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All right, we are live with Ed Maybray. How are
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you Ed?
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I'm good, how are you great?
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So tell us who you are and what you do. Sure.
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So my name is Ed Maybury. I am a podcaster,
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a researcher and a Christian truth seeker. And so what
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I've been doing for while the last over ten years,
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it doesn't make it's been that long, over ten years,
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is running a website called Faith by Reason. It's Faith
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by Reason dot net, not dot com. Dot net is
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my site. And I started doing that because of the
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journey I've been on in my life being basically raised
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in the church. My father was a minister. Well he's
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still with us, he's just not in that I could
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been minced for anymore. He's retired. My grandmother was a
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matriarch of art. So I just grew up in the
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church and unders and like most people, I just I
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took for granted that it was true. I mean, I
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still believe it's true, but there was no there was
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no challenge to it even throughout my youth because I
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either went to private Christian school or you know, I'm
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in the community. African American community is very religious per capita,
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you know, where the most church going group. So I
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never had my faith questioned, or so I didn't. I
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wasn't used to being challenged. And then, of course I
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went to college and went to a secular college like most.
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Of them are.
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And as I've said many times before i'm on other podcasts,
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my professors and my fellow students like took great delight
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in challenging me and deconstructing what I believe, and it
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forced me to get into apologetics to defend my faith.
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The journey started where I was. I started doubting things.
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I never doubted God, but I started to doubt and
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wonder about the things I was told about God because
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I couldn't answer some of those basic questions, like, you know,
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if God is good, why is her evil? You know,
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why did he flood the entire earth? That seems kind
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of genocidal? You know in the time of Noah, you
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know where Adam and Eve? Were they real people or
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was that an allegory? And why does God seemed so
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angry all the time and punishing people and braining down
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fire and brimstone. So I didn't have a lot of answers.
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You know, how was Jesus born of a version? You
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can go on or know with all the classic questions.
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So it just led me on a journey to really
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understand who God is, not what we're told about him,
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but who he actually is according to his word, and
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how that makes sense because I'm a logical thinker, I'm
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a systems thinker, and my prayer to God is I
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was going through this, you know, exploring other religions and
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things like that. I'm like, if you were real, then
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you should make sense. You know, if you created everything,
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then you also created the rules of logic and reason,
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and you should be a part of that. And you know,
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he answered that prayer. He actually he put me in
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touch with people who were also had a scientific mindset,
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and they helped me a lot too, and he brought
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me to resources that helped me on my journey. And
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the conclusion of my journey was it was two basically
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startling facts. Number one is that unlike what I was told,
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that God is unknowable, that God actually can be known
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to the degree that we're capable of knowing him, and
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more importantly, that he wants to be known, that he
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delights in being known, And which makes sense to me,
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Why would you create intelligent life, relatively intelligent life and
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not want to interact with them and not like I
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can't speak for everyone because I gunner people every day
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and I'm like, how how are you able to walk
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and not fall down? Because you don't seem very bright?
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But he wants to interact with us, And that was
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just stunning to me because, like everyone else, I grew
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up thinking that God was this angry guy on a
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cloud who couldn't wait to punish us anytime he did
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anything wrong, and that really isn't the case. So I
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started Faith bad Reason because I assumed that I was
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not the only person who had was on this journey,
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and I wanted to help my fellow Christians understand who
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God is and why our faith makes sense and why
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our faith is reasonable. Hence the title of Faith by Reason.
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So faithbout Reason dot need. You can find me there.
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I'm also on YouTube. I'm getting more active on x
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and as you know, i just started a Patreon abottom
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almost two months ago where I'm offering exclusive bonus content
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and q and as. And also if you go to
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the higher tier, there are two tiers. We go to
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the second tier, you can be a part of a
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monthly Bible Study where I take a group of people
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on a journey through the entire Bible in one year
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from the supernatural point of view. So we're looking at
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it as God's story. It's called the Jehovah Story Bible Study,
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and we look at it it's because this is God's story.
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It's not our story. It's God's story, It's Jehovah story.
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And we go at it from that standpoint, and we
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look behind the veil of what's happening in the spiritual realm,
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because honestly, if you don't look at what's happening in
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the spiritual realm, you're easily missing eighty percent of the story, right.
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I think one of the reasons why people have so
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much trouble understanding the Bible is because they think it's
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our story and it's not.
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It's history. Yeah, agreed.
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I think that's one of the most misunderstood things about folks.
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You know, about Christianity in general, is that this is
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a supernatural based story and it's not. It's you know,
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Christ's centered, God centered, whatever you want to call it.
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And and when you actually learn how to look at
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things through that lens, changes the whole game.
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Right.
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So, so one of another questions that I ask all
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to get all my guests is so my So it's
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kind of funny that the Bible right has gotten looped
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in with all the supernatural, paranormal, I strange and this stuff, right,
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but yet it fits there perfectly. Frankly in my opinion.
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People get mad at me for constantly, but so like
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my gateway and I just I always call it a
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gateway drug. My gateway drug to this world was Bigfoot.
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Okakay that, but that's just for me. You've got plenty
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of people that you know that's the same thing. But
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some people that's UFO. Some other folks it's like that too.
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Obviously yours, well, I'm not going to speak for you,
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but obviously you talk about the Bible.
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What was your gateway to to to this? I mean, like,
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because you've.
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Been on a million podcasts and and at the end
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of the day, they're all kind of the same, but
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they're all very different too.
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So what was your gateway to this whole? To the strangeness? Yeah,
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the strangeness, the high strangeness world.
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I think two books of the Bible, the two that
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I that one I finished doing a series on last year,
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and one that I'm working on now, and that's the
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books of Genesis and Revelation.
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Oh yeah, those come on, yeah, amazing.
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I'm one of those, I don't I guess you can
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call the Christian circles. I'm kind of a strange one
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in that. That's the book I gravitated towards when even
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as a kid, because no one wanted to talk about that.
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You know, everyone would talk about, you know, David and Goliath.
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They would talk about knowing the flood, they would talk
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about King Yeah, you know, yeah, King David, King Solomon,
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the Exodus, all that subsequent, and of course Jesus and
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the Disciples and you know, the Apostle, Paul and get
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all wonderful stuff. But no one spent a whole lot
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of time in Genesis or in revelationists, but especially Revelation,
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no one talked about that. So I'm like, well, what's
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going on? So I started reading it, and I'm like, oh,
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this is some weird stuff happening here. You've got these this,
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you know, these beasts with seven heads and ten horns,
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and this woman riding the beast, and then you have
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these four horsemen different colors, riding around and just slaughtering
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millions of people, and I'm like, wow, this is so
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that was kind of my gateway into the whole strangeness
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because I wanted to understand this because it just seemed
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at the time, it's this seems so much different than
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what I'm told, not that it's different than what's in
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the Bible, because you know, you go to do the
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books of Daniel and Isaiah and Ezekiel, they have some
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strange stuff happening there, but then no one talks about
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that supernatural stuff. They talk about the things that are
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just easy to digest. So that's what got me into it.
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And I say, this is part of the Bible, and
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if the Bible is true, if it's really God's word,
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then he wants us to understand this part too, And
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I just I go on the path less travel, and
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I wanted to go down that road, and so I
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became obsessed with it, and I started reading commentaries on it,
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and as I got older, I would listen to broadcasts
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of people who are really into it. Like one of
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my mentors is the late doctor Chuck Missler, who he
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did a series of what I'm showing my age here
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of of audio cassetts. Those are actually a thing. And
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I remember I remember saving.
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Up damn mixtapes. Man, yeah, I.
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Made my mixtape that I remember the getting off topic here,
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but the first time I made my mixtape with this girl,
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I had a college and I confessed all my feelings
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on it and then like had all these love songs
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and oh my god, it was a bad decition. She
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Britta just like played it for everyone, this is my heart,
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this is my heart on take for you. All my
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friends are like, oh, you are such a simp. Yeah,
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I love.
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I remember meds tapes too. Man, I'm I'm I'm fifty,
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so I get it a game. Yeah, I get I
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get it all.
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So so anyway, I saved up my money and I
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bought this the Chuck Mister Revelation Series, and I think
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it was like twenty five audio cassettes and I just
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listened to it non stop. So that was my gateway
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into it, was having him explain it and then just
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going from there and doing my own research into it.
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And then Genesis is the same way. That's why after
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I finished my Revelation series last year, sixty episodes of
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videos and podcasts, now I'm on Genesis because Genesis is
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just in some ways, Genesis is even weirder than Revelation.
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Well, there's so much duality in a lot of of it,
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and there's just it's it's I don't think we're supposed
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to maybe I think clarity is not supposed to be there.
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I think we're supposed to use our brains obviously, But
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I'll like you get into that.
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Sure, yeah, you have to inferral lot. We can talk,
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we can start talking about a bit and maybe get
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back to Revelation because I think basically what I've been
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telling people and in the Bible Study, which is again
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it's twelve it's twelve months. Obviously, it's going to be
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from from February to to next January twenty twenty six.
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So you think, you know, I'd have to squeeze like
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three or four books into every episode, which I will,
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But the first two months of the Bible Study, you're
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just going to be on Genesis, job and parts of
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the Book of Enoch. Because if Genesis is so important,
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if you really grasp what's going on in Genesis, you
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understand the rest of the Bible. The entire story of
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the Bible is in Genesis. And I say and one
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of my other friends Mentors, said the same thing. He
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says that basically the rest of the Bible is just
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commentary on Genesis. Yet that's introduction, is there, his plan
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is there, his personality, his will, the fall, redemption, the
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future are our eternity, what God wants. All that's in
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Genesis and the rest of the Bible is just all
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that playing out. And then of course Revelation is a conclusion, right.
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But no, it's it's just it's it's a great it's
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a great point is that it just puts the exclamation
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mark on the fact that this is his story and
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and this is what's being told. It's not about us, right,
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It's about him. And yeah, I'm I'm super excited for
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the study. Bottom line, I just I can't wait. I mean,
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I've I've I've gone down your the revelation rabbit hole,
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and it's amazing.
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But it's a it's a lot, like its a lot.
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It's all that I just wish that I had these
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like you talked.
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About it, you know, getting introduced to it as a
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youngster and really diving down and then like, I.
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Wish that I had had that too.
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I did the deep dive into like Norris mythology and
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Greek and Roman and all.
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The all those things.
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Right.
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I for some reason, I was just obsessed with.