Episode Summary: In last week’s episode, we tried to put a biblical lens over socialism. Let’s review a moment. The socialist playbook begins with 1) perverting justice by claiming that economic justice means equal outcomes instead of equal opportunities, 2) then fans the flames of sinful envy of the rich, 3) deceives naive citizens into surrendering their political power to socialist leaders and supporting their totalitarian rule to force economic equality and 4) causes horrific suffering especially of the poor because socialism as an economic system always fails. But is capitalism really any better? Isn’t capitalism based on greed? Isn’t its whole motivational system based on the love of money, which Paul said was the root of all kinds of evil. Doesn’t it incentivize the rich to victimize the poor? Having put a biblical lens over socialism last week, this week we seek to put a biblical lens over capitalism.  

Resources Used for Today’s Podcast

• Institute for Faith, Work and Economics website (excellent, biblical, scholarly articles on the biblical view of economics, helping the poor, etc.)
• What Would You Say Colson Center  (Excellent short videos on how to promote a biblical view of economics).

For Further Prayerful Thought.

1. What do you think is the relationship between owning private property along with other resources and the foundational principle of stewardship in the economy of God’s design?
2. How does the concept of making a capital investment in tools to increase our efficiency seem like a wise component of accomplishing our task of developing the potential built into planet earth to make life better?
3. How is a relatively free market economy linked to the concept of a business owner being a servant to his customer, i.e. the principle that he who waters others will himself be watered?
4. When considering the rule of law that must accompany a market economy to be biblical, which categories of laws most stood out to you as essential?

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Episode Summary. In the Eighth Commandment, “You shall not steal,” God introduces the foundational principle of private ownership as one of the ten most foundational principles for flourishing. Today’s episode comes at a time in America when the Democratic Socialist Party has made enormous inroads into the political world. So, this episode examines the attractiveness of socialism and then places a biblical lens over five of basic components of this ideology.   

For Further Prayerful Thought.

1. How would you respond to the average Christian dad who says, “understanding economics is not part of my calling. I can’t answer my kid’s accusations that Christianity is hypocritical and that they can’t embrace a religion that favors American consumerism instead of ECONOMIC EQUALITY as Jesus would have?”
2. What most stood out to you about current ideologues who have replaced the content of the word EQUALITY as equal justice under the law with the concept of equal outcomes?
3. In seeking to put a biblical lens over socialism, which components of socialism seem most evil?
4. How can we better help our kids recognize politicians who demonize the wealthy, thus subtly fomenting the evil motivation of class envy?

Resources Used for Today’s Podcast

Institute for Faith, Work and Economics website (excellent, biblical, scholarly articles on the biblical view of economics, helping the poor, etc.)

What Would You Say Colson Center  (Excellent short videos on how to promote a biblical view of economics).

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For a summary of topics addressed by podcast series, click here.

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Episode Summary: In today’s episode we will discover that the modern “enlightened” view of sexuality actually undervalues sexuality and that it is, in fact, the Biblical view that upholds sex as a precious treasure. We examine three common messages about sexuality articulated and assumed by today’s social media and how the biblical view is richer and corresponds much more to reality. We then show three practical ways to resist the temptation to commit adultery.

For Further Prayerful Thought

1. What is your opinion of the modern view that sex is just a way to satisfy a normal bodily appetite? How would you explain that the biblical worldview of protecting the vulnerable intimacy of sex by placing it in the Covenant of Marriage makes more sense than the secular view?
2. Why is it easy for even Christian couples who get engaged to rationalize having sex. How would you persuade a brother to stop doing so?
3. Why do you think advocates of the gay lifestyle use the ad homonym argument to label those who disagree homophobic? Why is it loving, if you had the chance, to guide someone AWAY from the gay life?
4. Which practical step for resisting the temptation to adultery most stood out to you?

Resources Used for Today’s Podcast

• The Meaning of Marriage, Tim and Kathy Keller
• A Practical Guide to Culture, John Stonestreet and Brent Kunkle
• The Secular Creed, Rebecca McLaughlin

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Episode Summary. This episode examines both the explicit meaning of what is prohibited in Sixth Commandment and what Jesus and James taught is the implicit meaning of what is prohibited the Sixth Commandment for Christ-followers so that we are equipped to teach our children and grandchildren the ways of the Lord. 

For Further Prayerful Thought:

1. Why is it important to know that the 6th Commandment prohibits the unlawful taking of a human life?
2. Which God-ordained restraints upon the evil of hostility towards other humans leading to murder most stood out to you?
3. What do you most want to remember about the NT teaching that the sixth commandment not only prohibits harming another’s body, it prohibits harming another’s soul?

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Episode Summary. If you were God giving instructions to the human race about how to get along with each other, what would be the first thing you'd say? Don't be selfish? Don't be proud? Learn to forgive? Treat others like you want to be treated? God's first law is “Honor your father and mother.” And in case we still don't catch the foundational importance of this command, God attaches an unbelievable promise to it. It is the only one of The Ten Commandments with this kind of a promise: that you may live long and that it may go well with you. 

Isn't it interesting that God's first law of human relationships has to do with the family? God starts with the most basic and important cell group in society. God designed it to be the birthplace of a child's self-esteem and of his sense of identity, the place where he is to learn what it means to be loved and to give love, the place where he learns how to adapt to the way the world has been created by God to operate. This episode examines this foundational commandment and its implications not just for children but for adults.

For Further Prayerful Thought:

1. How would you contrast “obedience-centered training” with “child centered training?” What would you say to one who said this verse in Proverbs 22:15 encourages abuse? “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of the child the rod of discipline will remove it far from him.”
2. How do the opening verses in the first chapter of Proverb juxtapose being shaped by your parents’ wisdom with being shaped by peer pressure? (See vs 8-10).
3. What does it say about God that he demands that adults honor their elderly parents?
4. What evidence do you see in the culture that it is anti-God’s design of the family to be the foundation of society?

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Episode Summary. One of the words used to describe the worldview of the culture in which we all swim is secularism, which describes a lifestyle of preoccupation with the visible, material world to the neglect of the world of the spiritual. The result of swimming in this polluted water has been, in my view, a largescale disregard of the fourth commandment by Christians and consequent loss of its benefits. The lost benefits are understanding the eternal value of work and understanding the need to regularly shut out the secular world to be renewed and reconnected to the Spiritual Being who created us. This episode seeks to recover what is often lost by the neglect pf the fourth commandment.

For Further Prayerful Thought:

1. What most stood out to you in this episode about the fourth commandment?
2. How would you respond to someone who said, “Keeping the Sabbath is being legalistic, and the church is not Israel?”
3. What components of a biblical view of work seem most important to you.
4. It’s been said that the more important your work is, the more important it is to regularly step away from it and renew. How might this principle apply to serving Christ?

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Episode Summary. Fatherhood champion Anthony Bradley’s research proves what Scripture teaches us about the role God has assigned to fathers in creation: fathers are the most important men in any community, anywhere, everywhere, ever. Their presence, involvement, and guidance are pivotal for the emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being of their children. This is the fourth episode in our June series

Fathers Giving the Moral Foundation to Their Children That the Culture Won’t. It recognizes that the third commandment, You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain, involves much more than a prohibition against cussing. It goes to the very heart of our love for Christ and how God says that love should be shown in the way we treat his name.  

Link to New City Catechism Curriculum.

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Episode Summary. On October 7, 2023, more than 3000 members of the radical Muslin extremist group Hamas surged across the Israeli border crying “Allahu Akbar” “God is good” raping women, beheading children, torturing, mutilating and murdering more than a thousand people, most of them civilians conducting the greatest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. How would you respond to the trembling words of a seven-year-old who said, “Daddy, these bad men said God told them to do those awful things. How can this be?” This episode seeks to answer this question by understanding what the second commandment teaches.

For Further Prayerful Thought:

1. How would you answer a new believer who said to you, “I believe Jesus is the Son of God, the risen Lamb slain to take away my sin, but why are there so many other religions in the world?”
2. Why can’t a chewing gum replica of the Alps convey their glory? Do you agree that a chewing gum replica of the Alps might be worse than no physical image? Why?
3. Although man was created in God’s image, our fall into sin means that we suppress the truth of who God is, especially our accountability to him, and remake God as OUR IMAGE—the way we want him to be, because we are created to worship. (Atheists usually build their life around a false ideology, which functions like a God.) How do you see this biblical truth making sense in what you observe about the world?

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Episode Summary. Unlike adherents to multi-culturalism, Christians realize that God chose to reveal his moral law to one nation, Israel, in a rather spectacular manner. God himself wrote his summary of his moral law on two stone tablets using his own finger (Dt 5:22) telling his people how they can most please him. There is no other text of the Bible written directly by the finger of God. The two tablets were called the Ten Words, the decalogue, and kept in the Ark of the Covenant. Foty years later, In Deuteronomy 5, Moses repeated The Ten Commandments for the next generation. This episode examines how to apply the first commandment as the leaders of our homes and provides some thoughts about teaching it to our kids, using the New City Catechism.

For Further Prayerful Thought:

1. In the opening overview observations, which one stood out most to you?
2. Why do spiritual leaders have to fight a lifelong battle to keep reminding those under their care that God’s word is the path of life? Why is that so hard for us to remember, in moments of temptation?
3. What do you find most helpful in Tim Keller’s definition of an idol as: “anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give.” Which potential idols do you need to be wary of? 

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Episode Summary:  One of the bad ideas causing massive victimhood today is egalitarianism, the denial of creation role distinctions between moms and dads, and the heretical denial within the church that “the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church.” The first egalitarian was Satan, who demanded the right to be equal with God. As the father of lies, who masquerades as an angel of light, his strategy is to label the biblical teaching about gender oppressive patriarchy and then support this accusation with dishonest reasoning that in every case, violates the laws of logic. This episode reviews those dishonest arguments, makes a fresh biblical case for fatherhood and reviews recent research that substantiates the significance of God’s fatherhood design. 

For Further Prayerful Thought:

1. Which of the dishonest, fallacious attempts to support egalitarianism most leaps out at you? Why?
2. How has your relationship with your father shaped your life? How does it shape your relationship with God, the Father?
3. How would you argue the biblical case that a child needs both a mother and a father?

Resource Used in this Episode: Some of the material in this episode comes from Pete Alwinson’s book, Like Father Like Son: How Knowing God as Father Changes Men, which I highly recommend.

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