November 16, 2015 Podcast

Show open and pope-style previews

Produced opening-music voiceover intro (Pants, Ben-verified), then Ben (Ben-verified show-start convention) opens the live show with studio banter — Mike has his foot up on the desk, Boova wears Tom Cruise-style glasses — and previews the night's ‘pope style’ advice bit: if someone mistook you for the pope, what bit of life wisdom would you give to get them off your lawn? Mike previews a Disney World story about whimsy; Andrew previews feeling useless to the kingdom.

Processing the Paris attacks

• How should Christians react to the Paris attacks with both honesty and compassion?

A host explains he has spent the weekend unsatisfied with the shallow takes on the Friday-night Paris bombings and the Syrian-refugee fallout: people speak authoritatively on a tiny slice of the pie and then bail, and he wants the show to attempt the fuller, gray-embracing conversation instead.

Mike’s pope style: Jesus should have the monopoly on whimsy

Mike (addressed by name in the audio) gives his pope-style advice from a family Disney World trip: Disney sells whimsy with total operational excellence, and Christians have boxed God out of wonder — so treat ‘coincidences’ as God’s bigger hand at work. The hosts extend the point: Disney’s attention to the end-user’s experience mirrors how God designed the world, and mercy ministry should be tailor-made love for a person’s actual need, not box-checking commodities — love reveals Jesus; a checked box does not.

Andrew Carson’s pope style: useless to the kingdom

• Is fearing being seen as useless by people — but not by God — the right reaction?

Andrew Carson (addressed by name in the audio) tells how, after admitting his greatest fear is being seen as useless by other people, he sensed God asking why he does not fear being seen as useless by God — picturing himself handing God a pile of ashes at the refining fire. He responded by inviting a coworker to church, then lost him in the apartment complex for lack of a phone number. The hosts land on: works are not for salvation but because of it; most people who ‘do nothing’ for God never made the Bible.

Syrian refugees, Paris, and the gray: loving your neighbor vs. protecting your neighbor

• Should Christians support admitting Syrian refugees despite the security risk?

The hosts work through the Paris aftermath at length: frustration with one-sided social-media takes (the ‘don’t jump to conclusions’ crowd gone silent once conclusions arrived; ‘compassion’ posts that ignore the other side), whether Christians owe refugees entry, and how the kingdom of God (no borders, but defined conduct) differs from the kingdom of America. They argue it is integrity — not bigotry — to name the consistent belief system behind the attacks, and that demonizing caution as hatred is itself disingenuous; one host cites Matthew 26 as the verse people weaponize, another notes the Pearl Harbor Memorial film’s care in saying ‘the radicals in Japan’ rather than blaming Japan.

Why Paris and not everywhere else: the France-flag bandwagon

After the break the hosts take up selective compassion: the flood of French-flag profile pictures while daily atrocities elsewhere — beheadings on beaches, Christians burned alive, schoolgirls stolen from villages in South Africa, an airliner shot out of the sky with no Russian flags — draw silence, because Paris ‘looks like us.’ They agree the reaction to France is not the problem; the lack of reaction to everything else is. The segment closes by tying back to whimsy: the one unshallow thing to post is that Jesus is the answer for victims and perpetrators alike.

Next week teaser: Jesus Calling and whether God speaks today

• Does God speak to individuals today, and should writings like ‘Jesus Calling’ be held at the level of Scripture?

A host previews next week’s topic: an article about ‘Jesus Calling,’ the book by a woman who wrote down what she believed God told her — does God speak to individuals that way, and if so why is it not held at the level of Scripture?

Dear LFTP: wife of a strip-club bouncer

• What should the wife of a strip-club bouncer do about his late-night calls with dancers?

A reader asks what to do about her strip-club-bouncer husband making friends with dancers and taking late-night calls when she is asleep. The hosts say her real objection should be the job itself, not the late-night coworker calls; she is told to have the direct conversation asking him to quit. The ‘secular answer’ quibbles over who initiated the calls and suggests asking him to take them before work instead.

Dear LFTP: Arlene and the 30-year holiday-dinner standoff

• How should the reader respond to Arlene’s holiday-dinner ultimatums after 30 years?

A reader is exhausted after 30 years of her sister-in-law Arlene boycotting joint holiday dinners whenever her husband’s family attends. The hosts advise: invite her warmly, stop pandering, and answer her ultimatum texts with ‘they’ll be there — see you or we won’t.’ The exchange sparks a running clash over ‘radical compassion’ — whether loving Arlene means cooking her a second Christmas — and the secular answer is to text ‘sorry you can’t make it’ with a smiley emoji.

Dear LFTP: the secret 14-year marriage

• How should a woman handle reintroducing a secretly-married-for-14-years husband in a small town?

After transitional banter about what ‘offering a home’ to refugees can realistically mean (a spare room, not an apartment in Pakistan — ‘turkeys are cheaper than apartments’), the reader’s letter is read: she secretly married a man 14 years ago, lost contact for years, and wants him back in a small town. The hosts mostly roast the premise — including whether the man knows he is married — and the secular answer says: if you never divorced, introduce him as your husband.

Sign-off

The hosts thank listeners, give the feedback email info@livefromthepath.org, tease upcoming interviews, and close with the sign-off: ‘be faithful in the means; God will handle the ends.’