Vancepocalypse Now (and Paul's Spiritual Gifts)

This week we're taking issue with a Vice President! JD Vance recently sat down with a very young podcaster to discuss his lifelong fascination with end-times prophecy, his suspicion that the Antichrist may already be walking among us, and his willingness to shrug if doing "God's work" happens to bring on the eschaton — so, after being fairly fair to him, we're looking at what his newly adopted church actually teaches about hastening the end, what Matthew 24 was really promising and to whom, and why every flood and drought now arrives with a prophecy hot take attached. Then, at a listener's request, it's the gifts of the Spirit: what Paul was actually arguing back in 1 Corinthians 12, why the list works nothing like leveling up in D&D, and whether celibacy (or its opposite) counts as a charisma. Support Data Over Dogma and get every episode early and ad-free, plus exclusive bonus content — become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/DataOverDogma Get your Data Over Dogma merch at our online store: https://data-over-dogma-shop.fourthwall.com/ Watch every episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dataoverdogma Follow us: Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/dataoverdogmapod TikTok — https://www.tiktok.com/@data.over.dogma.pod Threads — https://www.threads.com/@dataoverdogmapod X — https://x.com/data_over_dogma Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/DataOverDogmaPod Get Dan McClellan's New York Times bestselling book, The Bible Says So: https://static.macmillan.com/static/smp/bible-says-so-9781250347466/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

• 0:00Speaker 00

  You know, Dan, I've been traveling lately. I know you've done a lot of traveling lately. We are both avid travelers and the job depends on us traveling sometimes as well. And one of the things about travel is that you do not get to have your own bed.

• 0:17Speaker 01

  Lamentably, no.

• 0:18Speaker 00

  So you're sort of at the whims of the bedding gods when you go out into the world. And then you get to come home to your Brooklyn bedding mattress. And that is a glorious time because regardless of what your particular bedding needs are, because you and I, Dan, have opposite sides of the spectrum. You like the firm. I like the soft. They've got something for all of us. And you're going to get the best night's sleep you can possibly get.

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• 1:26Speaker 00

  You're going California, baby.

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• 2:33Speaker 02

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• 3:08Speaker 00

  The spiritual gift of sexiness.

• 3:10Speaker 01

  If you've seen Magic Mike, where one of the guys is too gifted to the degree that it's a problem.

• 3:19Speaker 00

  Okay, I'm surprised at your familiarity with the Magic Mike franchise.

• 3:23Speaker 01

  I have, I have approximate knowledge of many things.

• 3:31Speaker 01

  Hey everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

• 3:33Speaker 00

  And I'm Dan Beecher.

• 3:34Speaker 01

  And this is Data Over Dogma, where we increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion. And we combat the spread of misinformation about the same. And I hope you got your combat boots on and I hope you're ready for, to hear some good morning Vietnam, Da Nang me, Da Nang me. Where I don't know, but anyway.

• 3:55Speaker 00

  We got our full battle rattle on today because we are, we're going after a marine. I don't know if you realize this, but we are going after a marine. I do want to first, okay, I just remembered it. So I'm going to put it out there.

• 4:10Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 4:11Speaker 00

  Because you and I are trying to push our, our membership on our YouTube channel. And for anyone listening or viewing, you can, you can check out membership in the Tribe of Dan on the YouTube channel. You get access to all of our videos a day early and exclusive access to, you know, live YouTube, live streams and stuff. And we're doing one of those live.

• 4:38Speaker 01

  Coming up. Yeah.

• 4:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's right. So on October 27th, there's going to be a live.

• 4:42Speaker 01

  September 27?

• 4:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, whatever. Well, I, one of the months, this month, so yes, September 27th, we'll be doing a live for our members. Just getting that out there. Let's get on with the show. We, we are going to be going after one Mr. JD Vance. I don't know if you've heard of him. You might've done.

• 5:08Speaker 01

  John Dominic Vance or is it John Dorian?

• 5:12Speaker 00

  I don't think JD stands for anything. I think it's just, no, I'm just kidding. JD Vance, he, he went on a child's podcast. I don't know who this kid was. I do, I literally, I, I'm guessing he has a bigger following than we do. If he, if he bagged, if he's bagging.

• 5:31Speaker 01

  I've responded to a couple of his videos in the past.

• 5:34Speaker 00

  Anyway, yeah, there's a kid who has a podcast that's doing better than ours. And he, and he had JD Vance on and, and Vance said some stuff about end times and, and was reasonably cavalier about causing them. So I thought that that was interesting. We'll be talking about that. We'll be taking issue with that.

• 5:56Speaker 01

  Although we're also going to qualify to some degree, the issue we are taking.

• 6:00Speaker 00

  We, we will have.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  We're going to be fair. We're going to have to be fair.

• 6:05Speaker 00

  I don't want to be fair.

• 6:07Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 6:07Speaker 00

  To brother Vance, but we're gonna, we're gonna. And then in this, in the latter portion of the show, we're going to do a what's that? It is, we got an email from a listener about, and I thought it was a great idea for, for a show. And that is the, the gifts of the spirit. So that one, that entire section, we will be doing in tongues. So here's hoping that you understand us.

• 6:36Speaker 01

  Así que si no hablas español, tienes como 30 minutos para aprender.

• 6:43Speaker 00

  Und mein Deutsch ist nicht gut, aber wir gehen also.

• 6:50Speaker 00

  All right. So let's just dive in here with taking issue.

• 6:58Speaker 00

  All right. Brother Vance goes on this other podcast and.

• 7:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, I think the guy's name is Bryce Crawford.

• 7:06Speaker 00

  Yeah. Like, I think that's right.

• 7:09Speaker 01

  Definitely the name somebody in their twenties has.

• 7:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:13Speaker 01

  But yeah.

• 7:14Speaker 00

  And, and the kid decided to put on a tie for this interview, which I thought was respectful because the rest of his channel does not see him in a tie though. Yeah. Anyway, I won't, I'm not going to go after the kid. He's, he is whatever he is. But JD Vance, at one point, started talking about being fascinated by end times prophecy and theology. And, and just saying, he mentioned that the first Bible that he ever got was the John Hagee Prophecy Study Bible. I don't know if you've dived into that piece of work.

• 7:54Speaker 01

  That's a piece of literature that is in my TBR pile, which is entirely a lie. I will never even look at it, but.

• 8:04Speaker 00

  TBR stands for to be rejected.

• 8:08Speaker 01

  Yes, to be recycled. Yes. No, I have, I have no intention of looking at a John Hagee prophecy study Bible. But yeah, he seemed to be, he seemed to, to the, the idea of the Antichrist seemed to have gained some purchase in his conscience, starting at a fairly young age. And didn't he, didn't he say something along the lines of he, he wouldn't be surprised if the Antichrist were already walking among us or something spooky like that. But, but he also, and as you pointed out, when we were talking about doing this segment, to be fair, qualified an awful lot of this.

• 8:46Speaker 00

  Well, which was actually refreshing and I'm mad that you made me like, watch a thing where I was like, yeah, but now we've got to be fair to Vance because he doesn't say the thing that a lot of Christians, that we hear a lot of Christians say. Maybe it's the Catholic thing. Maybe him converting to Catholicism.

• 9:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:09Speaker 00

  Like sort of took it down a notch or two for him.

• 9:12Speaker 01

  But, but I, but I think at the same time, it kind of shows that he's, I don't think he's fully, I don't think he's fully aware of or fully invested in what Catholicism is, is really, Catholicism's relationship to end times, the eschaton. Because they actually have a, a pretty clear prohibition on trying to escalate, to catalyze the end times. And there's, and there's even, I think there's a catechism. And, and folks who are Catholic or know the catechism a lot better than me are going to know this far better than I do. But, but I thought there was a catechism that said something along the lines of,

• 9:54Speaker 01

  we should never allow our anticipation of the end times get in the way of trying to make the world we live in now a better place.

• 10:04Speaker 00

  Right.

• 10:04Speaker 01

  Which, which kind of says you have a priority.

• 10:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:08Speaker 01

  And it is, it is making the world a better.

• 10:09Speaker 00

  And I think that that is a very useful thing to have because as we have seen, and as we are going to talk about, there are people who don't view it that way. Now, oh yeah, Vance, in this interview did say, do I think that we're in the end times? This is a quote, "I don't know. And I think it's probably bad for me spiritually to focus too much on it." I have to give him credit for that. Uh, yeah, that would be a bad thing to, for the leader of, or one of the leaders of our country to focus on.

• 10:43Speaker 01

  Unfortunately, there are a lot of other leaders in our country at various levels who are heavily focused on it.

• 10:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:50Speaker 01

  And are, are even, it seems giddy about it.

• 10:55Speaker 00

  Yeah. It feels like that's a Hegseth sort of territory right there, but we haven't heard him say it. So I can't, don't quote me on that.

• 11:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I, we, we recently had the, the flooding in Nepal, which was just a.

• 11:12Speaker 01

  Just bonkers weatherish climate events where you had melting snow and a glacier collapsed.

• 11:20Speaker 00

  Right.

• 11:21Speaker 01

  And fell like a kilometer into a very narrow, steep valley and just sent hundreds of millions of gallons, tons of debris and stuff.

• 11:35Speaker 00

  And water.

• 11:36Speaker 01

  Just scraping a bunch of habitations just right off the.

• 11:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, it was devastating. I've seen, you know, I'm used to seeing flash flood footage because it happens here all the time because we live in a desert with lots of canyons and, you know, water feeds water and whatever, but that's, that's nothing like anything we've ever.

• 11:56Speaker 01

  It was apocalyptic. Yeah.

• 11:58Speaker 00

  It was devastating and horrifying.

• 12:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, um, but I, I saw videos, people were making videos like, it's the end times. This is it, people. We gotta make sure we're right with Jesus. I was like, hey, don't exploit that kind of horrific tragedy for some clicks and some digital pats on the butt. Uh, like, and, and like, this is, climate change is definitely involved in, in what happened here. It might not have been the proximate cause, but it was definitely a factor in this happening. And so this is not.

• 12:32Speaker 00

  Well, have been the proximate cause at this point.

• 12:35Speaker 01

  It could have been. Yeah. Who knows? Um, but you know, at this point, it's not that Jesus is making things worse, uh, because he's about to return. We're making things worse because we are refusing to take these things seriously.

• 12:49Speaker 00

  Right.

• 12:49Speaker 01

  And, and so this is, this is really on us, but, but I've seen a lot of, of that kind of stuff of you guys need to be paying attention because Jesus is coming.

• 12:59Speaker 00

  And this, of course, this happens with every major world, you know, every time there's a major earthquake somewhere and unfortunate, and really unfortunately, we live in the convergence of a few things that make this much worse. A, everybody's got a camera. So everything is being videotaped. So we're, we're, we're faced with the visuals of it. It's not just, we're not just reading about it in our newspaper. And if you didn't read the paper, you don't even know.

• 13:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 13:31Speaker 00

  We're seeing videos come in from all over the place of everything. If there's, you know, if there's an earthquake in Nicaragua, if there's a whatever over here or over there, we're seeing it. And at the same time, as you say, uh, global warming is happening. You know what I mean? Climate change is real. And so we're, we're actually causing a bunch of major like catastrophic weather phenomena as well.

• 13:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. And now we've got, we've got three hurricanes making their way across the Pacific Ocean, uh, because of El Nino and, uh, which as, as we learned from Chris Farley, uh, a long time ago means the Nino.

• 14:09Speaker 00

  It is Spanish for the Nino. It's.

• 14:11Speaker 01

  Yes. Um, and, uh, and you know, we're all on social, not all of us. A lot of us are on social media and the algo daddy is feeding us all the stuff that, that, you know, we pause on.

• 14:23Speaker 00

  Right.

• 14:23Speaker 01

  And so we're, we're being made to feel like there's an increase in the occurrence of, of these kinds of things.

• 14:30Speaker 00

  And less people think, I do want to say, lest people think that we're just talking about like a few crackpots going, ah, it's the end times. No, no, like, uh, Adventist Angels Watchman Radio. I don't know. That's a, that's a website. They had an article called prophetic news analysis, Nepal's devastating flood wave, a call to prepare. And, um, you know, there's a group called Rapture Ready, uh, that's a long running prophecy website. And there, they had a thing called, uh, yeah, they, they, they talked about the Nepal death toll rising and, and basically it, you know, they, they're seeing it as a, as something to, uh, as a sign.

• 15:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. And you know, if you, what was it? 2021, 2022, the Euphrates River water levels are getting incredibly low. And so you had all these

• 15:27Speaker 01

  uh, misinformed people, maybe is, is how I'll say it. Uh, talking about how this is all in the book of revelation that the great river will dry up and make way for the armies of the east. And when the river dries up, the four angels that are trapped or that are imprisoned underneath the Euphrates River will be freed to go destroy one third of humanity. And, and oh my gosh, and people are like giddy about it. The people on social media are making a lot of hay off of freaking people out about horrifying natural disasters and climate emergencies that are taking lives on the other side of the planet, about whom

• 16:09Speaker 01

  the people who are spreading this stuff could not care less.

• 16:13Speaker 00

  Right.

• 16:14Speaker 01

  And, and unfortunately so much of it has to do with a, a, a human own goal. The, uh, the, the self inflicted wound of, of anthropogenic, uh, climate change. But yeah, uh, JD Vance, big on the John Hagee prophecy study Bible, uh, big into eschatology. He converted to Catholicism not too long ago, right?

• 16:39Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 16:40Speaker 01

  Just a handful of years ago. And, but it still seems to have brought with him a lot of his evangelical eschatological outlook, but is trying to, it sounds like he's trying to temper it.

• 16:51Speaker 00

  Right.

• 16:52Speaker 01

  By saying, well.

• 16:53Speaker 00

  One doesn't know if that's because he's a politician or because he's now a Catholic or, you know, one doesn't know how too much to attribute that. But there's one thing that I wanted to bring up that surprised me a little bit as I was sort of looking at those different articles and, and researching this because you mentioned, uh, revelation as being a play. And that's generally where my mind goes to when people start talking about end times and whatever. But then I kept seeing Matthew 24 come up. And I think that that's actually pretty interesting because I hadn't realized that in the gospels themselves, there's also stuff that's, uh, that's interesting. Now, uh, you know, it's, it's talking about

• 17:37Speaker 00

  signed of, you know, the sort of end times.

• 17:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:41Speaker 00

  Kind of thing that the signs of the age, the end of the age.

• 17:47Speaker 00

  And it's, you know, it's Jesus talking and saying, uh, you know, when he'll come back essentially.

• 17:54Speaker 01

  Right. Second coming.

• 17:55Speaker 00

  And, and he says, uh, you know, and he talks about persecutions and he talks about lawlessness. And then he talks and, but he does talk about, he sort of, he quotes Daniel, I guess. Uh, and, and says, so when you see the desolating sacrilege spoken of by the prophet Daniel standing in the holy place, uh, let your reader understand then those in Judea must flee to the mountains. The one on the house tops must, uh, house top must not go down to take things from the house, blah, blah, blah.

• 18:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:32Speaker 00

  And I just, but then, you know, it, it does have a whole bunch of, uh, of stuff about when the son of man is coming, they, you know, it says, uh, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light. The stars will fall from the heaven and the powers of heaven, uh, will be shaken.

• 18:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 18:53Speaker 00

  And I think that that is, you know, I think, I think they're quoting from, uh, from Ghostbusters in that part, but.

• 19:04Speaker 01

  Or Ghostbusters could be kind of riffing on the Bible, but, uh, yeah, that's, that is.

• 19:12Speaker 01

  You have that in like Joel and Isaiah and Ezekiel and stuff like that. So yeah, it's kind of a common motif.

• 19:18Speaker 00

  Right. Uh, and I think that's what, but this is what they're looking for, right? These are the, this is the things that they, that, that these people like JD Vance are looking for and, and sort of delighting in because the, the, the end goal for a lot of the, the end times people, for a lot of the, the, the people who are focused on the rapture or the eschaton or whatever are, they're kind of, you know, they want Jesus to, the second coming to occur. And that's understandable. That's kind of the main event of, of, uh, the Bible, I guess, of, at least of the new testament.

• 20:03Speaker 00

  So it makes a logical sense. There's a certain sense that it makes to say, I want that to happen as quickly as possible. It's been 2000 years. We, I want it to happen. How do we, what do we do to make it happen? And then, and that leads people down some very dark roads.

• 20:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:26Speaker 00

  Some very scary roads.

• 20:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:33Speaker 01

  So Dan, you've heard me talk ad nauseam about the fact that we've got construction going on at the house. We are-

• 20:39Speaker 00

  I've heard the construction.

• 20:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, you heard the construction too. We're finishing our basement. We're actually adding on to the house. We're doing some stuff in the backyard. And I was thinking the other day about how nice it was to be able to do this because we, I wanted to get a new car and I wanted to do these, these improvements to the house, but we had to pay off our old car and that took actual planning, which you know I hate. And so I really had to shift my thinking quite a bit when it came to my finances and we had to set dates and we had to create a budget and it was so satisfying to actually make a plan. And then even though it took some discipline

• 21:24Speaker 01

  and there were some bumps in the road, we actually succeeded and were able to pay off a car, got a brand new car. And it feels so relieving to know that if we actually set these goals and plan for them and stick to them, it goes from, oh, this will never end, actually feeling like you have control over stuff. And that has made a huge difference to me and to my family.

• 21:49Speaker 00

  Well, you know, you can try to do that on your own, or you can use a phenomenally useful tool like Monarch to do something like that. Monarch is set up exactly for that kind of financial planning. They have things like their debt pay down simulator and visualizer to help you track your progress, which I, this is brilliant. The fact of the matter is that all of these concepts are so ethereal, it's hard to sort of wrap your head around it a lot of the time. And with this visualizer, you can see how that debt is going to go down. You can actually simulate your freedom occurring in front of your very eyes. And I think that

• 22:32Speaker 00

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• 23:06Speaker 01

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• 23:22Speaker 04

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• 23:55Speaker 01

  I think it's important to note that the, when we look at the Olivet discourse, when we look at Matthew 24, when we look at what Jesus was supposed to have been prophesying, it's a lot of imagery drawn from the Hebrew Bible. And it seems pretty clear to me, and particularly in Matthew, there's an argument to make about Mark, but it seems pretty clear to me that at least in Matthew, it should have happened in the first century. That's the, the, Jesus is prophesying that his second coming would happen while the people he was talking to were still alive, at least some of them.

• 24:30Speaker 00

  Right.

• 24:31Speaker 01

  And, you know, the, the Gospel of Matthew is probably written between 80 and 90 CE, somewhere around there. And so that's, that's a handful of decades after Jesus's death. And so it would be kind of like, hey, we're on the, you know, we're on the back nine, definitely of this. We are walking off the green of 18. So yeah, it's coming. Yeah. And, and that any minute now position is, is kind of ebbed and flowed over the centuries. There have been times when people were like, nah. And then today, it's definitely, we're back into the, ooh, it's coming, any minute now. And-

• 25:11Speaker 00

  I mean, it's pretty amazing how long any minute now can last.

• 25:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. And, and we have, unfortunately, you talked about a convergence of, of a bunch of different things. The rise of Christian nationalism, I think, is, is kind of feeding into that evangelical fervor because Christian nationalism has got its hooks most deeply into American evangelicalism. And that is the movement that I think has the most influence today on, on Trumpism, which has been kind of the way things have been going for the last decade since we heard the president boast about getting away with sexually assaulting

• 25:56Speaker 01

  women because of his celebrities. For some reason, this is the era that we still are in. But the, I think the Christian nationalism has only gotten more fervent. And unfortunately, it is just dialed up the millennial expectations to 11. And to the degree that even this ostensible Catholic is, is talking about this where, and, and the, the quote that I don't think that we've gotten to yet, but that was, was what made me, made me first go, excuse me? Baking powder? When, when I ran across it on, on social media? And I think I have lost

• 26:39Speaker 01

  the exact quote, but do you have the exact quote here?

• 26:43Speaker 00

  Um, I, I've been looking. It is-

• 26:47Speaker 01

  We probably should have had that queued up, but I thought I just had it. And now, yeah, he thinks end times are coming, that he wouldn't be surprised if the Antichrist was walking among us. He says he's, he puts his odds at getting into heaven at 75%. But he also says that he's gonna, he's focused on doing the work, doing God's work. And if that brings about the end times, he's okay with that.

• 27:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, that was, that was it. I finally found it just as you were saying it. So yes, that is pretty shocking. Yeah. I mean, it's, I, again, I understand that sentiment from the perspective of, you know, if, if that is, if you believe that Jesus is coming and that that is inevitable, and that that is what brings about the glory of the world at some point or whatever, if you believe that Revelation was talking about something literal or whatever, then yeah, you want it to happen. Like, yeah, we, you were promised

• 27:59Speaker 00

  a second coming. When is it happening? But the thought that he's saying, if my actions, me, lead to the end times, the thought that that's even in his head, that he could take actions that lead to the end times, is shocking and very scary.

• 28:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is, is rather disturbing.

• 28:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:28Speaker 01

  And, and the whole thing, like, a lot of the folks who are so excited about this are folks who are promoting ideologies and policymaking and things like that, that are directly responsible for causing more inequity, more instability, for causing a lot of socioeconomic problems, a lot of geopolitical problems. The war in Iran, the dumbest war, and a long string of dumb wars.

• 28:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:59Speaker 01

  That we, if we will be lucky to call this war a wash, we will be lucky to just get back to the, the way things were before we started the war.

• 29:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:13Speaker 01

  And that's just ignoring the lives and the money and, and the harm to the economy. We will be lucky to get back to the point where we were when Donald Trump decided to start a war. But a lot of people think Iran is a major player in what's going to happen.

• 29:30Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. They do talk about that all the time.

• 29:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it's Iran, it's Russia, it's China. Because the prophecies in Ezekiel that are about entirely different people groups occupying entirely different territories obviously has to correlate to some political entity that exists today. And so that's got a lot of people excited as well, but-

• 29:56Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, so in fairness to, to Vance, I am going to finish the quote. Because he says, he says, he says, what I'm trying to, as you said, what I'm trying to focus on is doing as much of God's work as possible right now. And if that leads to the end times, okay. And if that leads to, you know, us building a better world that thrives and survives for a very long time after I'm gone, that's great too. Now, A, and then he goes on to say, the end times may be coming. In fact, they are coming. It's just a question of whether they're coming in thousands of years or down the, thousands of years down the road, or

• 30:38Speaker 00

  a few months down the road. I, here's the thing. The other, the other thing that bothers, I mean, we've kind of made all the points about the end time stuff and how scary that is. But one of the points that bothers me is that he thinks he's supposed to be doing God's work, as opposed to the work of the, the American people, which is what his job is.

• 31:00Speaker 01

  Which he's also not doing. Really, what he's doing is, is the work of the person who we all heard boast about getting away with sexually assaulting women because of his celebrity.

• 31:13Speaker 00

  Oh, not just him. I think, I think he's on a pretty short Peter Thiel leash as well, but that's-

• 31:21Speaker 00

  He's not serving who the electorate, I think. I think that's not his primary goal.

• 31:28Speaker 01

  So I just wanted to read this from Pope John Paul VI on December 7th, 1965. A very long, this is chapter three and a very long text. But this paragraph says, "Therefore, while we are warned that it profits a man nothing if he gain the whole world and lose himself, the expectation of a new earth must not weaken, but rather stimulate our concern for cultivating this one. For here grows the body of a new human family, a body which even now is able to give some kind of foreshadowing of the new age. Hence, while earthly progress must be carefully distinguished from the growth of Christ's kingdom, to the extent that the former can contribute to the better ordering of human society, it

• 32:13Speaker 01

  is of vital concern to the kingdom of God." So I don't know the degree to which J.D. Vance signs off on a lot of the claims that, oh, it doesn't matter. We can only expect these things to be fixed when Christ comes, or we don't have to fix the environment, Christ is coming. Like that, I don't know if Vance signs off on all that kind of stuff, but it would seem that the official position of the church to which he now belongs is, don't do that. And yeah, I think he, but he's, he's, he's gone up against the Pope several times already.

• 32:53Speaker 00

  He killed that one.

• 32:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's, he's said a lot of stuff that, when, when the, when the Pope has to issue a statement calling you out is wrong, like, maybe, maybe reconsider. Open your mouth and talk about these things.

• 33:10Speaker 00

  All right, well, there you have it. That's a, oh, J.D., what a, what a peach he is.

• 33:19Speaker 00

  So let's, let's leave that at that and, and move on to our what's that?

• 33:28Speaker 00

  All right, so, Hamana Shamina, Skabada Do, it is the gifts of the Spirit. Yes. That, that, that we're, that is the that of what's that? So, so let's, let's get into it. I believe we're, we're, the, the most obvious place, start, starting point is 1 Corinthians, chapter 12. Is that correct?

• 33:51Speaker 01

  That is correct. Chapter 12 through 14 is a, is a long discourse about the gifts of the Spirit. But there, we actually have a few different places in the New Testament where we rattle off different degrees of gifts of the Spirit. We also have Romans 12, we have a few verses in there, Ephesians 4, not Paul, most likely, somebody else, and we'll get to how the, the gifts are slightly different there. Okay. 1 Peter 4, and then to the degree that we want to use the, the tongues thing as a gift of the Spirit discussion, then, then Acts, chapter 2.

• 34:30Speaker 00

  We should probably do our, do a whole thing on the gift of tongues if we haven't already, because that's, yeah, it's a, but we do, but we, but it's part of this whole thing. So yeah, I think we, I think we needed to include it. The gifts of the Spirit that are listed according to 1 Corinthians, and 1 Corinthians is Paul, yes?

• 34:52Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. 1 Corinthians is definitely Paul.

• 34:54Speaker 00

  Okay, so, uh, so basically what he's doing is he's, he's writing to the people of Corinthians, and he is saying, uh, there's, there's all these cool things that come with, it, it's basically like Patreon bonuses that you get when, when you sign up to be a Christian.

• 35:17Speaker 00

  Or rather, when you, when you get, uh, when, when the Spirit favors you. Maybe we should just, it, I guess it seemed obvious to me, but suddenly it might not be obvious, the Spirit? What, what are we talking about? Is that the Holy Ghost? Is that?

• 35:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, yeah, it's supposed to be, but, um, the gifts of the Spirit, well, in, in 1 Corinthians 12:1, he says, "Perideton Pneuvnati Con," which, which doesn't actually include the word gifts. He just says, "Now concerning the spirituals, or the spiritual things, that which is spiritual." And he goes off and, and it's actually interesting, if you read it in context and you read it carefully, there's kind of a, an argument that Paul is developing, which is not, look how cool the gifts are. It's actually, shut up about all of this and, and get along. Because what he's, what he's trying to say is, is kind of, there, there's a lot of contention.

• 36:18Speaker 01

  There's a lot of, um, it seems like there's, there's a lot of tension in the church. And what he's basically saying is, hey, we all have different things that we bring to the table. And these are the things he's, he's talking about as the gifts of the Spirit. And there's diversity, but diversity does not imply hierarchy. So, so he's kind of taking a, a separate but equal approach to, um, to these different spiritual gifts. But then he goes on to say that this is not competition, this is not a hierarchy, you're all different parts of the same body, and you all have your different functions, so

• 36:59Speaker 01

  quit bickering, because the, the head cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of you," or words to that effect. I don't remember exactly what, what he says, but, um, he's, he's basically making the case that, hey, we need everyone with their various gifts to contribute to the greater good of the congregation, of the community, of the people. And so it's not, look how cool I am, it's, what do I bring to the table? How can I make things better? How can I benefit the people who lack my gift?

• 37:36Speaker 00

  Right.

• 37:38Speaker 01

  So he's, he's actually kind of trying to calm some unrest. And the gifts of the Spirit are, are how he goes about getting people to stop competing, to stop, uh, glaring down their snouts at the people who have, uh, gifts, other gifts who are not blessed with the gifts that they have. So it's kind of all about edification, it's all about order.

• 38:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:03Speaker 01

  So, um,

• 38:06Speaker 00

  One of the things that I thought was interesting is I just, just that part, the part that you're talking about. When I have thought of the gifts of the Spirit, the image in my mind, and I don't know where this came from, whether this came from just sort of like being in church or hearing people talk about it or whatever, it certainly didn't come from reading the Bible, because I didn't do a lot of that. But the image that I always had was, there was this list, list of gifts of the Spirit, wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, um, miracles, you know, powerful deeds, prophecy. And my sense was that if you just sort of advanced your spirituality far enough, it

• 38:50Speaker 00

  was like, you know, a game of D and D, you know, you got, you level up and then you, you get another gift. And like, the more you level up, the more of these gifts you sort of accrue to yourself. And reading Corinthians, it's like, it's not that at all. It's like, look, this guy has wisdom and that person has knowledge and this person has that, and you don't get all of them. Like, not every, not, this is, this isn't that. It's not like everyone can have access to all of these things.

• 39:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:22Speaker 00

  If they are spiritual enough. That's not the idea here at all.

• 39:26Speaker 01

  It's a little more like Encanto. It's like, you, you get to, you open the magic door and bam, you have super strength, or you can hear everything, or, um, and, and it's all contributing to the betterment of, of the group. And you rattled off most of the things that are named in, in 1 Corinthians 12, 8 through 10, but also various kinds of tongues and interpretation of tongues. My favorite, though, is, uh, it's actually not mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12. We actually got to go back, back to 1 Corinthians 7 for this thing that is referred to as a gift.

• 40:05Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 40:05Speaker 01

  And it's in verse 7. Uh, and here's where Paul is talking about celibacy. And he says, "I wish that all were as I myself am, but each has a particular gift from God, when having one kind and another, a different kind." So I think we gotta add, we gotta add the discipline to be celibate as one of the gifts. Yeah, and he uses, I'm pretty sure he uses charisma, charisma, yeah. Is that the word there?

• 40:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, charisma. He, he uses the exact same word that he uses later on, uh, gift.

• 40:44Speaker 00

  Oh, okay. So here's, here's my question, though. Could that not be interpreted as, look, I think everybody, I wish everybody was like me, but some dudes got the gift and, uh, they're gonna be having, getting out, they just are too good for the ladies, they got the charisma. And, uh, and so their gift is, uh, is making other people, is, is sexiness.

• 41:08Speaker 01

  Well, and, you know.

• 41:10Speaker 00

  The spiritual gift of sexiness.

• 41:12Speaker 01

  If you've seen Magic Mike, uh, I think, is it the second one? Where one of the guys is too gifted, to the degree that it's a problem.

• 41:23Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 41:23Speaker 01

  And that, uh, he has to find the right person who can, who can accommodate his giftiness.

• 41:32Speaker 00

  I'm surprised at your familiarity with the Magic Mike, uh, franchise.

• 41:37Speaker 01

  I, I, I have more knowledge of, uh,

• 41:42Speaker 00

  Of pop culture?

• 41:43Speaker 01

  Things than, yes, than.

• 41:44Speaker 00

  It's not just the Avengers? All right.

• 41:47Speaker 01

  I have, I have approximate knowledge of many things.

• 41:49Speaker 00

  Yes, indeed.

• 41:50Speaker 01

  Which itself is, uh, is, is me making reference to another piece of pop culture, but, um, but, uh, yeah, so I don't think Paul's aimed at that idea of.

• 42:02Speaker 00

  No, no, I like, I like the idea of celibacy being a gift of.

• 42:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And that, and that's what he's saying, not everybody can hack it.

• 42:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:10Speaker 01

  Because not everyone is blessed with my whateversness.

• 42:14Speaker 00

  With being an, being ace.

• 42:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Um, and, and, you know, there, there's, there's an argument to make that, that maybe that's what Paul was, was really on. That's what, that's, uh, that was his bag.

• 42:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:27Speaker 01

  Or, or maybe he just, I don't know, had something that didn't, he couldn't really find a place for, and was like, I guess I'm just not gonna do anything.

• 42:43Speaker 05

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• 43:40Speaker 01

  So in Corinthians, we have references to these gifts in a couple of different places.

• 43:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's really interesting.

• 43:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it's, but when you talked about, yeah, it's like there's a catalog of gifts, you know, you sell enough chocolate bars to your neighbors, or force your parents to write a check for enough chocolate bars, and you get a little catalog and you get to pick out your gift. No, it's not like that at all. But also, when we look at the different, the catalogings of the gifts, they are different. Because in addition to just talking about these skills and abilities, Paul also makes reference to, in 1 Corinthians 12:28, he makes reference to different, I don't know that we can talk about them as offices, yet.

• 44:27Speaker 01

  I think it's really in Ephesians that they're offices, but in 12:28, he talks about, God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then deeds of power, then gifts of healing, forms of assistance, forms of leadership, various kinds of tongues. So the, I think there's an awful lot of overlap between your gift and your role.

• 44:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:54Speaker 01

  And so I think the roles are really the manifestation of the gift in some ways.

• 45:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, he doesn't seem to be distinguishing those two categories at all.

• 45:04Speaker 01

  Right.

• 45:05Speaker 00

  It just seems to be that like, some people, their gift of the Spirit is apostolic, and others is prophetic, and some is, you know, others it's teaching, and others it's power. And so, yeah, I mean, that makes, that makes a certain amount of sense. Like, like, an apostle, that is a thing to do. And, you know, prophesying is a thing that you do. It's not, it's not so much, you know, I guess it is a title, but he's, but here, I think it's an interesting way to look at it as a, as just a proclivity.

• 45:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, and, and people talk about the church during Paul's day as being more Spirit-led, which is kind of like, this person has shown up, and they've joined us, and they are really good at whatever. And so bam, that is now their role. That's what they do. And, and so the Spirit kind of generates their role within the community, because everybody can see that that's what they have been spiritually gifted with. So it's not yet, oh, well, you are now an overseer. If you want to be an overseer, by the way, here are all the qualifications that you have to meet, which is what we get in 1 Timothy, and what we get in Titus, the

• 46:29Speaker 01

  pastoral epistles that are probably coming from the end of the first or the beginning of the second century CE, where it's not as, as much a Spirit-led thing, where it's more of an institution with a set of roles.

• 46:42Speaker 00

  So things have started to sort of solidify into an organizational structure.

• 46:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, where it's not so much, I show up, I have a special ability, and they say, great, we could use you over here. Now it's, here are the roles.

• 46:58Speaker 00

  And everybody's like, oh, cool, you're a prophet. Well, prophesy on our behalf. Now it's like, we're gonna assign, you're the prophet, and you're the apostle, and you're the this and that.

• 47:08Speaker 01

  And, and it's kind of like, here are the roles, here are the, the prereqs for each role, here are the requirements, and you pick one.

• 47:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:17Speaker 01

  So it's, it's less Spirit-led when we get to the pastoral epistles, I think. It seems to me. And when we go to Romans 12, we have some more references where Paul uses that word, charisma. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, prophecy in proportion to faith, ministry in ministering, the teacher in teaching, the encourager in encouragement. That would be a great calling in the LDS church. We're calling you to be the encourager.

• 47:49Speaker 00

  In all the churches. The churches need to start getting encouragers going.

• 47:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. We need glazers in the, in the church. They, don't, don't research that if you don't know what that means. The giver in sincerity, the leader in diligence, the compassionate in cheerfulness. So we're still in the kind of Spirit-led realm, which I think is, works when you're still a fledgling movement. I think once you have tax-exempt status, and once you have, you know, lawyers that you've got to work with, you know, it becomes things, it's a lot harder to work in that, with that kind of flexibility. What

• 48:35Speaker 01

  is the, the training system that I used to have to go through? Oh, shoot, I can't remember what it was. But it had some silly name that, that was supposed to be how you, you know, respond flexibly to stuff. You can tell the training went really well.

• 48:53Speaker 00

  You definitely, you definitely paid a lot of attention.

• 48:56Speaker 01

  It was 10 years ago, and when I got certified in that. So, yeah, we, then, you know, Paul goes on, let love be genuine. Hate what is evil. Hold fast to what is good. Love one another with mutual affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lag in zeal. Be ardent in spirit. Serve the Lord. Like, this is a, this is a lot more, as much as people hate the idea of the, of the kumbaya Jesus, kind of a kumbaya Paul in some ways.

• 49:29Speaker 00

  Right.

• 49:30Speaker 01

  It's very communal. It's, it's not, you know, it's, it's not your tax-exempt institution.

• 49:37Speaker 00

  Right.

• 49:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, and then tongues, that's the one that a lot of people want to, want to, glossolalia is a big deal for some reason these days.

• 49:47Speaker 00

  Well, and it's so interesting, because, and again, I do want to save this as a, I think, I think speaking in tongues should be its own segment, so we'll probably do that coming up pretty soon here. But yeah, it seems to me that the original idea of speaking in tongues, or being able to hear tongues, is understanding, which is kind of the opposite of what people who speak in tongues now do.

• 50:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's kind of a distinction, xenoglossia and glossolalia, and xenoglossia seems to be, is definitely what's going on in Acts 2. And this is the idea, not, not that you are somehow having your faculties taken over by, by some agents, so that you're speaking some kind of heavenly language, which a lot of former Pentecostals and evangelicals have said, yeah, I was just making stuff up. You know, just, but xenoglossia would be, you're understanding someone else who does not speak your language, and you have the ability to engage in, and speak the same language. And that was, you know, as a Latter-day

• 50:59Speaker 01

  Saint who served a foreign proselytizing mission, when I first joined the LDS church, well, a year after I joined the church, we understood the gift of tongues to be a particular kind of facility with picking up languages. So, so we, you know, we were not into the whole, you know, gibberish, babbling idea of, of the gift of tongues. We were of the mindset that this is, you are blessed to be able to learn a foreign language much more quickly, and in situations where it is needful for you to be able to communicate something in a language that you may not understand that well, you are blessed with the ability to do something.

• 51:43Speaker 00

  And I've definitely heard of missionaries, Mormon missionaries, talking at the missionary training center, talking about, you know, praying so that they can receive that gift better, because, you know, they're all, they're all terrified. They're, they're getting two weeks of language training, or whatever it is, or a month or something, before they just get thrown to the wolves in some other, in some foreign country. So they are, they're, they're all, yeah, they're all praying, and, and actually, you know, believing that they will, that, that it's very possible that they could really, that they could be blessed with that. But I don't know if you know this, there is history in the LDS church of people

• 52:28Speaker 00

  speaking in tongues.

• 52:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:30Speaker 00

  In the early part of the church, which I think is in, in the sense of like, you know, standing up in the middle of a church service and...

• 52:40Speaker 00

  Saying a bunch of syllables that sound like gibberish to everybody else.

• 52:43Speaker 01

  Well, you know what? The, the early days of the church were, were much more the Paul to today's pastoral epistles.

• 52:51Speaker 00

  Yes, indeed.

• 52:52Speaker 01

  So, so it was not, things had not become calcified into the global institution and the corporation's soul that, that it now is today. So, so that is not at all, um, should not be at all shocking to anyone who, uh, who has a good grasp on, on those things.

• 53:11Speaker 00

  Indeed.

• 53:12Speaker 01

  But, but yeah, so, so gifts of the spirit are, are really the, the skills, the abilities, the facilities that everybody brings to the table to help, uh, you know, the body of Christ to grow. And we didn't, we didn't even get to Ephesians.

• 53:29Speaker 00

  It's almost like Voltron. All of the, all of the, all of the.

• 53:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. It's Captain Planet, it's Voltron, it's, it's all of them, uh, put together. And, and I think the, and Ephesians, and this is one of the disputed Pauline epistles. I happen to think that this was probably not written by Paul, but Ephesians 4:11, he himself granted that some are apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. And then the point, the reason for all of this, "To equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. We must no longer be children tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine,

• 54:15Speaker 01

  by people's trickery, by their craftiness and deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow in every way into Him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, each part is working properly, promotes the body's growth and building itself up in love." So what are the gifts of the spirit? The gifts of the spirit are the things that facilitate growth in the body of Christ so that it can become perfected, so that all can be fit together perfectly and all the joints and ligaments and the sinews can all, uh, function, um, optimally.

• 54:51Speaker 00

  Love a good sinew.

• 54:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. Uh, when the, when the mutton is nice and lean. Uh, the, yeah, the, so, so I think that's the message that at least Paul was trying to get across in, uh, in talking about the gifts of the spirit, is that, hey, this is not so you can boast about having this cool gift, uh, even if it's the Magic Mike kind of gift, uh, you're, you're not supposed to be boasting about that kind of thing. It is so you can contribute and you can help other people and you can make a difference in their lives. And I, and I think that's, that's a wonderful message. And I think if, if more people who are, who talk about the gifts of the spirit were concerned for trying to bring communities together

• 55:38Speaker 01

  and trying to fill needs where they have capacities to do so, uh, I think this could be, uh, a much better place to live.

• 55:48Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a lovely sentiment. I, you know, if, if, rather than, yeah. Because we so often see someone who has, who is gifted and talented in a certain way, and we want to raise that person up and say, oh, look at this person who, you know, who's, who's got this, um, you know, this gift, let's make them in charge of us, or let's make that, you know, let's, let's, let's put them on a pedestal in some way, rather than saying, "Cool gift, what are you doing with it?"

• 56:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, get to work.

• 56:22Speaker 00

  What, what, yeah, you got, you got, you, you've got good to do in the world.

• 56:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:26Speaker 00

  Awesome.

• 56:27Speaker 01

  There was, yeah. Awesome, indeed.

• 56:29Speaker 00

  All right. Well, we'll leave it at that. Uh, I'll remind our, everyone who, especially those of you who are experiencing us videographically on the Youtubes, uh, that they can, you can join, uh, as, uh, you can hit the join button and become a member of the Tribe of Dan. Uh, you'll get access to, uh, all of our videos will, will come a day early. You'll get, uh, live streams from Dan and I, uh, the first one being on the 27th of this here September, uh, and more going forward, uh, et cetera. And there's a bunch of other cool stuff. Or you can become a patron over on patreon.com/dataoverdogma.

• 57:14Speaker 00

  It's very much, uh, these are the ways that we, uh, keep this show going. And so that is, we appreciate it so much. Over there, you can get exclusive, uh, content also. Uh, we do, we do, uh, patrons only content every week. So head on over there and sign up, uh, for everything. Sign up for all the things. We sure appreciate it when, when people do that. Thanks so much to Roger Goudy for editing. Thanks to Sam Holden for being our right-hand fella. And thanks to all y'all for tuning in. We'll talk to you again next time.

• 57:51Speaker 01

  Bye, everybody.

• 57:57Speaker 00

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