Trust But Verify

Show open, Job cold open, and docket

• Do you trust other Christians to introduce people to Jesus?
• Is the book of Job factual history or a parable?

Ben opens from the Pathway Studios in Johnston proper and sets the docket: the first question is whether you trust other Christians, then advice on Dear LFTP. The cold open is a spontaneous debate — Mike asks whether the book of Job is factual or a parable; Ben says he defaults to literal truth until convinced otherwise, noting Jesus treats Job and Jonah as facts, while Mike counters that nobody could have written down the heaven scenes. Description uses no unattributed names.

Day-after-the-rodeo banter and the sliding-glove comedy bit

The room riffs on the day after the rodeo, Old Frank calling rodeos at Knoxville, and how much safety gear riders wear now — segueing into a comedy bit about modern baseball sliding gloves that look like oven mitts. Dawson asks whether the sliding glove existed when "Bo" played; Mike and Ben pile on with first-base-coach glove-swap stories.

Do you trust other Christians? Mike's concern about Jesus-plus churches

Ben frames the question: when someone wants to learn about Jesus, do you trust the other churches around you to introduce them faithfully? Mike says his instinct is mistrust — not denominational, but about churches that lead with their "plus" (politics, style wars, electric guitars) so people become churchgoers instead of meeting Jesus. He tells of directing someone to a church where their known sin got beaten up from the pulpit: the aftermath felt like hate, not love. He wonders whether the mistrust is arrogance or a misunderstanding of God's providence.

Ben: preferences versus the main thing — go meet them

Ben answers Mike with two self-checks. First: is your mistrust about preferences or about people getting Jesus wrong? A church that sings three songs for fifty years but introduces people to Jesus is not a mistrust problem. Second: do you know enough to mistrust? Distrust of strangers is healthy, but the remedy is to go meet the pastors — he describes visiting the Greek Orthodox festival downtown, learning the architecture is a microcosm of heaven and earth, and realizing his first read was wrong. He lands it: it's not arrogance, it's familiarity — he trusts that Mike is humbly pursuing Jesus, and that will come through. If someone wants to talk to Mike about Jesus, Ben says, that is great — they will meet Jesus there.

Mike: brand-selling churches and person-to-person introduction

Mike says he has few real denominational hang-ups — he doesn't care if someone becomes Methodist, as long as they meet Jesus. His fear is churches selling their brand: he and his wife church-shopped and were recruited for committees before the sermon started. He wants people introduced to Jesus, not to church attendance — the community stuff God sorts out later. He warns about Christianity done poorly: painting sin while never introducing the redeemer.

Dawson's question: what to watch for in a new church

• What should you pay attention to when stepping into a church community for the first time?

Dawson, a third in-studio voice, asks what to pay attention to when stepping into a church you've never visited. Ben's answer: the key question is whether Jesus is obviously the main thing — a community whose full identity is in him. He counsels generosity over feelings: foreign things might be right-hearted, amenities and nice music are fine as long as they point to Jesus. He closes with an anecdote about a worship leader, Andrew Peters, who dismissed a traveling singer as "a minstrel" — fine to have a flavor, as long as Jesus stays first.

Mike: personal discipleship; the Pentecost defense

Mike argues for personal, one-on-one discipleship over the church event as the conversion engine: you talk to a person differently than to a room of 200 believers, and "church is for Christians; Christians are for the world." Anticipating the Pentecost objection, Ben supplies the defense — Pentecost was a gathering of Christians. Mike adds that a curious outsider should get the normal Christian gathering, not a separate show: like the Ethiopian eunuch, God sends a person to explain.

Don't make the event do it — the family-dinner analogy

Ben extends the point: don't try to make magic happen in the 90-minute service — he skewers pastors advertising sermon topics like event listings ("we're digging into Deuteronomy"), arguing nobody off the street is drawn by that; people are drawn by the Holy Spirit in you. Mike offers the family-dinner analogy: the dinner runs the same with a guest present — the guest may love the family without yet being family. Ben closes the thread with the Ethiopian eunuch: when someone reads what they don't understand, God sends a person to explain.

Mike and Ben: light into darkness; churches don't make disciples

Mike says advertising a "light festival" every Sunday mostly attracts other lights — light pushes into darkness by going down into it through relationships, and introducing someone to Jesus changes your own faith. Ben reinforces: churches don't make disciples, systems don't make disciples — Jesus makes disciples who make disciples. He recalls seeing a church cross on a hill and thinking of 1700s travelers reading it as "people of peace are here."

Dawson's buddy; Mike on God not repeating himself; the fasting test

Dawson prays not to miss disciple-making opportunities and confesses trying to coerce a struggling friend into his own conversion pattern. Mike responds that God rarely repeats himself — he has patterns and unchanging character, but "not two people cross the Red Sea on dry land." He offers a measurement: if the only fasting you've ever done is because your church was doing it, reconsider whether you're following Jesus on your own — the marks of a disciple show up in a cave, alone.

Ben: drop the liability — follow Jesus in a cave

Ben says following Jesus shouldn't require being smart, social, or well-dressed: strip away every religious expectation and you can still follow him faithfully. He imagines God telling him, "Ben, you never read another book — you get the scriptures; in fact I'm taking the scriptures away" — and answers that yes, he could still follow. The core is small; the rest is optional.

Mike: raise disciples who can follow without you

Mike compares discipleship to raising kids: the goal is that they live without you. A community of Jesus-followers only works if each person follows independently — otherwise you get "a bunch of arms and heads" and nobody being the leg. You can't contribute to a community unless you're following Jesus apart from it, and you're the one introducing others to him.

Ben's summary: unfamiliarity, discernment, fishers of men

Ben sums up: his gut hesitance toward other Christians is, at its kindest, unfamiliarity — which is rectifiable by getting to know people. Caution about how Jesus is represented is legitimate; most of the New Testament after the Gospels is about discernment. The prescription is Jesus' own: "come follow me, I will make you fishers of men," and Paul's "follow me as I follow Christ" — invite people into your life and let them see Jesus through your attempt to humbly follow him. He plugs the complaint line, (515) 517-0085.

Dear LFTP 1: the fiance who impulse-bought Butch the dog

• Dear LFTP: my fiance impulse-bought a dog I did not want, and I resent him — what do I do?

Mike reads the first letter: a woman's fiance talked her into "just looking" at puppies, then put money on the counter over her objections — now they have Butch, an active breed neither has time for, and she resents him. The room agrees the purchase was deceitful and intentional. Ben's counsel: there's no magic answer — either keep the dog knowing the man won't change, or rehome him; but the deeper issue is trustworthiness, and he suggests not walking into fifty years with a man who won't recognize what he's done. Dawson's advice: keep the dog if you can manage it. Mike's Secular answer is read, closing with "tell him to put it back." A running joke about naming a fish "Carl" weaves through.

Dear LFTP 2: the neighbors' piling newspapers

• Dear LFTP: at what point can we pick up our out-of-town neighbors' piling newspapers and recycle them?

Mike reads the second letter: new neighbors have been out of town for weeks and their newspapers are piling up — at what point may the writer recycle them? The room's verdict: right now — you know the house, you know they're gone; either ignore them, bag them, or dump them, maybe with a pre-apology to the doorbell camera. Mike adds the prowler angle: stacked papers advertise an empty house, so the neighborly move is getting them off the porch. The Secular answer agrees: pick them up and save them rather than disposing of them.

Outro: big-Bible apology, altar-server story, podcast picks

• Which Jesus-related podcasts do you listen to?

Wrapping up, Ben apologizes on-air for saying "big ass Bible" earlier and proposes the hashtag #bigassbible. Dawson reveals he was an altar server in the Catholic church who had to hold the big Bible while the priest prayed — "I'm just standing there" — and Mike recalls Twigg Bossa holding up his giant Bible. Mike then fields a listener question about Jesus-related podcasts: Ben names the Bible Project, the Ask N. T. Wright Anything podcast, and Michael Heiser's Naked Bible podcast ("The Unseen Realm"); Dawson picks the Bryce Crawford podcast for its testimonies; Mike adds Wes Huff via Apologetics Canada, and mentions he listens to With the Perrys (Jackie Hill Perry and Preston Perry). Ben closes with the outro catchphrase: be faithful in the means, God will handle the ends.