Bennis The Menace Pod

There's a lot that has come out in the past few years about the Mars Hill Church / Mark Driscoll saga.  Ben was an early member of Mars Hill Orange County and went on to be the executive pastors assistant and then the lead pastors assistant for about 2 years. So needless to say, Mars Hill was a big part of my life for those years. A year before Mars Hill imploded, my wife and I left the church with the local pastor to help plant another church locally. We didn't leave because of any shenanigans or because we knew something was wrong at the church, we just felt called to aid our local pastor in his mission to plant another church.   Dennis attended Driscoll's new church in Arizona, Trinity Church, after he moved back to Arizona. Dennis was going though a lot at that point in his life and Trinity Church was small enough to where Dennis had 1 on 1 time with Mark personally.   This is an account of our experiences with Mars Hill Church and Mark Driscoll himself.

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This is our third show type. We have the Bible Study, the Book Club, and now we have the Hang Sesh. This format will be a more laidback conversational  format where we talk about anything and everything. This will also be the show where we have guests on and do interviews so start tuned for some great talks!  In this episode. we hit on a bunch of topics and tell some great stories too! The boys recap the last time they got whopped by their parents. Ben recounts how he ditched the majority of his senior year of high school. We discuss our experiences with Mars Hill and Mark Driscoll and the impact that movement and it's demise had on our lives. We also talk a lot about music and churches like Hillsong United and Bethel Redding Church and give our opinions.   Overall it's a good hang and we hope you enjoy it too!

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If you don't think God has a sense of humor, check out this hilarious story! Trying to pick up girls in Romania will never be the same!

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This was an interesting episode of the Lex Fridman podcast where Donald Hoffman helped me realize even from a naturalistic or evolutionary perspective you can not deny that there is more to this reality than we are able to perceive or experience with the senses we have developed.   Here is a link to the episode I'm referring to.   https://youtu.be/reYdQYZ9Rj4 It's interesting though because as a Christina I believe the Bible eludes to the exact same truth; humans are not created to perceive or experience reality to it's fullest. However we are told repeatedly in the Bible that there exists and unseen reality or unseen realm beyond our reality or our dimension which is in fact the reality behind our reality; the real real as I like to call it.

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Scientists have recently made the claim, based on extensive evidence, that our universe is not locally real. Confused? Here's an article to help:  https://medium.com/predict/nobel-prize-winning-scientists-findings-show-the-universe-isn-t-real-51cde7685600 What's that you say? You don't buy it? What about some of the other leading theories out there aimed at explaining away our reality? The Multiverse, Simulation Theory, these are a few more examples of concepts meant to help us make sense of this crazy reality we're all a part of.   A common thread in all these theories is that our reality as we see know it is bound to something outside of this space and time based dimension. Interestingly enough, that's what the Bible has been saying for millennia.   Lets explore what the ancient Bible says about these modern discoveries scientist are just now uncovering.

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Don't contact my pastor to excommunicate me or set me aside for church discipline for this one :) I'm just looking at a strange passage in Ezekiel 28, and others, and trying to make sense of the language while performing some creative mental gymnastics :) I'm not promoting this view as true by any means lol. Just thinking out loud.

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We are starting The Bennis The Menace Book Club today!   Tag along as we read through and discuss some pretty amazing books.  Our first read will be The Unseen Realm by Dr. Michael Heiser.   If there's a book you need to read this coming year, it's got to be The Unseen Realm. This book has completely changed my life and my perspective on the Bible, God, and the grand scheme of things. I think it will do the same for you!  Tag along as we read through the book and discuss!   Let's get into it!

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There are always technical difficulties, but I mean come on Eli!

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Here we go again!   With his amillennial eschatology, Eli believes we are already in the millennial reign of Christ. What else would that mean though? Well for starters, it would mean he believes everything in revelation before the 1000 year millennial kingdom has already happened. He actually believes the antichrist already came, there was already "the mark of the beast", the war of Armageddon has already happened, and Jesus has already returned and established his millennial reign on earth. Crazy huh?   But in this clip from our latest Full Revelation episode, we dig a little deeper into Eli's perspective on the mark of the beast. Most people will say that it's a chip or some kind of technology that is embedded in your body without which you will not be able to buy or sell. I mean that's what the text says right? That men will have to take a mark on their forehead or their right hand, without which people will not be able to buy or sell, they will be cut out of commerce entirely. A technological understanding of this verse just makes most sense based on todays technology and the way we're progressing. However, and Amillenial like Eli disagrees. He think this has already happened.   Let's get into it!

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If you do any research into the book of Revelation, you'll quickly see that the primarily quarrel to this day is whether it was written before the destruction of Jerusalem, 70AD, or after. If it was written before Jerusalem's distraction, it's easy to make the argument that John was simply informing his immediate readers of the coming troubles ahead in 70AD. If the book of Revelation was written after 70AD then it likely that all the events described are future / yet to be fulfilled and we are still awaiting the great day of the Lord!  However, what if there's a third option? What's if it's both? What if Revelation describes the destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD as spoken of in Mathew 24 and many other passages, but Revelation also describes an even greater whole wide world even which we are still waiting for? Is it possible that the prophecies in Revelation are a dual fulfillment as with some other prophecies in the Bible? Is it possible that the distraction of Jerusalem in 70AD was just a foreshadowing of the things to come in at a future time in history?   Let's get into it!

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