"Throw You Outta This Boat!"
EPISODE 172
Practice Spiritual Disciplines
Why’s it so hard to simplify our lives? How could unanswered prayers instruct us? Did the early church practice fasting? And what’s wrong with needing to see results in our service? Last week we kicked off our Bible Geeks Book Club by Flying Through a book called Celebration of Discipline, by Richard J. Foster. Here in part 2 of that discussion, we each identify our Favorite Things from the book and where we need to grow, bringing some of these disciplines into our lives more.
Takeaways
The Big Idea: We can become more like Jesus by imitating his habits.
This Week's Challenge: Choose a spiritual discipline to practice this week.
Episode Transcription
Get away from me. (laughing) You know, I believe in you so much, I'm gonna throw you out of this boat. (upbeat music) Well, hello everyone, and welcome to Bible Geeks Weekly Podcast. This is episode 172. I'm Bryan Schiele. I'm Ryan Joy. And thanks so much everyone for tuning in. We are continuing our conversation from last week about celebration of discipline. And so this is our inaugural Bible Geeks Book Club episode. And last week we did talk a little bit about this book from Richard J. Foster. And before we get into this thing too much, I think we should just start with Jesus. That is what we tend to do as our custom here on the podcast. - Yeah, well, it's a simple prompt here. Where is Jesus in this book that we're talking about? Where is Jesus in celebration of discipline by Richard J. Foster? This is the super weird way, I think, of starting this kind of a segment as we begin the episode, 'cause clearly we always find Jesus in the Bible. And so-- - He's there. - I think he is here though. And I love that as he talks about some of these disciplines, the last one actually being celebration, I see Jesus there in celebration. And he actually has this quote where he says, "Jesus had a sense of humor. "Some of his parables are positively comical." That's kind of what I latched on to the answer to this question, actually. I think it's cool how when we start to see celebration, we start to see being a joy-filled kind of people, that's how Jesus was. Jesus lived his life as somebody who wasn't stoic and just grumpy all the time. He was somebody who enjoyed life, and even to the point where I'm sure he was a great joke teller. And even in his parables, as we think about them sometimes, they are pretty funny, And I don't often think about that. And so I maybe what a refreshing take to see that in this book, the author is talking about how Jesus lived a life of joy. And even knowing all the things that Jesus went through, and of course how he gave himself for us and all the gravity that went along with that, we also see that as with all these disciplines, I think, how Jesus really embodied these things perfectly. Jesus is really the creator and inventor, the author and perfecter. He is the guide of the Himalayas, like we talked about on the last episode, of all of these disciplines. And so, yeah, he knew how to celebrate for sure. - That is a cool picture. I love when I see paintings of Jesus smiling or Jesus laughing. I don't know why I grew up with a picture of him always stoic, even as little kids are like climbing on his lap and as, you know, he's saying all the things. - He's covered in puppies. He's like super upset about it. Like, no, probably not. - Leave it to you to bring it to the puppies. I know you guys are dog lovers to the core. - This is a little bit of a, I don't know, not a gloomier place, but a heavier place, definitely. - Take us there. - But I was struck by how he showed up in the confession chapter, which is the one discipline Jesus didn't need. He had nothing to confess. - Oh, for sure. - But his work gives our confession power. And he starts out talking about how people have this view of the cross and what Jesus did as just God, he hates us so much 'cause he was so angry and we did such bad things that, you know, it's all driven by this distant anger that God has, as opposed to, it's love, you know, as he says, love, not anger brought Jesus to the cross. Golgotha came as a result of God's great desire to forgive, not his reluctance. And Jesus knew that by his vicarious suffering, he could actually absorb all the evil of humanity, and so heal it, forgive it, redeem it. And speaking of how he became our sin offering, God made him who had no sin, as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5, God made him who had no sin to be sin for us or be the sin offering for us so that we might become his righteousness. And so it's just a neat thing to think about right at the beginning here, how Jesus not only shows us joy, but he carried our sorrows. - I guess we've covered both sides of the coin there. - Yep, exactly. Yeah, so we're gonna get into maybe here thinking about some of the things that we enjoyed from this book. And of course, that would lead us naturally into a segment that we like to call Favorite Things. ♪ These are a few of my favorite things ♪ So there's a lot of stuff here in these chapters that I latched onto and really enjoyed. And so let me kick this thing off with my first favorite thing. And I think when I got to the chapter on simplicity, That was probably one of my favorite things. It's so powerful. Just to think about how we live a life that is just so cluttered. And there's definitely like a Marie Kondo kind of idea going along in some of the thoughts here in this chapter. When you stop and think about it, you might think that his expectations and his suggestions are extreme based on how cluttered and difficult and just busy our lives are. But I honestly wonder if people back in the first century would look at our way of life and see it as just unimaginably complicated and difficult. They lived a much more simple life than we do. And even Jesus was telling them to simplify. As Jesus was telling people to sell their possessions and give their proceeds to the poor. You have to imagine that those people back at that time may not have had all of the wealth and privilege and everything else that we have, yet Jesus even then was telling people to rethink things. And so I love how he says here that we crave things we neither need nor enjoy. Right? Like, isn't that totally true? We buy things we do not want to impress people we do not like. - That's social media's worst attribute in a nutshell. - Exactly. He just hits a nail on the head. And so he says that we are made to feel ashamed to wear clothes or drive cars until they are worn out. The mass media have convinced us that to be out of step with fashion is to be out of step with reality. And then he says, it is time we awaken to the fact that conformity to a sick society is to be sick. And he doesn't pull any punches in this chapter. And this is just really the description of why simplicity is important. And then he goes off to really talk about all of the ways that we can simplify our life. And he talks about 10 different points and he just, one point after another point, it's like, oh man, that hits so close to home. And then I think when he gets to the 10th point, I think is when I really find the power here, when he says, shun anything that distracts you from seeking first the kingdom of God. That's his last point of 10 points. And at that point it's like, yeah, he nailed it. That's totally true. If there's anything in your life that is cluttering up your heart and keeping you from seeking God's kingdom first, get it out of there. Yeah, that is pretty much what Jesus said during his great sermon on the Mount too. - I like the Marie Kondo stuff. We've done some of that, but it's such a different kind of simplicity. It's not toss it because you don't have a love for it. It's okay, what can I do to serve God? What do I need? How do I approach my life in a way that lets possessions be more of a servant and more of a backdrop than a focal point. It is, like you said in the last episode, there's so much practical stuff in the way he leads you through a conversation about having a bicycle or things like that, you know. - Or sharing a bicycle, I love that point too. - Yeah, yeah, very early collaborative consumerism. Yeah, my favorite thing, number one, I went with kind of a general kind of an idea about what the book has meant to me. And that is this path towards a deeper walk with God. I remember reading that first paragraph in the spiritual disciplines door to liberation chapter as he opens the book after the intro. And that's the one that says superficiality is the curse of our age, just opening sentence and that the desperate need today is not for greater number of intelligent people or gifted people, but for deep people. and I was just thinking, yes, this guy sounds like my kind of people. This seems like a book I've been looking for. You know, there's just some books that affect you. I remember reading all the C.S. Lewis books, discovering mere Christianity and other books and feeling, oh, you know, as a teenager, I'm finding some tools finally to reason carefully about my faith. And this book came to me at a time when I wasn't looking for that reasoning aspect. I had, I was been working with that kind of mental, logical aspect of my faith for a long time, but I was looking for spiritual depth and for practices and tools to help me live more close to God, more wakefully, intentionally, thoughtfully about my relationship with him and who I want to be and what I want my heart to be like, what I want to be thinking about and those kinds of things. And ironically, the thing that may be most uncomfortable in a way is the thing I came to appreciate most. And that was tuning into my own inner world. I used to have a tendency to focus only on those, like I said, those reasoning aspects of faith. Was this right? It was all about judgment. This is right. This is wrong. And that kind of discerning is important, of course. I'm not playing that down. That's still an important part of my faith. But the heart is worth tending to. You know, I used to think since as Jeremiah says, the heart is deceitful above all things, why would I pay any attention to what's going on within me? (laughing) But you know, you can see hopefully the ignorance of that, but from our heart comes the issues of life. As Proverbs 4.23 says, we need to know our hearts. We need to allow Christ to conquer and reign within us more and more, not just in our outer acts of obedience. And so this was just one of many different pieces of a journey that I was on in that particular aspect. And so I guess just generally that's why that opening quote, I quote a lot too. I think when people hear we need deep people or something about being deep, they think like you need to go off on a mountain top and mutter to yourself as you think deep things, or you need to have some complicated ideas that you're sharing with people. And that's not what this book is about. That's not what I'm talking about. It's about being real. It's about letting, you know, who you're saying you want to be, start to overcome every part of you so that the well of God's love and of scripture within you is something that goes all the way down to bedrock, goes deep in you. That's such a cool way to think about it. And honestly, I think that's one of my favorite things about this book as well. Just really thinking about that balance that he strikes between what's going on inside and what's going on outside. So leading to my second favorite thing, thinking about in the forward to the book, and we mentioned it on the last episode, but that story about confession in the forward just really stuck with me. And it's so funny to think about it. Like it's such an important part of the book in my mind, but it's in the forward. Like it's not even in the book itself. You're missing this huge powerful story about how he asked somebody who he really looked up to to pray for him, pray with him. And that person started out in their meeting before he ever actually prayed for him, basically just telling him all the stuff that he had done and all the sins that he had committed, confessing all these things to him. And Foster was just like, "What's happening right now?" And totally didn't even expect that. And the guy, when he was done saying all these things, basically asked him, "Do you still want me to pray for you?" And that story to me is like one of my favorites. Of course he said yes. Really that story was in there so that he could go on to talk about what he did pray for him about. And I think he just got a deep connection to one of the sections here, the confession section, which also was really powerful for me. We talked, I think, on the last episode about the fasting section, and you mentioned how the confession section also fit into that with you. And I really think confession as a discipline is just really hard. And that's one of my favorite things about this. I don't know why I've latched on to something that's like challenging and steps on my toes and like really makes me uncomfortable as being one of my favorite things, but I guess that's me. You know, just thinking about how it is not something we do very often and it's not something we think about very often. And you could, yeah, but like you talked about all day long when it comes to confession, yeah, but what if they say things to other people or what if they're not trustworthy or what if they judge me or whatever. And you could do that about this section, but confession is so important. and just to get real and honest with ourselves to other people. And I love the description he gives here in this section. He says, "Confession is a difficult discipline for us because we all too often view the believing community as a fellowship of saints before we see it as a fellowship of sinners. We feel that everyone else has advanced so far into holiness that we are isolated and alone in our sin. We cannot bear to reveal our failures and shortcomings to others. That just totally hits the nail on the head for me, thinking about how, yeah, we forget, and I forget all the time that the people I'm talking to, my brothers and my sisters, people I'm so close with in the church, they're people, just like me. And all of his practical steps here in both giving and receiving confession, again, he goes a little too far on the whole forgiving sins aspect of it, but yeah, it's just a breath of fresh air, thinking about really putting these things into practice. And it's not something that you're gonna hear very often, but boy, sure made a big impact on me. - I think it's one of the ways that Satan tries to isolate us is by making us afraid to obey this instruction from scripture, you know, in James five, "Confess your sins to one another." And there's a quote from one of the newer Star Wars that Adrian brings up a lot about how, this is how the empire wins, they make us think we're alone. - Exactly. Like you said, we're all just failed servants. You know, we're all sinners that can relate to sinners. It's not tolerating or saying it's okay whenever we make room for someone to confess to us. They already know. They're not confessing because they want you to tell them it's okay. They want you to tell them, you know what? God forgives all our sins and He loves you and I love you. And this doesn't change anything for me. I already knew you were a sinner, you know? (both laughing) Isn't that awesome? - Yeah, yeah, it's really, and that story is just, I agree with you, it is one of the highlights of the book and it's right there in the foreword. And just the self-awareness of this guy to recognize, first of all, this man that's asking me to pray over him is thinking I'm somebody I'm not. He's seeing me as this spiritual hero, and there needs to be a removal of this calcified outer layer of like artifice and remove all that and then to be people who are serving God and just trying our best standing next to each other, trying to support each other. And yeah, so my second favorite thing is something, Another story of his that he tells about putting all Jesus teaching on prayer. He says that he collected all the things that Jesus says about prayer and put it together into a document. And he discovered this startling truth that Jesus wanted us to embrace that when we pray, we will receive what we pray for. What a shocking idea. Really? It still feels shocking to me. It still genuinely feels like that we need to believe that and find it true. And so he found that that wasn't happening in his prayers. And he started taking it as a redirection, as a correction. And sometimes he would correct what he was praying for. Sometimes he would change how he was praying. And slowly he compares it to adjusting the antenna of an old TV, you know, the rabbit ears and you're adjusting things and trying to tune in. He started to tune in to how and what to pray. And that was a really helpful little breadcrumb for me as I've walked my own journey of prayer and trying to learn what it means to be a man of prayer and to trust God, to pray expectantly, but without expectation, if that makes sense. In other words, I'm not attaching to like, it's gonna look like this, it better look like this. No, it's, I want your will, but I know that you're hearing me and I know you're gonna do something about this. And I know that if I keep praying, I'm gonna just keep trying to tune in to what do I know that you want for us and call on God to work and just watch him work. And it's amazing to watch God work as we pray. - Yeah, I love that. And he says, "Perhaps the most astonishing characteristic "of Jesus praying is that when he prayed for others, "he never concluded by saying, "if it be, I will." - If it be your will, yeah. (both laughing) - Yeah, it's okay. When we're really tuned in to what God wants, We know that he wants people's best. He wants what's best for people. So when Jesus was praying for others, that was a foregone conclusion. - Yeah, I like it. Okay, so my third and final favorite thing here in this segment is, you know, I'm a big fan of the service chapter. I like that. There's a lot of real meat in the service chapter and really talking after the submission chapter about humbling ourselves and getting down on our knees and serving other people and being a ministry of the towel kinds of people. and it's particularly the section on self-righteous service versus true service. It really kind of opened my eyes because there are a lot of ways we could serve that may not really be service. There are a lot of ways that we could serve that's really more self-focused. And he makes a list. There's really a lot of depth that he adds to these things. But I think when he talks about self-righteous service, there's some things he says, like one thing is it comes through human effort. It's yeah, it really sometimes when we try to think that we've got to put in the effort and we've got to put in all the work and we have to do it all. Well, are we really serving in a selfless way? Is that true service or is that really just service that scratches our own itch? He says that self-righteous service is impressed with the big deal. I love that thought too. It's yeah, how can we make a huge impact? How can we do amazing and expansive things? We've always got these big lofty goals in place. Is that real service, true service, or is that really just scratching an itch in self-righteous service? He says that self-righteous service requires external rewards, and boom, that just steps on my toes 100%. It's yeah, where's my golden pad on the back that we've talked about in so many episodes before? And then he goes on, of course, and talks more about how to serve in good and helpful ways, but this is kind of a reality check for me. It's am I really serving the right way, or am I serving because I'm trying to scratch my own itch in some way? - It really helps you see why he started with the inner disciplines and then moved to those outers because it's hard to reverse engineer, oh, I shouldn't be feeling this. I should, I, and you're trying to like, but if you go back and just let your heart keep getting worked on in those inner disciplines of letting the word work on you, working with God in prayer and calling on Him I know I'm still not there. Shape me, help me to see this service as something meaningful, even when whatever, even when it doesn't seem to accomplish anything, nobody knows about it, it's just me, the Sisyphus just pushing this rock up the hill constantly, it feels, but I'm doing it for you and help me to know what that is. So being shaped inwardly allows us to have those outer, right attitudes. - All of my choices for favorite things were super uncomfortable ones. Yeah, giving up all of our stuff, telling everybody about our sins, all the difficult ways that service doesn't work, and it's like, wow, okay. You can tell where my mindset is, so how do you wanna round this thing out? - Okay, well, it's not getting any easier. I'm talking about fasting here. - Oh, great. - I really valued this chapter on fasting because, well, like you said, it stepped on our toes, on my toes. It was something I didn't really have any background in. Nobody had ever taught me, you know, like now everybody wants to do intermittent fasting and things like that. That's a very different idea than what we're talking about here, spiritually fasting, and he has this quote, the list of biblical personages who fasted reads like a who's who of scripture. I love that. Moses, the lawd giver, David, the King, Elijah, the prophet, Esther, the queen, Daniel the seer, Anna the prophetess, Paul the apostle, Jesus Christ the incarnate Son. You know, Paul talks about how he often was fasting and his list of challenges in 2 Corinthians 11. But the passage that really affected me most about fasting is the example in Acts 14, 21 to 23. And it says that in appointing elders, as Paul and Barnabas are going around, every church fasted. It wasn't just Jewish groups or those who felt inclined to. And I think we often talk about being faithful to those approved apostle led examples. We emphasize that in the worship on the first day of the week in Acts 20 and verse seven, and in a lot of other areas that we see maybe just one verse or two verses here and there on these things. But Hey, this is, this seems to be something that we're meant to take and apply and live. And here, every one of these churches, when they're appointing elders, this is what they do. It speaks to how sober in activity it is to appoint elders in a church, but it also speaks to the purpose of fasting. It's a way of bringing before God a force of focus and devotion as we pray to Him, calling out to Him and intensifying these prayers. This is really serious to me, and I'm going to give it all of my attention right now. I don't do it a ton still, but it has become a meaningful part of my life to do this, both individually and with others. I know times when we have appointed elders that some in our congregation have done this. It wasn't something we called on everybody to do, but based on this example that I brought up, this matters. I'm going to think about this and pray about it for God to give us leaders who are honoring Him who He wants to lead us who are appointed by the Holy Spirit as He said. And by the way, Mark Copeland has a series on fasting on his popular website, Executable Outlines that I thought was really helpful as a good like three-part outline, especially as New Testament examples and the examples for fasting for us today. So I just think it's a topic, like you said, I think on the last episode, we don't talk about it very much and the Bible talks about it a decent amount and I think that there's real power to be found in having a complete set of disciplines. Just working all of these disciplines into your life in the ways that the Bible tells us to work them in. I love the question that he asks when he says, "Why has the giving of money, for example, been unquestionably recognized as an element in Christian devotion and fasting so disputed? Certainly we have as much, if not more, evidence from the Bible for fasting as we have for giving. Perhaps in our affluent society, fasting involves a far larger sacrifice than the giving of money. Oh, yeah, yeah, it definitely makes you uncomfortable thinking about that. More toe stepping. Exactly, yes. I love that section too. I think the conversation about fasting is probably one of the ones that make you realize is what this book is about and that it's different than other books because not a lot of people talk about fasting, but then clearly giving these practical lessons on fasting and then really starting out the whole book by saying, "Hey, there's a lot of stuff that people in the first century didn't need to be told because they were already doing it." And, oh yeah, they were fasting. When Jesus said multiple times, "When you fast," it's, "Oh, yeah, we know how to do that. We've been doing that a lot." And it's like, why would he need to give them all of the explanations for it, if it's just a foregone conclusion that they're already doing it. Maybe a lot of the details have gotten lost to time, but books like this I think are helpful and maybe just asking some of the questions that are uncomfortable to ask. - We have certainly gotten uncomfortable here in our willingness, our desire to choose favorite things that convict us, but-- - And speaking of uncomfortable things, let us move to something else that is uncomfortable And that is our reach out question. ♪ Reach out, reach out and touch someone ♪ - All right, here's our question. What discipline do you want to make a bigger part of your life this year, Bryan? - Well, yeah, I think as I kind of alluded to, that section on service really did hit me hard. Is there more ground to be covered? Is there more that I can be doing? And can I revisit what I'm doing and am I doing it for the right reason? Kind of like we talked about in that self-righteous service section. But he goes on to talk in their really practical section at the very end of that service chapter where he's talking about the ways we can serve. And so he talks about here that service is hidden. Can I serve in ways that are hidden? Yeah, I totally can. And I don't really place such emphasis on hidden service. Maybe I should. He talks about the service of small things as opposed to serving in big, giant ways. It's of course giving the cup of cold water to somebody. It's like all these little things I can be doing. He says the service of guarding the reputation of others. I love that. The service of being served is another cool one. It says the service of common courtesy, the service of hospitality, the service of listening, the service of bearing the burdens of each other. And then finally, the last one he says is the service of sharing the word of life with someone else. And I love all of these things. Thinking about different ways to serve may not be the obvious like out front visible kinds of ways that get a golden pat on the back or whatever it is, like we talk about all the time, like these service opportunities that I can really be focused on a lot more, there's so many opportunities to serve. And that is a great lesson that we get as Jesus climbs the Himalayas for us, going before us as we talked about from that last paragraph. He shows us in all the ways that we can serve. - I love in that section on the service of hospitality, this idea of telling someone as they're trying to serve you and hospitality, "Hey, Helen, I don't want any coffee. I don't want any tea. I don't want any cookies. I don't want a napkin. I just want to visit. Why don't you sit down and talk with us?" That chance to be together and share the stuff of hospitality. Learning, be a Mary instead of a Martha sometimes, not to hit Martha over the head again. She was doing great by serving, but we need to remember to just keep it simple. The discipline of simplicity of connecting with each other and going with that idea of the service of sharing the word of life with one another. I think evangelism is a discipline all in its own right. It's a spiritual discipline. And we've been talking about that here at North a lot this year. And that has me thinking a lot about openness and boldness and speaking up in uncomfortable ways and finding room to just speak up and share things and a strange connection, but I see a connection between that and confession. And just this idea of being willing to be open and speak up into a dangerous space or what might seem like, I don't know how this is gonna go, but I think I need to say it. We talked about that story about confession. That was gonna be one of my favorite things before I saw it show up in some other places 'cause that's so powerful. But I think that's someplace that I can take further steps. I just wanna create more space for myself and for others to live in that kind of openness. And there's certain contexts I've learned through the years where that kind of openness and conversation thrives and certain contexts where it doesn't. And you can create a big space for that. You can design it. Sometimes it's in the room or having people over or getting together with somebody in a particular kind of restaurant or something like that. But more than that, it's about the listening. It's about the way that you show up, the way I show up and am willing to reveal myself. It's not self-indulgent confession. It's trying to create greater fellowship. And if you're prayerfully intentional with that, if I'm, when I do that, it seems to create something and I think I can grow in that service is such a good one too, that you picked, I do feel like that's one that I've been focusing on more lately that I didn't realizing that I can go a lot further with that as well. That's like another one that deserves its own book. - It does, totally, yeah. But I love the thought that there are more steps we can all take, I think, even to just be more open and vulnerable and go through things that might be uncomfortable. I think that's what this whole book is about, actually, is just settling into being uncomfortable sometimes. And that's definitely a discipline in and of itself, maybe. - I like that, yeah, because when you come into, think about all the stories of people coming into God's presence. - Oh, yeah. - Think about Isaiah, in Isaiah six, that is called, think about Peter realizing who Jesus is catching the fish. And it's like, get away from me. I believe in you so much. I'm going to throw you out of this boat because I don't deserve to be near you. And I'm so uncomfortable with it. And the more we get close to God, the more we experience his love, but the more we see ourselves clearly also. And so we have more room to step out in those painful and yet nourishing ways. It's like I'm being healed. but this medicine stings a bit. - All right, so let's get into our final segment here on the episode and that is our challenge for this week. - I am ready to face any challenges that might be foolish enough to face me. - Okay, so last week we said to read and reflect on the disciplines. This week our challenge is to choose one of these spiritual disciplines and get to work, trying to grow in that spiritual discipline. So maybe you haven't ever tried fasting before and there's something in your life that you really want to bring before God and you want to spend some time, maybe a day fasting or you'd like to spend some time on your ride home and your ride to work every day, meditating on a particular verse, whatever it is, whichever of these disciplines, pick one and put it into place. It's all nice to talk about, but these are meant to be practiced. I love how this series of challenges to think about it, reflect on it, and then this week to do it. I think it really fits the structure of this book. Every chapter started out with the thinking and the reasoning and the meditation and cogitation and everything else. And then it just all boiled down to the doing it. And I think that's really what this is focused on. And again, the list of spiritual disciplines that we've been talking about are meditation, prayer, fasting, study, simplicity, solitude, submission, service, confession, worship, guidance, and celebration. It's a big list. And of course, it's not an exhaustive list. There's a lot of other things that we could put in there. But that is our challenge for this week. So thanks everyone for tuning in to the Bible Geeks Podcast. Next week, Lord willing, we will be talking about our Bible bracket that is about to conclude. And next week, we're going to get into a conversation all about the results and the winners of our favorite figures of faith. Definitely looking forward to that episode. It's going to be pretty cool. Yeah. And many of those people, practicers of disciplines such as these we've talked about it all connect. It's all a big circle. It's the Bible bracket, spiritual discipline. And Esther, one of the great pastors in the Old Testament. Anyway, thanks so much everyone for tuning in to the Bible Geeks podcast. You can find us on our website at BibleGeeks.fm. You can find show notes for for this episode of your podcast Player of Joyce or at BibleGeeks.fm/172. Appreciate all of your attention and the great participation that you have in these episodes. If you wanna reach out to us, if you have any questions, you want us to cover another book or a different book, next time on another Bible Geeks Book Club segment, please reach out to us on social media or on our website at BibleGeeks.fm/contact. Until next week, everyone may the Lord bless you and keep you. Shalom. [music]