrinal things and from the gist that I see, it becomes a salvation issue when the heart is not willing to be like, I could be wrong and I'm going to change.

SPEAKER_02 12:22

You had uh given an example of someone who recently converted uh where you're from in Seattle and the prayer that they gave across.

SPEAKER_03 12:30

Oh, yeah, that was in a discipleship group. Right.

SPEAKER_02 12:33

Yeah, yeah, right. And he said something like he prayed if I'm remembering this correctly, that God's word or you know, God's will actually changes him, or something like that, right?

SPEAKER_03 12:46

He wanted further change, and then the crazier thing he asked in this discipleship group, we we do prayers for each other in our responses. He's like, I'm a new Christian, I don't know that much. He knows that. I've seen the fruit of Jesus. This guy, this guy's background is uh a ton of different stuff from different philosophies like Taoism and stuff like that. And he's still on this journey, he's still just like we all are, he's just a new Christian. And he was like, I just want to be humble and open to rebuke from he said, the Bible and from uh leaders in my church. Have you ever heard such a thing before? Where someone said, I'm open to the Bible rebuking me, and I'm open to the leaders of the church I'm a part of to correct me. Yeah, because he because he viewed it through the whole lens of this would be good for me and help me. I probably have, but never put like that succinctly and bluntly. This just happened like a few weeks ago, actually. It just happened. He that was his prayer request, and like me and this other Christian who've been who are leaders in the church, we just looked at each other like, are you kidding me? Like, can you believe this guy?

SPEAKER_02 13:51

Do you feel like that's because he's a new Christian though? Because sometimes that's it's kind of like sculpting. You ever sculpted? You're giving a big block of never sculpted. Justin probably has. Yeah, yeah. You're giving a big block. Well, you're giving a big block of clay, and then you start, at least I did, probably wrongly, by taking some big chunks out, and then it gets more detailed and more we find. And that that's the harder part.

SPEAKER_03 14:15

The molding, the con Romans 8, the conforming to the image of Christ. Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:21

I relate to that guy because whenever I was doing the recording of the Bible, uh, I was asked by someone here, you know, did you ever find a couple of passages that you kind of just rolled your eyes? Sure. And yeah, and and I I guess my answer shocked him because I truly said no. Wow. And he goes, What, really? And I said, Because I believe that that thing is the source of truth. And so I was always approaching it from I want to know what this thing says. And from my perspective, my little testimony here is that I grew up in the church and I became very much the prodigal son, probably like we all have. And what I wanted was to not stand on the laurels of what I was taught as a youth blindly.

unknown 15:07

Right.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

I wanted to come to my own conviction, and I had memorized large chunks of the Bible, I had given sermons, I had taught classes, and so it was really the early 30s, my early 30s, where I finally, okay, I'd sit down and record the scripture, and then finally you read the thing as a narrative, and you get the whole picture from before Moses, from Abraham, from the fathers of faith, from the creation of what God intended from the beginning, and that he loved man enough to just give them the power to mess it all up. But then having that through line of love back to what we're talking about now, the blessings that are available to us. But then there's also a lot of uh I became less staunchly um convicted in some of the things that I truly had believed and even harped on because I didn't necessarily find it on the pages. And so it really opened my heart more to others who were seeking Christ who weren't necessarily in my immediate local church family. And so that's my talk, but it's it's my TED talk.

SPEAKER_03 16:15

I love that. I appreciate that. And I wish yeah, that that if we're if we're not changing our mind and our actions, like we're not we're not following Jesus probably to the New Testament standard, if you will. Um it's ever long. And I hope that kind of attitude, you know, God willing, I live a a long life and in general and in in ministry. And um, and I hope when I'm old or dead and gone, people would be like, hey, Caleb taught this specific thing or did this specific thing. And if, you know, and I'm like I am definitely it bugs me, I'm definitely wrong about something. We don't think we're wrong, but I gotta be wrong about something. There's no way I have it all for you. Odds are, yeah, odds are. I would hope they'd say, Hey, I liked Caleb, he acted like Jesus and this stuff. I think he was just wrong about this because of what God's word says. I hope, and you know, if it if this is how it works with the cloud of witnesses in Hebrews 12, and I can see this, and I don't know, but I guess you know, I'm like looking down from heaven, so to say, uh, awaiting the resurrection, looking down from up there, uh be like, yeah, good job. Thank you. Thank you, good job uh correcting that. I was wrong. Like it that's what we should all want. And it sounds like what you did, Justin, is you kind of you know, you you chewed and swallowed the meat and spat out the bones, because there are wonderful things, I'm sure, that were introduced to you in that setting that was a blessing in in some respects growing up in. And then there's some other hindrances that can happen from those backgrounds, but you've you've taken the good, and then like you said, in your own inquiry of the Bible, we're all told, I think, from those same foundations, uh, the Bible is the way, uh, is the way to go if you want to follow Jesus. That's that very principle we were taught that would allow us to change, not for the sake of change, but in order to be more akin and aligned with Jesus, the New Testament.

SPEAKER_02 18:12

Matthew 28 tells us to go and make disciples. Right? I told the apostles at least. Right, right. And the apostles followed and we follow their example.

SPEAKER_03 18:22

Uh-huh. Um well, I just joke. I'm sorry for being facetious, but like you get there. Some people do that. They're like, Whoa, it's the apostles. Yeah, they know, yeah. I encountered that last week. Nice. All right. I hope they listen to this podcast.

SPEAKER_02 18:34

Um, but anyway, your point, George. Uh my point is I want to talk more about your discipleship groups. Okay. And what that looks like. Sure. Um, what does it look like?

SPEAKER_03 18:44

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:45

You have groups of discipleships?

SPEAKER_03 18:47

We yeah, D groups, discipleship groups, groups of disciples. Okay, cool. Chaos disciples. Oh no, see, that's the thing. That's the big thing. John, John the Baptist, he would have been a bad YouTuber and podcaster because he he's like, I must decrease. He must increase. The the discipleship groups is not the goal, some of these, and and there's a million ways to, you know, to go about this thing, and there's always Christian fads and things, but you know, there's always going to be an underlying principle truth if it is just that true. But um, the idea with these sorts of groups that I've engaged with and that I've read from all kinds of different groups from broader Christianity and within our our closer traditions in the restoration movement, is yes, making disciples, and then at least someone from that group, the big kicker, is making disciple makers. That's the big kicker, is to where it's not simplistic, but it's simple and it's reproducible. And you could read a lot of books, and I've read probably too many at this point, but uh on the subject, and you know, um within our tradition, there was a group that really hammered discipleship in the international churches of Christ. I don't know if you've ever had the joy of running into there's some wonderful people actually in in those groups, but it's kind of a pyramid scheme at its worst, where they convert someone, and as soon as possible, this person's a Christian, they're like, You need to do exactly what we're doing, doing meetups, going door to door, and like in very there's a excitement early on, and then there's a quick burnout of is this it? And it's you know, kind of a pyramid scheme. Yes. The Basa movement recognized, hey, we're sitting in the pews a lot. And I think they were right on some level about a general concern with that, but it got kind of strange, and uh there actually is some repentance in that group to this day where I've run into some people and said that was extreme, but there's still division there. They uh your disciple like knew your finances and the in the most extreme circumstances, like it was like way, like it was like a huge overreach of uh reasonableness and kindness, perhaps, and privacy and and things like that. Um it was a pendulum swing, an extreme pendulum swing to the pew sitting church model.

SPEAKER_01 21:01

Right.

SPEAKER_03 21:01

Right. So some people here, I just say that because some people hear making disciples and they're like, this is a pyramid scheme of uh of of sorts, right? But the the flip side, the other extreme of that, of kind of culty control, is the other extreme to that is hey, autonomy, autonomy, autonomy for the individual. As long as you show up and do these five things or whatever in the Sunday assembly and keep it tame, that's good. That's the bar.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

How 19th century of you?

SPEAKER_03 21:32

Yeah. Pretty low, pretty low bar. But you see, the 19th century, that wasn't even the bar for those guys. They were so much different than us.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

Someone it was uh it was someone here who shared with me a couple of articles about the the revivalist mu movement and how it was Which one? Um I'll I'll send them to you because I have not reviewed them uh in a few weeks now.

SPEAKER_03 21:54

Was it the eighteen hundreds?

SPEAKER_00 21:55

It was so periodicals written in the eighteen hundreds and the second great awakening and uh And so it was Disciples of Christ, Church of Christ, Restoration Movement. And so did I say revivalist Restoration Movement? Okay, yeah. That's the winner. Uh hashtag restoration. And it was well written about in the Church of Christ circles that um really it was oh I've I've forgotten the term now. But it was essentially that. It was how the moral law we are forgiven whenever we're tempted, whenever we fall into temptation, whenever we sin. However, there are these other sort of rules that we can keep. We can be in the assembly Sunday morning, we can wear a suit. We can you know, whatever. Okay. Because it's 1800. Um or 2026, whatever. And so and so because we can do these particular rules, that shows our salvation because it's like behavioral rules. And if we stop coming to the assembly or if we choose the wrong clothes, or we you know are found with something in our hand by another church member or whatever, um then we've lost our salvation. So the salvation issue doesn't come from actual temptation, sin, and discipleship. It comes from more of a pharisaical structuring of this is my behavior that I act openly.

SPEAKER_03 23:20

Well, I mean, the the uh enlightenment has good things and bad things and everything in between. Those guys, like uh it's also called the Stone Campbell movement, like are heavily influenced by Francis Bacon and people like that. Some that's influenced Western society in many respects. And if you're just trying to get down to facts and figures, such as like in our tradition day commands examples, necessary inferences, fact-finding, um, everything's gonna be a little bit more black and white, and we 100% can ascertain truth. And that's a response to people who say who are agnostic about that. Like, we can't, we can't find truth. There is no truth. What are you talking about? Jesus said, I am the truth. Like, this is if we can't find truth, like that's kind of a huge problem. If you and I can't agree, I'm sitting on a chair, but I'm sitting on a dolphin or whatever. Are you sitting on a chair? Exactly, right? And that that's the and that's the movement that I a large part that I would agree with. Like, no, we we can't ascertain truth, right? What are you talking about? But the the extreme end of that um is well, I just got to go to the black and white figures with my five senses, very physical way of looking at it. And it is true what you do reflects the internal, obviously, but that's not just the churchy things you're talking about. Uh, you know, it's uh stuff I do on Tuesday.

SPEAKER_00 24:36

Okay, so I found it, and I'll I'll send it to you so you can read it. Uh-huh. It's positive law. Oh, oh, oh, oh, gotcha. Yeah, okay. So it's the moral versus the positive law. This is Stone Campbell Harmonytics. Anyway, I'll send this to you so you can read it.

SPEAKER_03 24:50

Yeah, the we're supposed to be going back to George's thing about what these groups look like.

SPEAKER_02 24:56

Yeah, what do these groups look like? Because um that's okay, that was a nice little tangent.

SPEAKER_03 25:00

Well, can we tangent a little bit more? We'll edit that out. Tangent. Yeah, I want to come back to the like the all right, let's tangent a bit more. The like the why and then to some of those things that um yeah, the practical things. But our like the group, the the Stone Campbell was like we've talked about, a unity movement, and yet the unity movement was the New Testament, the Bible alone, but especially the New Testament, is the rule of faith. And I've talked about these things on this podcast a little bit before. Um, but that that was a goal, which was like, hey, if we can't agree on a 500-page something on every single point, that seems ridiculous. Let's just use the New Testament. I'm like, okay, I agree with that principle. That sounds like a good idea. But then, like over over time, you're gonna have to find what's the capital P pattern? What pattern are we going to emphasize? And so if it's the unity pattern and it's extreme end, you have some groups that are like LGBTQ plus affirming in the sense of like you can practice that and it's okay. Another group might is much more akin to what you were just talking about, Justin, with the the positive law, which is let's just see the facts and figures, and that can go a different way. And so, but the heart and principle behind it is like I said, when Caleb's dead, hopefully someone could say, Hey, we shouldn't do what Caleb was doing there because he was wrong about this, because the New Testament teaches ABC about this, is that we could always be restoring, as in we could always be being conformed to the image of Jesus. And so the the creed stuff wasn't about like denying like the divinity of Jesus and stuff like that. That's so essential to Christianity. It was, I don't want to credize something to the point to where it's just party politics denominational because we said so in a council or a split or whatever, that we're just stuck with that. We we could actually change, and this gets into local autonomy and all that, based on the authority of God's word alone. Like it's you know, I think it's sola scriptura played out even more consistently than the historic Protestants like Martin Luther, etc. Uh, that that's the goal. And so out of these groups, I think we recognize when you're in the West with broader Christendom, and there's this a denomination and a church on on every corner. Um, we'll not have to add, and this is what we kind of partly do, this more toward the positive law stuff about like what you do when you assemble, uh, which is fair. I I want that, I don't want to lose that. I want to do what they do in the New Testament there. But is hey, what we talked about last episode, like the the model, the church building model. That by itself is not bad, but what's it teaching us? What's it culture influencing us to do? And the New Testament church is so grassroots. The restoration movement was really grassroots. A lot of groups in history was a grassroots movement that were pretty radical to where the scriptures were in the home, and they were they weren't just asking what's the theology and the history, they asked those questions, but then they got down to how could I obey this? How could I do it? Which is in our DNA that I'm very thankful for. I have that's why we should ask, kind of think critically about this and be willing to say, maybe I'm missing something here. How could I obey? Like you were getting at George, the Great Commission and things like that.

SPEAKER_02 28:17

I guess that kind of goes back to we can keep going, like why disciples? Because if if at what point am I a disciple for one, and then at what point am I being discipled?

SPEAKER_03 28:29

Uh yeah, and there this is where you know I've had some groups where it's been more for people who aren't who are thinking and open and want to talk about the Bible and talk about Jesus, but they're not a believer, baptized believer, and they're not fully in yet. And I've seen some groups and have heard way more than personally experienced, but have experienced a little bit of it where it's just like a group with uh, you know, illicit questions about like what's this passage say about God, man, and Jesus, and this person's thinking about following Jesus or not. And you could hear some crazy stuff, some good stuff, but like those kinds of conversations that are teaching someone, some might call it discipling, but teaching and someone through those organic conversations, teaching and whatnot, maybe that leads to them. But especially what you're talking about, George, I think getting the Great Commission is we make disciples, uh, you know, Mark 16 preach the good news of Jesus, right? All that entails life, death, burial, resurrection, ascension, uh, sending of the Spirit, his return, all that's good news. How do I respond to that good news? Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, whoever doesn't believe uh will not be saved. And that's the great, and then Matthew 28's version make disciples how baptizing them in the singular name, right? The triumph God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and teaching them it's an ongoing thing, teaching them uh all things that I've commanded you, and then there's the great promise of I'll be with you to the end of the age. So I become a disciple when I say I'm gonna follow Jesus, and obviously step one and following Jesus and receiving forgiveness and being right with God, you know, starts with with faith and confessing him as Lord and turning away from old sin, being baptized, uh receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit. Stuff we talk about. We talk about that decent job. I think we do a decent job, you know, talking about that. The we talked about this with the teens in the last episode. Isn't it now the now what is the kicker? Continuing in what Jesus is taught. Right. Which sure sermons, Bible classes, for sure. Get at that. That's why there's no Bible classes in the New Testament the way we do it today. It's not there. Uh, which is why some groups in churches of Christ work, we're not gonna have them. Okay, right. But uh the idea there was, well, we're teaching, right? We're trying to disciple uh train. So like we've you guys have probably had podcast episodes on discipleship. How much do you want to define the word disciple? We can go over it. I mean, we have listeners.

SPEAKER_00 30:54

Let's go from the top.

SPEAKER_03 30:55

Okay, you guys think of like an imitator, pupil, student, something akin to that. Yeah, right. You think of other synonyms you like better than those?

SPEAKER_02 31:02

Or I mean, no, I think I think that's someone that's that's right. I mean, I'm thinking of like literally, you know, the apostles, and I'm thinking of Titus and Timothy, people who have a mentor looking up to and trying to mimic and follow, being imitators of me as I am of God. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 31:19

And so being a disciple is people probably could quibble with this. The way I'm thinking about it right now, so forgive me, is um every disciple is a Christian. Like we culturally think of the word Christian. I don't know if every Christian is a disciple. In the New Testament, the word Christians use, I think, three times, and it's all positive. Suffer as a Christian. Uh, they're slanderously called Christians, like they're Christ followers. The word Christian is like a Christ follower, so even that's just another way of saying a disciple of Christ. Um, but I think culturally, we hear the word Christian, it's like a I believe in a list of theological propositions, so to say. I think culturally, like in the first century, Christian disciple, tomato, tomato. I'm not so sure in our American context. Gotcha. That's what I mean by uh every disciple is a Christian culturally. I don't know if every Christian's a disciple culturally. That makes sense. Yeah, culturally. And so being a disciple, if you say that in our cultural context, people are like, oh, that sounds either cool or weird or Jedi like or whatever. They're like, but what do we know? That's I don't know what people think about. A paddle one, yeah. Yeah, they might they might think of that. Um, but that that definitely puts a a different lens on it. Because now that really gets at something that our tradition rightfully is harped on about actually obeying the Bible, God's word, Jesus, right? This is that's the idea. If I'm a disciple of Jesus, I'm gonna act like I'm you know, I'm gonna listen to him, I'm gonna obey him. If you love me, he'll keep when you've heard these things, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:50

It's actually like a quest, like a journey. Like I'm actually going to change my life and I'm going to go do this thing, um which I guess is how the disciples start off, but they also come out completely changed uh in many ways. And so it it's it's a life change, it's a goal, it's a mission. Um I don't know, uh it's sanctification. It's uh you know that makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 33:13

Yeah, it totally makes sense. Yeah, the the issue with this is if we think we've already we've we've done it, we've restored it. As if a the church were something to restore in the sense of that like it disappeared off the face of the earth. I think that's very problematic biblically and logically. It's a ton of problems with that. Uh go join the Mormons for crying out loud if that's what you think. Like uh I got a lot of problems with that. You know, God bless them, there's a lot of kind Mormons, but um yeah, that's a problem. And then but then thinking that it's just like left and like we've restored it, the other issue is there's no more change. I've done it, I figured it all out. Right. Which I think, again, with the heart, person with a good heart who may be in the rut, of course they're gonna say, Well, that's not what I want, or maybe I don't even think that's what I'm doing.

SPEAKER_02 34:05

So you you want like hey, I want the local church to actually you know be better and actually you know become better disciples.

SPEAKER_03 34:13

Here's a good example where Milwaukee I was doing this from a leadership point of view. Sure. I know here uh they have a local, they have in the past done, and I was part of local preacher training. Not everyone in the Bible is or should be uh an evangelist like Timothy or like G5. Uh that's right, that's just one of the many things that God uses to equip the body. There we go, back to Ephesians, Ephesians 4. Uh but instead of uh instead, I'm not against I did it, some kind of formal education, not against that, but instead of just merely saying some other institution or group will do it, a local body was like, hey, to have ministers, we want our own versions of Timothy and Titus, so to say, we want to be engaged with that as a church and help equip and mold and train that person. That's great. Now, not everyone is supposed to be a minister of the gospel, an evangelist. Right. Uh that's not how it works. But that model is what I'm saying, that kind of idea, we should have in their own respective roles and gifts for everyone. Right. The equipping in Ephesians 4 is not just talking about leaders, it's the leaders, including evangelists and elders, etc. They are the ones equipping the saints, everyone else for the work of ministry. And everyone's gonna agree with this, and but yes, I I get that. Amen. Is the current is the current way we're doing things in that model? How's that going? And that's where I just want us to be brutally, you know, brutally honest. And I'm not talking about is our church growing necessarily, that's not always a bad thing, usually it's a good thing, but if the church is growing numerically, a lot of times our American brains are like, Hey, it's working. It's working. That's success. Yeah, that's success. It's working. I love it when Jesus has huge crowds and says, You should eat my flesh and drink my blood, and has huge crowds and says, Hey, if you're gonna be my disciple, come get killed with me, nailed alive to a piece of wood and give it all up. Like, and people are like, Well, no. He really dwindles it down, yeah. Jesus didn't care to amass crowds. Right. He you took advantage of it, if that happened, and let's plant seed, as his own parables would say. He didn't care to keep them in the crowds. He was totally comfortable because it was relying on God, his father. Bluntly, it can sound mean out of context, but he's like, let's dwindle, let's dwindle this down to who actually wants me for me, right? John 6, like, Jesus, give us another meal. And he's like, Yeah, that's not what this is about. Right. Uh, Jesus, be our king. They're gonna force him to be king. Not like that. That's not how this is gonna work. Um, and so I think our our models of just pure numerical growth. Um, yeah, like I want people to come to the church building, so to say, I want to hear the sermon, but are we gonna measure how are we measuring success as local churches? Is it baptisms might be a little bit better than just quote unquote membership being underneath a flock? Uh yeah, what's the standard?

SPEAKER_02 37:23

How are we measuring I think that kind of changes our view of also uh I don't know church growth or kingdom growth, you could say, because we think of it numerically. How many baptisms have we had? We're growing, but you're saying actually we should grow not just that's good, but grow also in strength, grow also in which everyone with a good heart is gonna say we're trying to do that, right?

SPEAKER_03 37:43

I'm growing faith. Yeah, I I just want to, you know, I think that I don't are we doing that? Is that the case? Is that the case in our you know in in our churches? It it is that the case because some it's not everyone, but you know, I've you know, I meet people who are like they haven't changed their mind on anything in 30 years, they've done the same thing forever, and you know, which some people and are expecting a different result, which some people call insanity. And they're like, Well, usually the stuff when I hear like with uh American culture and why people aren't growing or churches aren't growing and whatnot, is no one wants to hear. I already had it, I don't know who said it, so maybe I should I don't know how this gets edited, but like a lot of people like oh in Seattle, does anyone even want to hear the gospel in Seattle? Like you got all these kinds of things where we're just you know, you hear sermons from people and and stuff where it's like everyone else's fault except let's I'm and this is what I mean with the login dream. Like, what if we just start with looking at us? What are we are we doing it? Because it's not my prerogative to hash out the outside world. I'm just supposed to spread the seed. And so our I think our measurement, what's the measurement for who's a disciple of Jesus? I think it's very centered, whether we'd want to admit it or not. I think it's very centered on the propositions that I probably uh largely and maybe with all of them agree and think is valuable about what we do when we assemble on Sunday. And then maybe baptism, I guess, is the thing that's outside of that in our circles. And it's like if you hold on to these things, that's the standard. I think that's a low bar, frankly. I think that's a really low bar of like, well, you know, and this is where you can end up with the pharisaical attitude, like in Luke 19, of thank you, God. I'm not like the church down the street that does X, Y, and Z. And let's say they are wrong about X, Y, and Z and that superficial Sunday stuff. But they were making disciples of Jesus, and like the day-to-day living was a lot more like Jesus than my life, and I just so happened that they were taking care of widows and orphans and all those things, and I just, you know, again, got like I'm not the judge. I don't know that these theoreticals become silly really fast, but I mean, just think about all of Jesus' stories in like the Bible. Like, who who do what do you think that story ends with? The modern day, the modern day story of the Pharisee and the tax collector. I think it's so and I think the fact that people are hesitant to admit that shows that's a problem. It's a huge problem. I don't want to let go of the authority of those things in the Bible. I want to embrace the authority of the Bible even more.

SPEAKER_00 40:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:23

And embracing the authority of the Bible even more is the the standard of what God wants us to be in conform to the image of Christ is an oh, thank God you go to the right place that does these right five things, whatever, on Sunday. But you know what? You never evangelize, uh, you're not training anyone or being trained, you're still stuck in pornography, you're still doing all these things. You know, this is like with Malachi. I'd rather you shut your doors, right? Right, then than do this. And that's terrifying to me. That's terrifying to me. That that scares me.

SPEAKER_00 40:57

Um is there a desire to measure? Like you talked about measuring success. Is this a quantitative pursuit? Is it quality? Like, is it who is forcing this measurement? Is it just because we want to understand if our tactics are working or if we need to change tack here or whatever? Like, what's the need for that?

SPEAKER_03 41:16

The I mean, there's like different sayings of like, and this it becomes a numbers thing, which maybe is a half-truth. Like, if you don't, oh, I'm gonna butcher it. How's it, you know? But it's like if the if if you don't ah, what's the phrase? If if you don't have a goal, like there's no measure to live up to. That's not the right phrase I was looking for, though. I see what you're saying though. Yeah, you know what I mean? But like the when it's numbers only, I think that's that's the problem. I don't know if I'm getting at your question, Justin, which is like quantitatively or qualitatively is what we're looking for, right? Jesus was fine with the end of Jesus' life even after the resurrection, is 120 people, and he's fed thousands of people.

SPEAKER_00 41:55

Is it is it valid to just say we had 7,000 baptisms this year?

SPEAKER_03 42:00

Something for sure.

SPEAKER_00 42:02

I mean, uh I think it was Sam Brown who has his ministry in the prisons where he baptizes hundreds of people. It's awesome, it's so amazing. And I just I'm shocked, you know. Like I think I've witnessed 12. What? You know, or just whatever, you know, and it's like he's personally baptized hundreds of people and it's like doing the work of the kingdom. But then uh, you know, like the pursuit that we're doing here with this podcast is that it seems like it's a qualitative pursuit. Now we definitely have metrics, and we something really like acts two, three thousand people.

SPEAKER_03 42:36

You're gonna have those times in history where where that happens. Yeah, that's awesome. That's what's going on. And in the normative context of being in a local church, like we see in the New Testament, like the you know, they're no different than us, they have the same problems from forsaking the assembly to uh sexual immorality and division and all the things that we experience in their call. They're the same thing as us. But the the way Paul talks about um Jesus being fully formed in us, and I love how he tells Titus about the older men train the younger men, and older women train the younger women. I'm sure Milwaukee, like most churches, they we have those things happen organically in some level, but the measurement in which we're using is in my experience, so I can't dictate for everyone else, just in my experience, just speaking for Caleb, like I said, is these propositions here, but then if there's no further growth into the mission of Jesus and being like Jesus privately, it takes a backseat functionally to well, at least you agree on what we do or don't do in the assembly, which I get to a certain degree, which is I can't have fellowship with Justin. If I think we should have pizza and Dr. Pepper for the Lord's Supper is a dumb example. But like the you'd be back, hold on, that's you know, it's a bit extreme. But that you know, it's such a starting point. It is I Just find if we think we have all the answers and we think we've done it all and we're restored, not always restoring. You ironically do the very thing you don't want to do, which is create uh accidentally man-made creeds and stuff, and we've arrived. We've done it. I've done it, I've I've arrived, and here we are. And that's gonna create, you know, one of the things in the teens, speaking of the teens, George, the sheet was apathy. Did you see that? And did you notice that in the sheets? I mean, it's been a long time since I looked at the list. Yeah, if if you guys didn't listen to the other episode, I know when they go that there is from 20 years ago, someone administrative. But that is one thing they wanted to be more uh evangelistic, more uh enthusiastic. Yeah, enthusiastic. And the teens they were supposed to write down things that they want to talk about or things they struggle with. And it was a lot of stuff that's like sexual purity and immorality and you know, peer pressure, and those kinds of very real things. And one of the things that surprised me in that list I was just looking at last night was apathy. There were a lot of kids that were like, I just don't care. I don't want to go to church, I don't want to read my Bible. I I don't it's apathy. And adults, I think we, you know, we feel that. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_00 45:03

I definitely felt that. And I think the the teens that were targeted from 20 years ago, I was a teen. I was a 20 at least. But um I mean, I remember King James Version going to church. I I knew I knew nothing but going to church, and I didn't like reading the these and thou's. I thought it felt very just Shakespearean, very special, very separate and pulled apart.

SPEAKER_03 45:24

S some of that's just like the the culture you grew up in.

SPEAKER_00 45:27

But then understanding discipleship and understanding the commitment to the cause and and the the necessary level of involvement. Wasn't really interested.

SPEAKER_03 45:37

Yeah, like for me, I mean first time having someone um teach and show me and be with me on like fasting and praying. That was revolutionary for me. And you know, things like that where w we need and should keep doing what we're doing with the the the church building. All that's great. It was just you know, but I don't think it's gonna, you know, uh just hammering out doctrines and left and right alone is is is going to do it. And it's you know all these phrases can be abused or catchy, so I don't know. But like it's very the discipleship you see in the New Testament is relational. Paul's not some arbitrary guy, he's not even like an apostle. I am an apostle, so you gotta listen to me. Like he's been there, he's been with them. And even the leadership and all that you see in these local churches is was based on relationship, Jesus and the apostles, based on relationship. And I know there's like gonna be cultural practical factors that are different, how we live day to day and we drive cars and they walked everywhere and yada yada yada. But the the principle is no different, or Jesus saying, I'm gonna make you fishers of men. Uh, Luke 6, uh, a disciple is not above his teacher, but he'll be like his teacher when he's fully trained. Uh Paul talks to the church in Galatia about you know how he just desires, he has a strong longing that Christ should be formed in you. It's this ongoing process. Some people might call it sanctification in general. But the movement in Acts, like evangelistically, like how does the church leave Jerusalem's persecution? But in Acts 8, when they spread out, everyone went sharing the gospel. It's like when we do small groups, I was talking to George about this at coffee. And uh, oh, speaking of which, but uh that like people people think in the conversations evangelistically, I gotta have the knowledge of George or whatever, whose vocation is teaching and preaching in order to share the gospel. And people we talk about this a lot, I feel like. I feel like we talk about this like a lot, a nauseum almost, of like, and we're like, yeah, and and yet it keeps circling around to where I experience with people, maybe we talk about it a lot for a reason because everyone still ends up saying that, even if logically they know, well, I guess I'm supposed to just talk about it. And so this is where the beginning of leadership, the behind the pulpit stuff is not enough. It's not gonna, it's not gonna be enough. Uh, it has to be modeled, has to be modeled from the top down. That's what changed for me. I'd heard a lot of sermons about spiritual disciplines, uh, the more hippie way to put it, rhythms. A lot of books like rhythms, which is true, but it's disciplines, you know, and rhythms and the resting and fasting and praying and you know, all these kinds of ideas that you see in the Bible. But it wasn't until someone was like with me and just like training me and talking with me in uh in relationally that it became tangible and real. I think it's very Gnostic, and speaking of all that, to just tell, tell, tell, tell, and right, Paul's whole thing is imitate me as I imitate Christ. It's gotta be modeled. Right. Which I think is what your question was, George, about the house.

SPEAKER_02 49:13

Yeah, no, it was. I I I liked everything you guys have have said. And I I wonder if the kind of go back to uh like how you framed it too, Justin, what's qualitative and what'd you say? Quantitative, yeah. Maybe what's um the quality of someone might lead to quantitative, like it might grow um and maybe more genuine growth. And I think that's what we want. We want genuine growth. I'd rather have you know twelve people who's gonna die beside me than twelve people who say they like me. Or a hundred people. Or a hundred people, yeah, exactly. Three thousand people, exactly. Um you know, and so but there's also a a contagious aspect about those twelve that would go the the distance, the extra mile. Nice. Um so I think that's also what we want. We want to see as we grow, others grow.

SPEAKER_03 50:12

Yeah, the replication of the book of Acts is astounding. And to a certain degree, again, I can hear the voices. We're not the apostles, and this was like a new era, and it's like yes, there's I get, you know, I get all those things, and you can see it change with the letters are written to these groups that have been established, churches, and we got letters to Colossians and or to Colossae rather, called Colossians, and you get the idea. There's like hey, church in Corinth, here's a few letters, you know, and you know, it's established. But even, you know, even in those letters, right? The the concern and desire behind everything is the heart into being like Jesus and all the issues, though they're important, the issues of the uh what was the term, the positive things, positive law, positive law is telling the story of the internal spiritual reality, right? Like the church of Corinth with their pagan backgrounds, they're like, well, if uh it's all about spiritual things, which is like a half-truth, right? It's all about spiritual things, uh, it doesn't matter what I do with my body, it's a physical thing, right? I think logically that's consistent. I could have sex with a prostitute, and it doesn't matter because that's a physical thing. God's about spiritual things, and right the Corinthians had twisted or misunderstood, you know, the argument. And Paul's like, well, the Holy Spirit, the spiritual things, is in you, the physical thing. Like you can't separate these two things, like a temple, you shouldn't do that. Yeah, what you do physically is the story of what you do spiritually, and by like if you can't, you know, God made us you know, being Adam and Eve before the fall are not you know souls, they're or maybe they're not just spirits. The King James will say Adam was formed into a living soul, Nefesh, which is interesting. And there it's kind of like the idea of soul in the Bible a little bit more, I think, is kind of like when someone says we have 300 souls on board. They don't mean it's connected to the physical, yeah. They're not like we have 300 casts with a ghost on board or 300 spirits on board. Yeah, 300 souls, right? The the the whole this is the this is the Shema, you know, love the Lord your God with what all your heart, all your mind, all your soul. Oh so it's like average being, yeah. All you know, all all all of your being. And so, but Paul's saying with the the church at Corinth and or any of the churches, it's being conformed in the image of of Jesus, which again, everyone's like, Yes, I agree with that. But do we have a plan for that beyond you know, a couple of hours a week? Are you facilitating that? Are we facilitating that? Yes, that's the thing. Do we have do we have a plan for these things? And then what I'm still working on is planning is necessary. I think there's certainly the book of Proverbs would tell me that's a wise thing to do, but the planning can very quickly, what I'm struggling with right now is being very self-sufficient, and because the thing in Acts is the spirit is the one who's leading them to the places they gotta go. There's a dependency on the Holy Spirit to strengthen us and lead us to the right people in ways, and that that's that's kind of where I am at my journey right now, is kind of figuring out those differences. Because what I want to do as Mr. Planner is go out and force these things, like with these small groups you're about to talk about. I'm like, here you go, and I'm gonna make it happen. And I've you know, hopefully getting a little better about hey God, why don't you send me this opportunity or send me this person? And lo and behold, those things happen. Maybe not in the exact way or timing you thought or wanted, they happen. Most certainly happened. It's not easy to force people to do things you don't want to. No, and it doesn't work either.

SPEAKER_00 53:50

Even Paul had that mindset multiple times. Even what? Paul Paul, yeah. He would write in his epistles, y'all pray that these opportunities will be open to me.

SPEAKER_02 53:57

But you can model, you can model what people should do. And that often encourages.

SPEAKER_00 54:04

Is that the idea behind these disciple groups? Is that it's it's a modeling situation?

SPEAKER_03 54:09

Yeah, and it isn't so things like that, no one's promoting this. Is what the New Testament exactly says, it looks exactly like this. I think that's you know, these are these are facilitators to obeying what Jesus said to do. Um, on a less important level, but a similar idea. It's like, hey, we need a place for 300 people to gather. Here's a church building, you know. Church membership like we practice it today. No one was placing membership in the new in the first century world. There was no other church or denominations or anything like that. We just do that today because not like a Costco membership, though sometimes it gets treated like that. We're like, hey, who are the shepherds accountable for? Who am I accountable to? Logistics. It's logistics, right? It's legit. So some of this is logistics, but the logistics behind it needs to have the spiritual truth.

SPEAKER_02 54:46

So you're almost bringing it back and saying, Let's get together in these small groups in a way that how can I dive deeper into scripture? How can I obey scripture? How can I keep ourselves accountable? And how can I, you know, and we do these things.

SPEAKER_03 54:59

I'm sure I'm sure Milwaukee have I was I've been to too many churches now where I always I always say the wrong like I kept at our church we have youth weekend. Here it's youth for God. I kept saying youth for God up there, and they're like, what are you talking about? Youth weekend? Like what? I keep mixing up life group, care group, whatever this is. Every church has their tone. Yeah, every church has which, you know, that's that's fine. Uh do you guys have something like that? Man, youth for god, and we have care groups. You have care groups, you call them care groups, yeah. Life group, care group, other groups. So, like those kinds of groups are great. It's like Acts chapter two, the a house to house, and spiritual things happen there. Yeah, we pray together. Someone might share a struggle, but but generally, you know, that social fellowship is spiritual in the sense that we're all brothers and sisters, but like there's a different, you know, uh element to that. That's you know, when Jesus is training the apostles and when Paul's with Timothy, and Paul, you know, and these people, these are places of accountability. Right, right. Obviously, there's like output and and and input. And we all know it's just a different dynamic between the three of us talking here right now versus if there were 25 of us talking. It's just different. It's just how it is. That's fine. They all serve our own ways and can and can you know and can be great. Um, but I think well, I at least for me, I'd underestimated Jesus'. We talk about patterns and models all the time in the New Testament. Here's a pattern with Jesus. He he has his thousands, he has the 120 by the end of his resurrection, and then Jesus has his 12, and then Jesus has his inner circle of three guys who go up the mountain with him or supposed to go pray with him. And those things aren't bad, they're not you know exclusivistic in the sense of like idea, it's just you know the reality of how human beings operate, right? Right, and so you can see this these sorts of things and acts, I would I would say, and and so forth. But there's an interesting model because I think a lot of times for me, it's like, well, I get get to the masses, this is YouTube, there's a certain truth that spread the seed, and out of the 3,000 people, if we get 20, it would not have gotten those 20 without spreading the truth out, sure. But now the time and the effort and the energy in a small group that's there intentionally not to just make small talk about the weather and you know, snowstorms or whatever, which is all fun and fine, but like we're here to open up the scriptures, hold each other accountable to confess and to conform into the image of Christ is a very different type of group than generically being like, well, we go to church together, right? Which again, we intuitively I think we everyone's like, well, yeah, of course. But how what would we say to hey, how am I becoming more like Jesus? How am I being trained to be like Jesus? The avenue through that is the church, right? Through the church. But even in the letters to the churches, the way Paul talks about it all, he's mostly talking about just everyday living. There's very few sections unless you're getting drunk on the Lord's Supper, like the church at Corinth, where he's spending a really long time on the Sunday assembly that we talk ever so often about.

SPEAKER_02 58:12

Well, any last final thoughts?

SPEAKER_00 58:14

Discipleship, it's important. And you have to stall with whatever you're about to say, so I can get over to the producer's table.

SPEAKER_02 58:21

Well, I will say thank you for helping me be a better disciple. Thank you for helping me be a better disciple, and I hope we can all make each other better disciples. So with that, thank you, Caleb, for coming on and go sell.

SPEAKER_01 58:40

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