Okay, welcome back to the podcast. We have our producer with us and man, so I'm back on the show.
Sometimes I show up, sometimes I don't.
And you are helpful either way. I did notice something as you walked in. I didn't. I didn't mention it, but you brought a banana?
I did.
Did you know that those are like really scarce these days? Are they? Apparently? I read an article this morning that bananas are about to go away.
I'll do I need a ration this.
Yeah. I think you should cut it up and freeze it and eat a little bit every day.
I wish i'd known that before before I brought it. And what you just ate was very pricey.
Yeah, this whole strike thing going on, evidently bananas are going to be really hit by this. Well.
We saw a lot of what would it be called banana orchard, is it?
Yeah? Okay, yeah, in Israel.
Yeah, yeah, it's all a lot of those.
I saw when I've I've been traveling. I can't I guess I can't say the country, but it's a it's a Latin American country that is in desperate need of economy boosting, and they have tons of bananas and they're not gonna do anything about it.
But you know, I send them with the people that are coming across the board. That's right, just some of them. And by the time people hear this, this all this might be resolved. Because we're a couple, we're recording a couple of weeks ahead, so this might be over. This might be over, or this might actually be like really relevant, but that might still be in the freezer.
This might be the last banana on planet Earth. By the time that people see this podcast.
We have a record last banana.
So what we do on this podcast is we answer your questions. You email podcast at grangersmith dot com and a man has collected your questions from that email, and we're going to start today. Uh. This first one comes from Denver, and it says, Hey, Grainger, this is Denver. Let's take a drive.
Let's start.
It's a good reference because I usually say it's just like you and I sitting in a cab of a truck driving down the road. So here we are Denver. He says, it's incredibly I'm incredibly encouraged by your weekly podcast to hear your biblical viewpoint about all the different questions as a born again follower. Of Christ. It's just awesome to see you being used to help so many people.
What is your thoughts based on scripture about voting. It's pretty clear to me that as an ambassadors of Christ, given the great responsibility to take care of this land, to prevent evil, and to care for this country that were so graciously given to the best of my ability by voting for a president that's not perfect, but policies
aligned closer to our values as Christians. And then you added it works without this, but was part of the email rather than a candidate that is advocating murdering babies at nine months pregnant. You put that so that maybe I wouldn't read that because it's controversial.
It's the part that it works with or without that. I mean, the conversation sticks to I under should we vote for the person who most aligns with our values as Christians?
Sure it can in there, and then it says some would be convicted that engaging in voting is placing yourself in this worldly kingdom instead of being solely part of God's kingdom. If you get to this, thanks, I would love to hear your thoughts. God bless you all right, Denver. Yeah, that's great man, And I'm thinking that's a good question, and I think a lot of people should be thinking about this thing. And I think the basic question is
should I vote or not? Because if I'm going to be part of this world, would that would voting be bad? And I think it goes to kind of like when the Pharisees tried to trap Jesus into should we pay taxes or not? You know, that's the first thing that comes to my mind. There's a lot of examples. Jesus says, give me a coin. You know whose inscription is on this coin? They said Caesar's. He says, we'll give Caesar
what he's owed and give God what he's owed. And I think if we said the same thing here, we're living in Caesar's world. We're living in whatever country you're listening from. You're living in that country, and you're under the jurisdiction of that government. And to be a taxpayer, a good law abiding citizen, which we should be as Christians, you need to pay taxes. And if you're going to
pay taxes, then you have a say. And if you're in a democracy, you have a say in the people that determine where that tax dollar goes to that you earned and then you gave because you're a law abiding citizen. I think this is just practical stuff. If you're living as as a monk in the mountains in a mountain cave in Utah and you know, and you you are off the grid and you are against government and you
don't pay taxes, you might have an argument. I'm not really interested in that argument, but you might have an argument. But that's not who you are, Denver, and that's not who I am or am in And so I think the short answer is, yeah, you should vote.
Absolutely one hundred percent believe you should vote. And what really brought me to this email One was the intro let's take a drive, but the other part was about voting for policies. We are really consumed right now by either Orange Man Bad or Cackle Lady. You know, those are the acronyms given to either person and who they are, and what they did and what they said and how they sneezed and whether they blew their nose. It's just silly stuff. What are the actual policies that they're going
to be enforcing or truly be behind? Once either one of them are in office. I probably will never hang out with Donald Trump or Kamala Harris ever and sit down and have a conversation. I doubt that ever happens. However, my influence can be on you said, your policies are this, Now, how are you held accountable for it? Because that's what I've voted for, and which one most aligns with our beliefs? You know, I would say, in your belief in general for us as Christians, what most aligns with what the
Bible says? And how do we get closer? And neither one of them are going to be word for word out of out of the Bible. They're policies. We see that right now. If we ever get to the conversation about policies, as most of the time news will not take you there. But if you dig in and find out what they are, which one looks more like that or feels more like this, sounds more like what the Word of God says and vote your conscience in that direction.
Yeah, totally agree with everything you just said. I think voting is a is a very beautiful thing and something that is a privilege for many people that have that it fought for that exact right.
And I think this goes for Christians and non Christians too. If you don't vote, you really can't complain about what happens. But especially if you are a Christian and you're worried about where things are going and you do nothing, I would say that's almost that right. There is unbiblical. Knowing what is right and not doing what is right is unbiblical.
Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. We probably don't have to get any deeper than that. Honestly, I'm going to give the next one to you. Why don't you read the next one? Okay?
It says high Granger. I'm a young adult nineteen and I'm a Christian. I was wondering if you can explain the Book of Revelation and Timeline all right here on this podcast. Right when I read the Bible, I don't always understand what it says. I always find myself worrying about the future. Social media like TikTok plays a part in that, because everyone seems to have an opinion instead of getting the facts from the Bible. Some of the questions that I have is which comes first, Jesus coming
back or the Mark of the Beast. Well, Christians still be on earth, during the tribulation.
O Amity, that's your name, So Amity, Aman and I we don't prepare. You can't see our table, but we don't have a bunch of notes in front of us. So everything is a conversation, just like we were driving on the road and you just drop this honest and you say, hey, got a question about the Book of Revelation, and so we're going to answer like you're a friend. And so that's what we're gonna do right now. And this idea, it has come up several times in this podcast.
I've either either talked about it or just expressed my views about eschatology, which is the study of end times. And I believe there are other There are many places in the Bible that talk about the end times. But I think that's what you're talking about more than just the concept concept of the Book of You're talking about, hey, how things going to end? And the great tribulation and when it's Jesus coming back? Is there or is there
not a rapture? Those things are not only mentioned in Revelation, but other places in the Bible as well. But I need to before I go any further, I need to say that no one knows exactly what that means any of it, and so there is not a clear and people could feel free to argue. Let me press pause and say if you do want to argue or if you want to disagree, Because this is a very hot topic.
On all of these questions, I've been encouraging lately the last few episodes to go to the YouTube version of this podcast that releases, So whatever platform you're listening on now, after it's finished, go to YouTube and find this podcast there and comment below your and then perhaps if there are enough questions and thought provooking questions, a man can get back on here with me and we'll go to that video and take the second level of questions on
the first question. I think that's really encouraging. So back to the subject at hand. No one knows, and it is it is highly debated. Will Christians be on earth during the tribulation? Will Jesus come back before the market of the beast? There are people that believe, yes, there are people that believe know, and each of those groups of people will argue with the Bible. So there is not a group that is saying I'm arguing without the Bible. I'm just arguing by intuition or what everyone will have
a they'll have biblical proof. And so to that, I say, to each their own. Everyone has an opinion about eschatology, but I believe with all of my heart it is a distraction, all of it from the enemy. Agree And this is the argument I like to make on this podcast, is that when we get too involved and we start worrying about the Book of Revelation, which is the book
that John the Apostle. John wrote in his exile on the island Patmos, and he's there and he has a vision from God about things that would be to come and also things that he needs to rebuke the current churches with John, and he's in the presence of God and he's he sees it's its apocalyptic language, is how the Book of Revelation is written. We have to understand in ancient writing, there's there are different styles of writing.
There's poetry, there's historical narrative, there are letters personal letters, and then there's apocalyptic language. That's what John is speaking with. So what we could agree on is that as John is writing these this apocalyptic vision, he's not trying to be never was to be literal about what he's saying. He's seeing a vision and so.
So many things that no one has ever seen.
And so when he talks about the dragon, for instance, scholars will all agree he's not talking about a physical dragon. This is this is his the way of writing in the apocalyptic language of the dragon and the woman and the beast, and he's using language of the enemy and Christ,
and he's he's he's making this comparison. This is uh, this is this is would be the difference in someone taking a fundamentalist approach to the Bible and saying, what every word that it says is exactly what it means, as opposed to someone saying, I believe that the Bible is absolutely true in the inspired word of God, but you wouldn't take word for word and say this is what it means. Sometimes it's an impression of what It's
always true, it's always a word of God. But sometimes it's an impression of what the author is trying to say through his poetry or through his vision. Does that make sense? There are many examples of this, and we could go down that list. In fact, if you want to comment on YouTube, and we can go deeper on what it means for something to say something in the Bible that is true but might not be that word like you think it means. Okay.
A good way, too, is to think about describing something to someone who's blind and has never seen before. In this room, I wouldn't say, over here, on this wall there's a guitar. I don't if you're blind, never have seen you don't know what a guitar is. Okay, it's a block of wood that's been hollowed out that has strings stretched across. Okay, if you've never seen one and you have someone explaining it to you, it's very elaborate,
very detailed, and expact, exasperated, you know, exaggerated. And that's a lot of what he's doing there as well. Yeah, and things that no one's ever seen before. You've never seen it. So I've got to tell you best time things.
God gave John a vision and he saw these things and he wrote them down to us, and so he let me go back to my point, though, I believe the enemy uses these these kind of things in this very conversation we're having as a distraction to distract us from what the gospel really says and what Jesus came to do. And all of the things that happened in the end times are are irrelevant. Really, they're neat and they're fun, and they should warn us that the end
is coming and that we should be ready. But that's Jesus' messages.
Be ready.
No one knows the end, what's going to happen, but be ready. So so put your faith in trust in him. That he has died for sin, that he was resurrected by God, and he has been given the power to forgive sinners like me and you, and through that forgiveness, and as we repent from our sin and turn to him and put our trust in him and have faith in him, we will be saved. And whatever happens in the end of time, we will be covered.
There's been in the time that we're recording this, there's just been rockets being fired over Israel and defense going up and stuff like that, and people are taking that opportunity to go see, look, the end is happening right now. But listen. If it encourages you to share the Gospel with others, great, But like you said, if it's a distraction to like, well, what's going to happen, when's this going to go, well, you're not thinking about telling others about the gospel.
I'm triing about that.
You're worried about you, and that is a If you're worried about you, there's a bigger issue.
Yeah, for people. If you want to look up when I'm talking about there is pre millennial pre millennialism, there's ah millennialism, and there's post millennialism, and you could look these are groups that I believe that in different timeframes of the end times. And it's it's interesting to think too that in evangelical churches, they they will in their statement of faith, your your church, my church, they will say that we are okay with all of these different
views of the end times. There's there shouldn't be and there isn't a good evangelical church that says, you must believe in this interpretation of the end of times, but you must be pre mill you must be a mail you must be post mill. Instead, they say, hey, we understand that this is a point of disagreement, and it's just not it's not something that should cause division at all.
Agree.
Yeah, nobody knows, and I think it's a good it's a it's a good topic. Amity and I'm glad you asked it, and and we could go on for an hour on our views of that. But just remember this is apocalyptic language in the Book of Revelation, and Jesus's message to all of it is be ready repent and believe the next one. I like when you read Okay.
Yeah, to say, Granger, I've been listening to you for about three months now. I've heard you say a lot of times that if you're going through a divorce, make sure you do it with a group of believers. I understand you there. What I'm wondering is Jesus says in the Bible that you can't remarry except for adultery. I believe abuse would also be a reason for divorce. I'm a born again Christian and have a friend that is
a believer and his wife is filing for divorce. When he told me that, he's saying she has no biblical reason for divorce. He hasn't done anything wrong. I can't explain everything because it will take too long. But he is a recovering alcoholic. He's never abused her physically or emotionally, or cheated on her. I don't know really what to tell him to be honest a kind of question if he is maybe a cultural Christian. He's a friend that I haven't talked to in around ten years, and we
just reconnected Friday night on the phone. We live about five hours away from each other. He also he's also He also keeps asking me if he can remarry. I don't know what to really tell him. I just told him I would be praying for them and he should be talking to his pastor. Is there anything you could tell me to tell him? Thanks? Love everything you do? And that is Tim, Tim.
I think you, first of all, you have a really good answer to him that you're going to be praying for him, and then he should talk to his pastor. Because whenever I say that, you're right, you've been listening for three months and you say that I talk about whenever I talk about divorce, that you should do it with a group of believers. But furthermore, you should be doing it with your pastors or elders in at your church,
not just random believers. That's good, it should be you should talk with wise counsel, but you should be able to sit down with the pastors at the church that you trust and walk through in the reason I say it that way is because these men have been equipped to handle these situations to give you wise counsel, not just your your next door neighbor who's also a Christian.
That's great, But the further step for your buddy is that, like you said, he should be talking with his pastor, and preferably pastors, multiple pastors, not just one guy that's going to give him one piece of advice. But it should be done in a council. And I think you're right on everything you said. There's there's there's there's only so much you could do. Being five hours away calling
him out, you could say things. You could say things like, brother, I would encourage you to really dig in to what it to what is a biblical divorce and what is an unbiblical divorce? And I want to encourage you to dig in, uh to what it means to remarry after an unbiblical divorce or to remarry after a biblical divorce. And and maybe we could find some books this is you talking to him, that we could read through together.
But before you do anything, I wouldn't make any big decisions until you research these and you talk to your pastor and tim the truth is most likely. Unfortunately, he's just gonna do what he's gonna do. He is more than likely you And.
It's a very weird I mean, and I've spoke here before that I've gone through a divorce and that period of time, looking back on it now with hindsight twenty twenty, right, Wanta did not have anyone It involved people at the church, and so I did not have the church that I went to have any support whatsoever. And looking back, it was a lot of decisions that I made that were wrong because of there was nobody with a sane mind and that wasn't thinking and making decisions emotionally helping guide me.
And looking back like, absolutely you have to have that, not somebody who eyes into everything that you do. But if you were, if you're deciding to well, one, get divorced, move job things, there's a lot of emotions in all of that, and then on top of that a divorce that you're splitting your entire life apart. There's so many things that you were going to do wrong. And I
only made it by the grace of God. His hand was over me and had he had a plan sovereign it's great, and then really living it and then having that conversation and realizing that how true it is afterwards. But if you if any advice is deliberate but loving, and because everything is sensitive, the wrong meal at a at a at a restaurant can set you off. You know, something that messed up on your meal. Everything's on edge
all the way around you. The little things that you didn't even think were a problem become big, giant issues in times like this.
That's great, ay man, I think I think you're equipped him to pray and tell them to see council from his pastor a quick reminder here if you don't already know, If you want to get a hold of me and you want me to make you a video message, it's super easy. Go to cameo dot com slash granger Smith Cameo cam eo dot com slash granger Smith and you make a request for me, like a birthday announcement or anniversary or congratulations or maybe an uplifting encouraging word, any
of those things. Just fill out what you want. I'll get my phone, I turn the video on, and I send you a video message to whoever you want me to send it to. It's especially cool coming up in the holidays when you have someone you just don't know what kind of gift to get them, go to cameo dot com slash grangersmith today. So it's before we get into the next question, which, by the way, if you want to email us podcast at grangersmith dot com is
the email. Before we get to the next one, we have to recognize that we're moving towards the end of the month of October, and if you're listening real time and around this time, Halloween's coming up. This is the time that we should be thinking, all of us Christians, non Christians, we should be thinking about what does it mean when we're celebrating spirits, ghosts and are and are we buying into that? And how are we buying into that?
And so let's separate Halloween completely and just make it universal for any month of the year and say what does it mean? Because you and I had this conversation just the other day about people and I get this all the time, people saying that they've been contacted by a dead relative, and it's it's what's interesting about it is people that are not religious at all, that have that have no God, will will easily want to talk
about this. This these things and get really excited about it in fact, but kind of tell me a little bit out of conversation. You don't have to say any names, but.
Yeah, I had a friend who was telling me that they were they and they were almost excited about about this. And they're a believer, but they they're almost excited about this because it reminded them of someone who has passed away, and that they were they had they had heard on one of their cameras a familiar voice that said some things of that was very familiar of a dead relative. And as they're telling me, I my clearly my face changed because they were like what And I said, that's
a demon. That's not the relative that they think it is. And of course they're facing like are you serious, and yeah, there's there's that's not I'm gonna go a good thing.
I'm gonna go to that text conversation you and.
Know, okay, it's it is not a good thing. I think it was voice, So I don't know if there was a much text in there.
I think I think I wrote because there was an interesting conversation.
Yeah, And the first thing I thought was, Okay, how do I navigate this? Because I don't know all the scriptures. It was voice, yeah, right, and I think it is and on both sides, I think it was like some of our longest ones because of telling you the whole story. But my first thought was like, I don't know, and this is about this is I want to sidetrack for a second about being prepared. You don't need to prepare, like you can't be prepared for everything all the time.
But this is why it's important to always have God's word in your heart, because he will bring it up now that I have these any conversation that I have again, I'm like, I know either where I've written him down, how I've looked at them before, and I do now I'll pull it up. I have my notes of a conversation about this. What what does the Bible say about being contacted or hearing voices or people who have passed on? And it's like that is not one, it's not your relative.
Two your relative is in one or two places, because it says that when the Bible says in Hebrews that just as each person is destined to die once and after that comes judgment. Die judgment, not hang around and talk on your webcams or whatever that's not included.
In lost souls that looking to reconcile something and they're lunging out.
In between, but there's no in between, guys.
Yeah, there's not like that movie sixth Sense, Yes exactly. You know, like there's a couple more things you need to accomplish as a ghost before you get to the afterlife, and so they're kind of haunting trying to bring stuff together. It's that movie Ghost as well. Yeah, yeah, you're trying to bring some kind of reconciliation together. Yeah, so let's look at the Bible. I found the notes too from that same conversation where you just mentioned Hebrews nine twenty seven.
Ecclesiastes nine five and six says this, for the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing. They have no further reward, and even their name is forgotten. Their love, their hate, and their jealousy of long since vanished, and never again will they have any part of things that happen under the sun. So dead people are their bodies are dead. They're not coming back out as skeletons and speaking tough baby monitors.
If you need that last part in any clear, NLT says they no longer play a part in anything here on earth. That doesn't get more clear.
Yeah, so then let's look at Deuteronomy, which means the law. The law again, let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire. That's scary. Anyway, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft or cast spells, or who is a medium or a spiritist, or who consults the dead. Anyone does these things is
detestable to the Lord. That's terrifying. And then kind of to your point Sawo Corinthians eleven fourteen, and no wonder for Satan self, Paul writes masquerades as an angel of light.
Well, and I think about one. If things like this happen to people, does it draw you to the Bible to go, look, hey, I heard something on my Did it go hey, I need to go see that. But or did it go, oh my gosh, my dead relative is talking to me. And your mind moves away from your relationship with Christ and into another part. That is I think that's where the majority of it goes.
It's these ideas that all these religions kind of combining, like reincarnation. Look, my mom's coming back in the form of a cardinal sitting in the window, so speaking to me, that's not your mom.
Well, and I mean you've also seen some of the stuff that Amber is posted with butterflies that she is acknowledged. I know that's not right, that's not River. Yes, but it does remind me of him.
She calls it a godwink.
There you go, There you go. That's completely different than what I'm talking about. Yeah, like having conversations with somebody who's not there.
Yeah, God comforting as people versus a dead relative trying to come and speak to you to tell you everything's going to be okay. Even that people say all the time, like speaking of the dead, they say they're looking down smiling right now. They're not looking at you. They're looking at Christ. That's what the Bible says. Christians that die are looking at Christ. They're not looking down on you, smiling and trying to comfort you. Are saying everything's going
to be okay. Or they're proud of you. People say you're Grandeur. Your dad's in heaven right now, so proud of you. I'm like, well, thanks, I know you're trying to uplift me. But Dad doesn't have anything to do with me right now. He's got better things to do. Praise God. One Timothy four to seven. The spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. That's terrifying.
Yes, yep.
So the Bible is very clear that if you're hearing from a dead relative, is convincing as it might be. Paul says that the devil masquerades as an angel of light, it is only one of two things. If you're seeing a spirit, it is only an angel or a demon, And if it's pretending to be your dead relative, it's not an angel.
Well, and angels come to bring messages from God to you, Mary Joseph on down the line. Yes, yeah, that's what they're here, that's what they can. And the first thing they say is fear or not. And whether this is true or not. I love this explanation that there's not an actual real translation from Hebrew or of that, and that if it was literal, it would say, please stop screaming. Then an angel comes in wakes you up, please stop screaming. I got a message from God would be more accurate I've heard.
But so to wrap up this idea, your dead relative is not talking to you, and I could say that with full conviction from the Bible.
Don't be playing with Wiji boards on Halloween.
No, don't do that. Don't do that. All right? You want to get to the Josh's question, Josh.
Yeah, says hey Granger. I've recently started attending a discipleship class at my Southern Baptist church. That's really cool. I love that. Early on in the course about a month ago, when we were discussing what it means to be a disciple and our calls as Christians to go forth and make new disciple new disciples, I was hit with a very loud thought that I should go to seminary. At the time, I tempered the thoughts a little bit, thinking I might have just been getting caught up in the moment.
I prayed that God give me some wisdom and direction regarding it, and it's remained on my mind ever since. Fast forward to this morning at church we had several new deacons ordained. That thought rang through my head again very strongly. I know that I want to do this, and those closest to me, are very supportive, but I have no idea how to pull it off. I'm not sure how I would afford it, how to balance it with my current career, or what any part of the
process really looks like. If you have any advice or know any resources I can check out, I greatly appreciate it. Thanks for doing what you do. Your show is a great encouragement at the start of each week, praying for y'all.
Josh, what a great email.
That is great. I love that you gave me a book on not a deacon but an elder, And like, the first thing that it says about you becoming an elder in your church is that you will have a desire to become an elder in your church. Yeah, that's the first thing I think of the miss Oh, you already have a desire. Yeah, Step one is done.
I wonder where he lives. Yeah, that's an interesting thought. But he is Southern Baptist. Josh, you could join me at Southern, which is the Southern Baptist seminary. There are a few others, Midwestern, Southwestern, Southeastern. Southern is definitely the best. Yeah, a little biased, little bias. Sorry. So here's the thing, let's first of all and I both say, we're so encouraged. I think this is encouraging for several reasons. One because
it sounds like you're being responsible with this call. If it would be different if you said, I'm sitting there and I'm in this discipleship class and suddenly it hit me I should be a pastor. Well, there's and I need to start a church right now. It's a little different than what you're essentially saying, is it suddenly it hit me, I need to be further equipped. That's cool, man,
and I could relate exactly to this. And I remember two years ago, a little over two years ago, when it hit me in the same way that you described that I should go to seminary. And for so long I thought to myself, I don't need to go to seminary. I don't need I don't need to be equipped in that way. I have other things that God has planned for me. And then all of a sudden it hit me. God had plans for me to go to seminary, and
I knew it to the core of my being. In fact, in one particular day more than others, and I kind of wrapped everything up. I called Chad, who's on this
podcast I'm called talk to Bernie. This is before I met Marshall, and everything was clear to me that in that moment, I need to go to not only seminary, but I need I need to go to Southern which offers a full online MDiv So let's dive into the meat of this email, though, because that is your fear, your fear and your your worry, and I understand that. You say, I pray that God will give me some wisdom and direction regarding it, and it has remained on
my mind ever since. Okay, so here we are talking, uh, in a in a way that God is going to say, Hey, here's some wisdom from a guy that has been in your shoes. You say, fast forward to the church this morning, you see this, you feel strongly about this, and then you go into your fear. I have no idea how to pull it off, you say, I I'm not sure how I'm going to afford it, or how to balance it with my current career, or what any part of
the process really looks like. So let's just take that little section and let's dive into that, because that's a good microcosm for anybody that's going through a change or fills a new career, or a relationship or a school. We could answer it all the same. The only way, the only step for you, the only answer for you right now is to make the next step, take the next step. We're not asking you, and you're not asking
yourself to start your first class tomorrow. So and I remember me doing this the same thing you're going through. I'm thinking, can I balance that? Can I afford that? What does that process look like? All three questions? And so the next step is I'm going to go to the website of the seminary that I desire to go to and maybe have a few of them lined up, and go to the website and look at the enrollment process? What does it take to enroll at this school? And
there it is. At some point in that website, you're going to find the application process and it's going to
go here's what we need. We need an application, We need you to fill out this stuff, and we need you to mail your college transcript to this and you go, okay, and then at that point you send that stuff off, still not knowing what the next step is, but you do one step at a time, and then you send that off and then you wait to hear back, and as you do each step, that process starts to be revealed more and more with more clarity, and then the
stuff like can I afford it? Then you actually see how many classes you're going to take and exactly what it costs plus the price of books, and then you look at scholarship opportunities. Yeah, and different kind of grants. Those kind of opportunities become more parent as you take each step.
And way more of those than many people even realized too.
Yeah, here's here's the thing on your second question, how to balance it with my current career. I remember thinking that had that same question, And at first my first semester, I signed up for three classes and I was still touring, I was doing after Midnight, I was doing this podcast, I'm doing a lot of things, and I found out that they were doing a zoom call with all incoming students. So I was like, cool, I'll get on this zoom call.
There's like one hundred people in this waiting room on this zoom call, and there was a TA a teaching assistant on there, just answering questions, and a couple people asked and it got kind of quiet. I was like, well, I think i'll ask so you push a button to raise your hand, you know, and he says okay. Granger turned my mic on and I said, how how much work could I expect three classes to be? And he's like, well, you should look at it as ten to tend towny
hours per week per class. And so I was quickly like, oh, I just signed up for a full time job, so you're sixty hours in right. Yeah. So I was like, so I shouldn't take three and he's like, not, if you have a job, you shouldn't. I was like, okay, good. So I quickly went in and I canceled two classes and I just I kept one and I've done one at it, one at a time ever since. So my point is not that point, Josh, that of the hours.
But my point is you'll figure these things out the deeper you go in, the more steps you take.
Man, that's it. But this is a really encouraging email. You felt the calling, and you you you reached out, and you're you're continuing to feel this calling in your life, and and you're you you say, do the steps oft of school. He's really at the beginning he's already doing steps, he's recognizing things, and then he's writing to you to see what's next. And you know, you've already started taking steps, which I love and I love seeing this. This is really encouraging and this.
Is probably a really fresh email too. Yeah, it just got this. Yeah, so this is this is time relevant. So Josh excited for you, man. I would recommend Southern and uh, Southwestern or Midwestern. I have friends at all through those places, have some friends at Southeastern too, and it might depend on where you live. There are definitely a bunch of seminaries I would not recommend. And Josh, if you want to act fact, if you want to
email back further, email podcast at grangersmith dot com. If you have further questions about where to look and what seminaries that you would that I would not encourage. Not that you have to rely only on my opinion, but I'm one of several opinions that that that might be helpful for you. So yeah, it's been good. Cool man. Hey, guys, go to the YouTube channel and find this podcast and comment further. If you agree on there's a couple of
things you could disagree with. Maybe you're hearing from your dead grandma. We've talked about that further, the inherancy of the Bible. I think the there could be an hour podcast on the Book of Revelation and grad What do you mean by there's certain things on apocalyptic literature that aren't literal. What do you mean by that? Do you believe the Bible is not true? I'm not saying that.
I'm saying there's a difference fundamentally between this word means this, and this was apocalyptic literature versus this word means this, and this is Paul's letter to Timothy, and this word means this, and this is David's song that he's writing, and this word means this, and this is historical narrative, and this word means this, and this is a parable from Jesus. So this word means this means different things depending on the ancient literature that was written at the time.
We could talk more about that, but I don't want anyone to be confused that that's a long conversation, so find the YouTube page comment below. We love you, guys, Appreciate you brother, appreciate you too. Yeah, see you guys, Thanks for joining me on the Grader Smith Podcast. Appreciate all of you guys. You could help me out by
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