The Power of Fatherly Storytelling: Lessons from Narnia, Dostoyevsky, and the Role of Tales in Shaping Our Lives

By the way , as you read through the book , you discover that Eustace , who's let's be honest , somewhat of a punk , actually has a pretty good excuse for being the way that he is , and that excuse is named Harold Scrubb .

His father , see , harold and Alberta Scrubb , were very progressive people , non-smokers , tea totalers , vegetarians , pacifists , or even told that they were a special kind of underwear . But one of the worst things that they gave to their son , even worse than their vegetarianism and pacifism , actually comes down to the kinds of stories that they told him .

See , they told Eustace all of the wrong stories . So when Eustace went out into the world and faced danger and adventure for the first time , he was ill-equipped to face the realities of the world . In part of the story , eustace comes upon a dragon's cave , and this is what we read . Most of us know what we should expect to find in a dragon's lair .

But , as I said before , eustace had read only the wrong books . They had a lot to say about exports and imports and governments and drains , but they were weak on dragons . That's why he was so puzzled at the surface that he was lying on .

Parts of it were too prickly to be stones and too hard to be thorns , and there seemed to be a great many round flat things and it all clinked when he moved . There was light enough at the cave's mouth to examine it by and of course Eustace found it to be what any of us could have told him in advance Treasure .

There were crowns , coins , rings , bracelets , ingots , cups , plates and gems . Eustace , unlike most boys , had never thought much of treasure , but he saw it once , the use it would be in this new world which he had so foolishly stumbled into through the picture in Lucy's bedroom and at home .

They don't have any tax here , he said , and you don't have to give treasure to the government With some of this stuff . I could have a quite decent time here , perhaps in Calorman . It sounds the least phony of all these countries . I wonder how much I can carry that bracelet . Now those things in it are probably diamonds .

I'll slip that on my own wrist Too big , but not if I push it right up here above my elbow . Then fill my pockets with diamonds . That's easier than gold . I wonder when this infernal reign's going to let up . He got into a less uncomfortable part of the pile , where it was mostly coins , and settled down to weight .

But a bad fright when , once it is over , and especially a bad fright following a mountain walk , leaves you very tired . Eustace fell asleep by the time . He was sound asleep and snoring . The others had finished dinner and become seriously alarmed about him . They shouted Eustace , eustace , go wee till they were horse . And Caspian blew his horn .

He's nowhere nearer . He'd have heard that , said Lucy with a white face . Confound the fellow , said Edmund , what on earth did he want to slink away like this for ? But we must do something , said Lucy . He may have got lost or fallen into a hole or been captured by savages or killed by wild beasts , said Drinian . And a good riddance if he has .

I say , muttered Rince , master Rince said Ripechiep , you never spoke a word that became you less . The creature is no friend of mine , but he is of the Queen's blood and while he is one of our fellowship , it concerns our honor to find him and to avenge him if he is dead . Of course we've got to find him if we can , said Caspian wearily .

That's the nuisance of it . It means a search party and endless trouble Bother Eustace . Meanwhile Eustace slept and slept and slept . What woke him was a pain in his arm . The moon was shining in at the mouth of the cave and the bed of treasures seemed to have grown much more comfortable . In fact he could hardly feel at all .

He was puzzled by the pain in his arm at first , but presently it occurred to him that the bracelet which he had shoved up above his elbow had become strangely tight . His arm must have swollen while he was asleep . It was his left arm .

He moved his right arm in order to feel his left , but stopped before he had moved at an inch and bit his lip in terror . For just in front of him , in a little on his right , where the moonlight fell clear , on the floor of the cave , he saw a hideous shape moving . He knew that shape . It was a dragon's claw .

It had moved as he moved his hand and became still when he stopped moving his hand . Oh , what a fool I've been , thought Eustace . Of course the brute had a mate and it's lying beside me . For several minutes he did not dare move a muscle .

He saw two thin columns of smoke going up before his eyes , black against the moonlight , just as there had been smoke coming from the other dragon's nose before it died . This was so alarming that he held his breath . The two columns of smoke vanished . When he could hold his breath no longer , he let it out stealthily . Instantly two jets of smoke appeared again .

But even yet he had no idea of the truth . Suddenly he decided that he would edge very cautiously to his left and try to creep out of the cave . Perhaps the creature was asleep , and anyway it was his only chance . But of course , before he edged to the left he looked to the left . Oh horror , there was a dragon's claw on that side too .

No one will blame Eustace if at this moment he shed tears . He was surprised at the size of his own tears as he saw them splashing on the treasure in front of him . They also seemed strangely hot . Steam went up from them . But there was no good crime . He must try to crawl out from between the two dragons . He began extending his right arm .

The dragon's four-legged claw on his right went through exactly the same motion . Then he thought he would try his left . The dragon limb on that side moved too . Two dragons , one on each side , mimicking whatever he did . His nerve broke and he simply made a bolt for it .

There was such a clatter and rasping and clinking of gold and grinding of stones as he rushed out of the cave that he thought they were both following him . He dared not look back . He rushed to the pool , the twisted shape of the dead dragon lying in the moonlight . This was so alarming that he held his breath . The two columns of smoke vanished .

When he could hold his breath no longer , he let it out stealthily . Instantly two jets of smoke appeared again , but even yet he had no idea of the truth . Presently he decided that he would edge very cautiously to his left and try to creep out of the cave . Perhaps the creature was asleep and anyway it was his only chance .

But of course , before he edged to the left , he looked to the left . Oh horror , there was a dragon's claw on that side too . No one will blame Eustis if at this moment he shed tears . He was surprised at the size of his own tears as he saw them splashing on the treasure in front of him . They also seemed strangely hot . Steam went up from them .

But there was no good crying . He must try to crawl out from between the two dragons . He began extending his right arm , the dragon's four-legged claw on his right went through exactly the same motion . Then he thought he would try his left . The dragon limb on that side moved too .

Two dragons , one on each side , mimicking whatever he did , his nerve broke and he simply made a bolt for it . There was such a clatter and rasping and clinking of gold and grinding of stones as he rushed out of the cave that he thought they were both following him . He dared not look back . He rushed to the pool .

The twisted shape of the dead dragon lying in the moonlight would have been enough to frighten anyone . But now he hardly noticed it . His idea was to get into the water , but just as he reached the edge of the pool , two things happened . First of all , it came over him like a thunder clap that he had been running on all fours .

And why on earth had he been doing that ? And secondly , as he bent towards the water , he thought for a second that yet another dragon was staring up at him out of the pool . But in an instant he realized the truth . The dragon face in the pool was his own reflection . There was no doubt of it . It moved as he moved . It opened and shut its mouth .

As he opened and shut his , he had turned into a dragon . While he was asleep , sleeping on a dragon's horde , with greedy dragonish thoughts in his heart , he had become a dragon himself .

In this episode of the Kings Hall podcast , we'll aim to help you avoid the error of Harold Scrubb and tell your children the right stories so they'll know what to do when they come across dragons . The Kings Hall podcast exists to make self-ruled men who rule well and win the world .

So right from the start , it's really important where we locate ourselves in these stories . We'll unpack in this episode why stories are so important . But before we do that , a little teaser for upcoming episodes of the King's Hall podcast . Oh excellent , Brian . We have a special guest that we're going to be interviewing .

It's not me , so hold your applause till later today .

I was like how much money did you pay , eric , to do this ? I kind of suspected no-transcript . The setup was so long that I thought this isn't gonna be my album . What's it gonna be ? We all know what it's gonna be Imagine Dragons . I thought it's gonna be radioactive , but it was something different . I don't know .

That's the only imagine dragon song I really know .

People think patriarchy and they're like you know , you're abusive and tyrannical to your people and they must have been shocked when you release an album which is celebrating your people .

Yeah , the greatest song on the album this is not like up for debate is actually Winnie's song , and Also the greatest song ever written is Winnie's song , is Winnie's song , which I was working out the other day , which I like to tell Dan as often as I can . I Was deadlifting almost 380 pounds . There I was there , I was , there , I was .

And I'm like tearing up the one line where Brian says Something like I know there will be many years , winifred , we can use their full name . Yeah , when I will not be . But when you listen to the song and think of me and I was like oh , you can picture Eric's playlist .

I didn't even know this , but Brian said , go on , you can go on Spotify and see part of the video , but there's actually a lyric video , yeah , which is hilarious . I think Winnie has a little cameo where she's throwing something in the fire .

I went and like spent several days attempting to just get enough B roll of Daphne and Winnie to make lyric videos with them in it and it's hilarious trying to film a little girl do anything because they're just like , oh , I'm gonna go over there now I'm gonna go over there , and then they like make a larry like ridiculous faces as soon as there's a camera .

But yeah , winnie's in that one sitting on a little wooden chair in the chicken run and the chickens are all around and she it starts with a little clip where I keep the sound up and she's like I thought that into fire , I thought that into fire . And then she's doing these little like twirly movements with her . It's just she's .

She's so like it's almost unethical how cute when he is . I think it is . I Like we might need to take legal action .

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Mm-hmm in the dragon , give me like the elevator pitch for why stories ? It's not a throwaway issue , but why is it so important in the culture of a home that a father is setting ? Because you could be the guy like Eustace , where you're like , all you need to know is taxes and drains and all these practical things .

And here we are some might say Wasting time telling these stories about dragons . Yeah , why is it so important ?

It's really important in the , in the life of a , of an image bearer , that we absorb stories because God is unfolding this cosmic story . He is the ultimate storyteller and he commands His people to tell stories , which we'll get into , like in Deuteronomy 6 and with ancient monuments and things like that .

But if you look specifically at the Eustace story and then let's just say it's a parable for the types of stories that you tell your children what they're in danger of . Well , really , what you see is that the silly stories you know , the fables , the fairy stories , they have some elements in them that are really important for shaping human beings .

We're shaping image bearers and really what it is is you're shaping them to have a good Nose , like they could pass a sniff test , right . So in in those stories , in these stories a lot of moderns despise Fairy stories and fables because there's such obvious good and such obvious evil . There's not the troubled protagonist , you know , and the the evil villain .

That's actually pretty good guy . You know there's not the blending , it's so clunky , you know , and but what ? What happens is that you have children that they know what a dragon is and they know that dragon gold is something you shouldn't touch and that dragons are actually bad guys .

And so with the story of Eustace , you see a boy that has been told all the wrong stories , but what ends up happening is is just like children that are told the wrong stories in real life . It's not that they despise stories , they just consume the wrong ones and become dragons themselves . Because all of life you're being cataclyzed .

That's one of the primary ends of entertainment is actually . Brian wrote a tremendous article on this some years ago about the Catechism of Netflix . Yeah , you're , you're being cataclyzed . You're being told this is good and this is bad , this is moral .

You know this is just and this is unjust , and you're being told these stories over and over and over , and it actually begins to form you into that type of image . And so those types of stories are really , really important , even the fairy stories , even the silly stories , because it actually forms an entire human being .

Yeah , and so your children could become a dragon if you're not careful .

You have to teach them stories . Now , this kind of seems like wow , that's an interesting comment . But certainly , brian , stories shape loves as well , as it's not just information , right , that our children need . So I guess how have you seen that that stories are shaping loves within the home and what you share as a father ?

If they can just regurgitate it , it's not enough . So you have to actually win the hearts of your children , and one of the things that stories do is they encode truth in a way that is far more potent , like I think you can learn , provided that you do have the framework , theologically , of truth to filter and sift .

Story is one of the most powerful ways to actually learn about the world that God made and the God who made the world , and about redemption .

He's specifically referring to the Chronicles of Narnia , which we pulled from the cold open , says , then fixed on the fairy story as an instrument , then collected information about child psychology and decided what age group I'd write for , then drew up a list of basic Christian truths and hammered out allegories to embody them . This is pure moonshine .

I couldn't write it in that way at all . Everything began with images a fawn carrying an umbrella , a queen on a sledge , a magnificent lion . At first there wasn't even anything Christian about them . That element pushed itself in of its own accord . It was part of the bubbling . Then came the form , and that's capital F form .

As these images sorted themselves into events , ie became a story . They seemed to demand no love interest and no close psychology .

But the form which excludes these things is the fairy tale , and the moment I thought of that I fell in love with the form itself , its brevity , its severe restraints on description , its flexible traditionalism , its inflexible hostility to all analysis , digression , reflections and quote gas . I was no enamored of it .

Its very limitations of vocabulary became an attraction , as the hardness of the stone pleases the sculptor or the difficulty of the sonnets delights the sonneteer On that side . As author , I wrote fairy tales because fairy stories seemed the ideal form for the stuff I had to say . Then , of course , the man in me began to have its turn .

I thought I saw how stories of this kind could steal past a certain inhibition which paralyzed much of my own religion and childhood . Why did one find it so hard to feel as one was told one ought to feel , about God or about the sufferings of Christ ? I thought the chief reason was that one was told one ought to .

An obligation to feel can freeze feelings , and reverence itself did harm . The whole subject was associated with lowered voices , almost as if it were something medical .

But supposing that by casting all these things into an imaginary world , stripping them of their stained glass and Sunday School associations , one could make them for the first time appear in their real potency , could one not thus steal past these watchful dragons ? I thought one could .

I love that whole train of thought from Lewis explaining this is how our minds actually work , is that we often don't start with propositions and then reason our way down to action .

It's something deeper , it's something more whole-sold for most of us , where we act out of a combination of our whole self and all of the influences in our mind and images and the stories are what shape us .

Then , from those stories , lewis realized that he could actually teach Christian theology and teach a love for Christ and a real full-sold awareness of the glory of Christ's crucifixion , for example , through story .

I just have to say for myself that reading Narnia which I read almost not almost , I read Narnia every single year at least once and part of the reason is because it's one of those things that keeps the glory and the truth of the resurrection and of Christ's redemption and of his love for the world and just the beauty of creation and how God interacts with it

and our hope for the kingdom of God . All of those things are there in Narnia in ways that sneak past the watchful dragons of systematic theology and then they flow back into the systematic and they help you love the systematic the right way .

So I think this is actually one of the most important jobs a father has is to make sure that his children have the right stories shaping their loves .

They were trying to correct Rome's errors , but part of what we got was everything is thought of as systematic propositional truth , all important things , but it can kind of at points , I think , dull the sense of story and love . I think even recently we'll have Joe Rigneon in the after hours exclusive as well .

Joe's going to talk to us about Narnia and why those stories are so potent and powerful . But really what you're saying is we're not just purely rational creatures that digest the information like a phone book and then now we're good . Right .

One of the examples that I think of when I'm going through this exercises is actually if you're trying to communicate a truth , for example , if you're telling somebody in the congregation or your children , hey , you shouldn't commit this egregious sin , because you will feel really guilty about it and you will be wracked with guilt and your life will be hell .

But there is repentance on the other side . If that's what you say , okay , that's a bit of data . Then Dostoevsky tells crime and punishment and that goes through the hell of murder and the guilt of the conscience and how it just hounds you relentlessly .

And I mean Better justice would have been capital , but whatever you know , you often yeah , like with the story , you can feel it .

It seems like people are pretty excited . I noticed you got a lot of young kids , you got a lot of business owners . Like what in the world is going on ? And you start sharing the idea like , oh no , we actually win down here . Let me tell you how that actually works . You know the Bible says that the glory of God will cover the entire world .

Like water is wet , like you know the waters cover the sea . You know , and start going through a lot of this post-millennial hope and saying , like the Gospel is effective for salvation and you can have hopes for generations , thousand generations . You know that your people will be blessed and so we need to put our hands to the plow .

And you can just see it in the , in the eyes of the men here , when they're like wait a minute , there's , there's actually hope . Like the rapture isn't coming tomorrow or something like that .

I mean , I'm not , I'm not trying to dunk on anyone specifically , but but when you share the story of hope and you share the story of the gospel and of the whole narrative of scripture in In a way that's applicable to the life of a man or the life of a child or a woman , you're actually winning their heart to a vision and an idea and an ideal and a

virtue and they have something to strive towards and story does that in the best way . Yeah , you could reason systematic on . Well , this is what the post-millennialist , you know Eschatology , believes and you'd have the data points . But it's , it's so much more than that .

Just like you could , you could , you could , you could take systematic of the of the entire scriptures and you have all of the theological data points . But if you don't read it , if you don't read the narrative of the entire story of God's people , from beginning to end , you're missing out .

God tells stories because it wins people and he's and he's a storyteller and this history is a story .

They also don't like campfires , but you know they don't do that . They don't . You know you're never gonna find a colony of porpoises that are really , you know , promoting their , their newest Teen fantasy series that they wrote like it just , it just won't happen . But people relentlessly do .

It's interesting and they do it , even when they do it really poorly , like even twilight . I mean it's dumb , but it's the , the pagans do this too .

It's , it's Inescapable as a human being and one of the things I think is important that we we could maybe put a pin in this and talk about it later , but I think it'd be important to give a couple examples of the type of stories that you'd want to shape your daughters and your sons . You just think about that . Could we do that ?

out there . It basically teaches them that most of again We've talked about this before but your biggest problem is that you don't have enough self-esteem and think more highly of yourself . But then you have this wonderful character in pride and prejudice , elizabeth , who is a wonderful lady .

She's smart , she's vivacious , she's witty , she's beautiful , she's and also she's a huge sinner and she almost ruins everything .

Then I read the book and it was really amazing because at the end Mm-hmm . Elizabeth genuinely and very Christianly repents to a man . To a man it says I have wronged you . I sinned , against you and she's ashamed of it . And then their relationship really , I think , begins through that Repentance , mutual .

It's not like it's not a novel about where men are sinless and women are sinful either . He sins too , but his true character is that he is a godly Christian man .

And then there's this other man who is flashy and handsome and outgoing invite , like all these these extroverted , and he seems a lot better , but he ends up being Evil , like he is a wicked , foolish man that you would never in a million years want your daughter to marry .

And so part of the story is this woman protagonist learning how to tell the difference between the foolish man and the godly man and Then in the process also learning about her own sinful temptations and foolishness and being rebuked and chastened and repenting and restored . And so to me that's an example there .

It's not all Lord of the Rings like that too , but there's an example there of that's a story that I want to shape the thinking of my daughters , my sons too , but particularly of my daughters .

You have a few different characters that are really , I think are , laudable characters , you know .

Yes , a lot of lessons about you know , like where he's like disobeying his dad and then he learns , really , I think , to respect his father .

One of the actually one of the most profound lines that I'd read in it was that Ralph was saying that he asked a lot of questions of his father they're they're driving the buckboard or whatever and he just kept asking his dad questions , question after question , and he made a comment saying my dad never complained you or got frustrated that I asked so many

questions . And I was like holy moly , I mean to me it was really yeah , that's really cool . But there's a lot of different lessons that you learn from those books that I think are really good , some more obvious bad guys and , and obviously , good guys . So , yeah , I don't know if you have anything off the top of your head .

But my boys are also in the medieval period in school and so I they had actually been ahead of me in reading a lot of this material . But it was really interesting because I was asking my sons that the conversation comes up .

They're talking about what they want to name their children and you know my oldest he said to me said I think my firstborn I want to name Charlemagne . So and I was like , okay , I was like that's , that's interesting . So you know , now obviously we're reading about Charlemagne I was like what a king . And then he was like , I think , my second born .

If I have a second born son , I'm a name here , roland and I was like okay and then like out , you know , all the names are like Alfred and even though the female names of that time period are just , you know , amazing at the red and all you know all this stuff . But it's really interesting .

You start seeing that and they're reading these stories and you see how it shapes their loves and what they're trying to aim at with their lives that we can share together . So that's what it's been a lot lately . It's just a lot of these medieval fables nights .

I think Really helps solidify you know , as a man , what are you aiming your life at , particularly as we talk about Christendom , mm-hmm . The other thing I would say is you know , as you think about these stories , like stories that shaped you when you were a young man . Yeah , I can remember even reading like some of the monkeys was one .

It was like Wilson Rawls , I think he also wrote where the red front grows .

Some of the stories I think one of the most pivotal was gates of fire , steven Pressfield yeah , you know thermopoly , this the story of the 300 . He gives you a picture of Kind of like this valiant image of Western civilization and what it would mean to be a great man Even if you were flawed .

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Their stories that understand what it is to be a boy like Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn , those are books that understand Twain understood what it was to be a young man because he as a teenager , like , ran away and became a steamboat captain on the Mississippi River . Basically , I mean , that was his , his thing .

So he understood this adventurous spirit in boyhood and the humor and the like , the Love and all of it was there , the justice , the fighting , like . I also think of a book like Swiss Family Robinson , which is , to our ear , super didactic in it's like .

There's a lot of moralizing in the book when the Puritan father is like every five minutes like now , children , let us kneel down and praise the Lord and thanksgiving for delivering us from this Wildebeest that came out and you know .

So there's an element where it's it's like not the most realistic book , but what I love about it is that it just so Straightforwardly presented this godly family piety with a strong Christian father and boys who sin and Then are corrected by their fathers and submit to him , like over and over in the book , that happens . That book comes to mind .

What I mean I don't want to say . The Lord of the Rings in Narnia are obviously everyone show .

We're talking about stories that demonstrate truth as true , evil as evil , and that the world is embattled hard . Things are gonna happen to you . You're gonna be kicked down . You got to get back up , be a man , be a woman . Those kinds of things like the world is not just stuff . The world is not just stuff . So true , all so , absolutely true .

Couldn't have said it better myself , eric , that's right .

, god is telling them repeatedly and Moses tells them repeatedly Tell your sons the stories of what God's done . Yes , one of the things that that I hope for is that we transmit is exactly that .

Look at what God has done in Ogden in our own lives , our lives look at what the Lord has done and even keeping records of those things yeah , for future generations . But I just talked to me a little bit about some of the theology behind this , of you know biblically why God's stories are important For that generational work .

behalf ? So you have to have stories that capture Powerfully the truth and the ugliness and the beauty and the redemption , so that your kids in a sense can live the stories again . They can live alongside you what the Lord brought you through . So I think that's true in your own life .

But how much more of teaching our kids how to understand the scriptures themselves , not as a story or I mean , sorry , not as just a collection of random historical works that you know , they've got some moral Things that you should learn . Here's a couple . Like the moral of the story is be it , be a good boy , johnny .

Well , no , the moral of the story is Christ throws down the Leviathan and he wins his bride , and you're a part of this story . And so go and follow him into battle . Like teach your kids to read the Bible that way and Then learn how to read their own family story , church story , their own life story through that lens , because you'll know what to do .

Then , when you come upon hardship and you're like this happens to us all the time Hard thing in the church or hard thing in our lives , and it's like , okay , guys , how are we gonna lead through this as pastors ? Okay , what ? What would ? What would the hero of the story do ? Well , he wouldn't be a giant .

Pansy pansy , he would be courageous and he would go and he would say full send .

But like you watch that and then , okay , we have hard things to deal with pastorally and I say to myself , go be a king . Like there's hard things and it is inspirational , it kind of gives you the jet fuel to go deal with that . Mm-hmm , dan , it looked like you were gonna , yeah .

You know , for family worship at night , and they're all kind of like their eyes are glazed over . I mean , they're like two , three , six , you know , like they're really little and I still do that .

But one of the things that I started to do and I could see their eyes light up is I'll quickly like read over , like David and Goliath , for example , myself , and then I tell them the story and they absolutely love it and what it allows me to do is to say , like boys , you're gonna have giants that come against you and so your call is to be like David ,

and I mean there's lots of different applications , cue the . You're not David . Yeah , I know , I know , I should have picked a different example .

I remember this story , yeah , I remember . I love this story . Yes , you know , and I'm supposed to be like David , I'm supposed to be courageous .

It reminds me of a quote from one of my favorite books , which is Notes from a Tilted World by Andy Wilson , and he said this Marx called religion an opiate , and all too often it is . But philosophy is an anesthetic , a shot to keep the wonder away . It is easy to be numb to the world's marvels when you've missed lunch and the light is red .

To an infinite artist , a creator in love with his craft , there is no unimportant corner , there is no thrown away image , no tattered thread in the novel left untied . There is a crushing joy that crackles in every corner of this world . I am tiny and yet I am here .

I have been given senses , awareness , existence , and placed on a stage so crowded with the vast , so teeming with the tiny , that I can do nothing but laugh , and sometimes laugh and cry . Living makes dying worth it .

The whole ethos of that book is one that I think really captures what we're talking about is teaching our children and really believing ourselves is where it starts that we are actually in that kind of story ourselves , and so that when they read the tales of the past , or when they read a good fictional novel , or when they encounter a really good film , they're

able to read the correct story . But they're also equipped when the philosophers show up or when the atheists show up , or when the whatever fool shows up and tells the wrong story and says , oh , it's all meaningless , god is dead . Let me tell you why . It doesn't matter . They know what to do , which is laugh and be like you're dumb .

That is not the story at all . What ?

And all this stuff and I think part of it to your point , brian is like we're trying to reinstall the wonder in these things . This happened for me recently . I'll share this with you . This was on Twitter and we'll transition now into sort of season three in Christendom and kind of what's coming down the pipeline . Get everybody excited . But I read this on .

It was just an account that I follow . I think it's mainly about like medieval history , but it says this one of Saladin's emirs said this on the Crusaders there is something especially amazing about one of them he threw our people into disorder and destroyed them . We have never seen his like nor known anyone similar .

He was always at the head of the others In every engagement . He was first and foremost . No one can stand against him and when he sees his anyone , no one can rescue them from his hands and they call him , in their language , king Richard Based .

And I read that and like , even as I'm reading it now , like it's like fire in my blood , like this is something to aim at , like this great King , yes . And then you also think about it . It's like all these people like I posted this and people were like you know , the crusades you used to scrub shows up in your comment feed . Seriously .

Why is it so important to look back at these great stories ? And I think for us this happened in the conversation with Clint Sunshine . We're like so much of what we've heard is wrong . Yeah , yeah , we've been disenchanted , we don't even know it .

Church history we know , like , reformation history , you know . We know that . We know early church , first century , you know sort of history , but then there's this whole period of time that we are completely clueless about , other than that there were a bunch of dirt munching like cave dwellers that didn't know anything during like 1500 years of human history .

You know and it's really ironic because you look at the architecture that they , yeah , they also built this . Yeah , it's like builders say we can't actually make that anymore .

You know the great paintings and all of the beautiful art and the music and everything like that that was produced during this time and you have to ask the question well , if these were a bunch of like illiterates you know dirt munching , they didn't even have .

And he's like , boy , I mean you could read this guy . There's some stuff you can glean from that , but don't take everything . And this guy and like there's just so much unknown , not an NLBL resource .

And so they start to point out flaws in the people , like , oh well , they did this or they made this mistake . And the thing is , some of it's not even false , because here's the thing , all of your heroes are going to do the wrong thing some of the time . Have you ever read a book Like have you ever read an actual good story ?

The protagonist does wrong things sometimes . That's kind of half the story is how he then triumphs and deals with it and becomes a glory .

So part of it is for us to be able to even be ready to answer those things and be like oh okay , so you're telling me that one time Alfred sinned , and so now I'm supposed to dismiss and dishonor my spiritual forefather , king Alfred . Well , I'm sorry , I'm not going to do that and you better say Christ is Lord or I'm going to . That's right .

All that good stuff , but shield walls and the shield wall , and in Ben Merkle's book the White Horse King , he talks about how Alfred was at the front . So this is very bloody style of combat . You're like you have guys with shields and then other guys are reaching above around whatever to stab people in the throat , eyes , whatever .

Alfred is at the front and they said well , the thing is , if one man retreats it will crush the whole troops because everybody will start retreating , and most especially the king , and I thought particularly of Denethor . Denethor has this line in Return of the King where he says the wise ruler always fights from the back .

And here you have King Alfred , the wild boar , on the battlefield leading his people , outnumbered , outgunned , and yet he's at the front . It's so important . That's a pretty practical lesson for today's church leadership .

That was the expectation of the leaders that they'd actually lead on the battlefield , and so that also tells you something of the type of people that the Anglo-Saxons were with baseline Christianity .

There's a whole lot of things that have gone out of focus . You know , and you can start to trace where that has happened and the cycles that have happened . So many things in my mind are actually being solidified and changed based on reading this period of history of the first Christendom . I'm very excited to get into it more in season three .

I saw a post recently it said there is no Christian prince and I was like , oh , I think Charlemagne would like a word , because this guy was like , I mean , he's leading for 42 years of his reign , he's leading in military exploits , he's going to mass twice a day , he's building cathedrals , he's like a very pious man and ruling , you know , surrounding himself

with God's people , that sort of thing . So really encouraging . Brian , I guess if you would just give us a charge in Benny here A charge and Benny .

Remember Eustace Eustace got dragon because he didn't read the right stories .

But remember that the kind of story that we're talking about is a kind of stories kind of story where traitors can become kings and where dragon-ish enemies and losers can become undragonned by the king . And so follow the Lord , take heart , don't be discouraged , don't be downcast .

You're in a story where the king wins and you're on his side , and so he's on your side . So thanks for listening , guys . We hope this has been a helpful episode of the King's Hall . Be sure to check us out on Patreon . We've got all sorts of bonus content there If you like what we're doing and want to support the show .

But until next time , fest in a lente , make haste slowly . We'll see you next time in the King's Hall . Thank you .