Feb. 26, 2025
Love's Place in Society
343: Join Pastor Plek, Pastor Holland, and Bri Mota for a compelling discussion on the controversy surrounding JD Vance's remarks about the hierarchy of love, or "ordo amoris." What does it truly mean to prioritize love, starting from family and extending outward? Together, they scrutinize the reactions from religious and secular circles, including critiques from evangelical leaders like Thabiti Anyabwile, and assess how Vance's views align or conflict with historical Christian teachings from luminaries such as Augustine and Aquinas.
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Chapters
00:06 - Prioritizing Love
09:55 - Prioritizing National Aid Over Foreign Assistance
19:25 - Hierarchy of Love and Priority
27:21 - Balancing Household and Community Support
Transcript
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And welcome back to Pastor Plex Podcast.
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I'm your host, Pastor Plex, and joining me in studio is none other than Holland Gregg, lead pastor from Eastside Community Church.
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So glad to have you, Holland.
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Thanks, Chris.
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And also is Brianna Mota, a frequent contributor here to Pastor Plex Podcast, and so glad you're joining us.
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Welcome, hello, all right.
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So the big thing that has been going viral on the internet is a video that we just watched and we will watch it again here for us all to sort of take a look at and go ahead and play that, cody, all right.
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So after watching that video, uh, I'm sort of like in tune and I would love to hear what we think is primarily.
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Here's the thing that really stuck out uh, in jd vance gave, like the ordo amoris.
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He says listen, you love your family, then you love your neighbor, and then you love says listen, you love your family, then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country.
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Then after that you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world.
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This perspective suggests that one's immediate responsibility to family, neighbors and community should take precedence before extending concern to broader global matters.
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Now, this has caused a lot of people to get angry.
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Give me some of the anger that you've seen over the internet.
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Pull it.
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Yep, I've seen.
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I think just as important to note too, anger is not just like people outside of the church, but even within the church.
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A lot of evangelical leaders heard that statement, made a lot of posts on social media about why it was wrong, why it's a total rejection of the heart of Jesus or the teachings of Jesus and things like that.
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And so, like Thabiti Anyabwile is one of you know someone who was really connected with like nine marks and you know, kind of formerly, I think, kind of had a reputation as like a conservative pastor and preacher and theologian who's really kind of drifted yeah, Drifted way more to the liberal side of things, and I don't know the last few years, it's what is what.
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It seems that I've noticed and he's one of the people who made a comment of just like man, this JD Vance gets it totally wrong here, and so a lot of pastors, theologians, evangelical leaders have had a lot of issues with what JD Vance said.
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When you hear that Brie, just as woman off the street, like what is your natural reaction to what JD Vanstead said of?
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Essentially, you go, you love your family, then you love your neighbor, then you love your community, then you love your fellow citizens, your own country, and after that you focus on the rest of the world.
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To me.
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I thought that was common sense.
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OK, so that sounds like common sense.
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Now.
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On that note.
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Well, can I say something?
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Yeah, so that sounds like common sense.
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Now, sometimes On that note well, can I say?
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something.
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Yeah, yeah.
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So on that note, you mentioned Ordo Amoris, which is?
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He doesn't say that phrase in the clip, Right?
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But he quoted it in a response to someone, like pushing back on the clip, and he said his response to this person.
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Well, I'll read what the person said first this is Rory Stewart, UK leader, and he said this is a bizarre take on John 15, less Christian and more pagan tribal.
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We should start worrying when politicians become theologians, assume to speak for Jesus and tell us in which order to love.
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And then JD Vance replied just Google Ordo Amoris, which is pretty funny.
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But you know, he says just Google this.
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And then he said aside from that, the idea that there isn't a hierarchy of obligations violates basic common sense to your point.
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And then he says does Rory really think his moral duties to his own children are the same as his duties to a stranger who lives thousands of miles away?
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Does anyone?
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So he appeals to common sense and Ordo Amoris, which is, sounds like a Harry Potter spell, but it is a, you know, a classic Christian teaching, Right?
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That all people, I think, intuitively recognize.
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That's the common sense part.
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But a lot of Christian theologians have written about and taught on, and so, from guys like Augustine to Thomas Aquinas, CS Lewis, Herman Bovink, Calvin, there's writings about this order of, and hierarchy of, loves and priorities and duties.
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People have written on all throughout Christian history.
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So I feel like this it does get.
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I just want to look at the scripture because sometimes, like when you look at scripture, sometimes it goes against the grain of culture.
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And so here is a like the elected vice president got majority of all the votes, so here is the majority person leader of the country, not a minority voice speaking.
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And sometimes when the majority speaks, then the church needs to speak into that to correct that which is wrong.
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And I think we have voices now trying to correct it.
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But let's just kind of go with that.
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I think the first verse for me that sticks out.
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But let's just kind of go with that.
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I think the first verse for me that sticks out.
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And maybe we can kind of all just start here 1 Timothy 5.8.
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For me kind of, really, if he who doesn't take care of his own family is worse than an unbeliever, like that's sort of wild.
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If anyone does not provide for his relatives, especially a member of his own household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
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And so I don't know, and again, this is for Christians.
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And so here's what Christians should do Take care of your own specific family.
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Should do Take care of your own specific family.
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Now, jd Vance sort of makes that case that Christians should take care of their own family.
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Now, jd Vance, not that he shouldn't be concerned about families, he is obviously concerned about families.
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He, as a ruler, is supposed to put the people of his nation first and he doesn't bear the sword for nothing.
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And so I feel like that is his bringing justice and provision.
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And providing for his own nation before he looks after the justice of other nations.
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Is the priority of rulers, in accordance with like a Romans 13 sort of mindset.
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Would you agree with that, or am I going out of bounds?
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Yeah, no, totally agree.
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And you know the principle.
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First, timothy five eight.
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He says if anyone doesn't provide for his relatives, especially members of his own household, the word especially there means you have a special type of obligation or duty that is related to and in proportion to your love.
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Your love should be greatest for your family, your household, and there are obligations that go with that love.
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And he says if you don't do this, you're worse than an unbeliever.
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Why?
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Because even unbelievers, many of them, understand by virtue of common sense that this is what you're supposed to do.
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To not do that is worse than an unbeliever.
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Because some of the pushback has been like that's not a Christian teaching Right, everybody knows that.
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But then he says you've also denied the faith.
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So there's actually a way that it is of the faith, of the Christian faith, to do this, that it is of the faith of the Christian faith to do this.
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It's God's will, it is right and approved of by God to have ordered loves and special love for certain people.
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And so we know that as a family.
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Throughout church history, nations have been understood essentially, as you know, similar rulers of nations have been called like the fathers of nations.
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There's a familial aspect to it.
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It's not the same.
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You know, you have the three institutions of the family, the state and the church, and so a nation state is not the same as a family, but there's similar principles involved in that.
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The rulers of a nation state are responsible for the wellbeing of the people under their care and they've been given the sword.
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Like you say, his job is to ensure justice, promote what is good, punish what is evil, and so to prioritize your nation and the needs of your nation.
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The good of your nation is a totally Christian thing.
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It's something that even unbelievers, many understand, but is also of the Christian faith to think in that kind of way.
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All right, I'm going to give you another verse, and I want you to kind of weigh in Galatians 6.10,.
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So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone and to that word you said a second ago, especially to those who are of the household of faith.
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So, in other words, put Christians above non-Christians.
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Those within the household of faith, those within the governing structure of the church, should be ministered to in priority over those who are outside the household of faith, and then you would think that that same sort of concept would be a natural concept within the governing structure of a nation, those whom the ruler is responsible to God for.
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I think this is where sometimes you just said it there's three governing authorities the state, the church and the family.
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And the state is responsible before God, separate of the church, for the way that they conduct itself in its governance of its people, and if it prioritizes people that it's not responsible for over the ones it is responsible for, then that becomes problematic.
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Yes, exactly.
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So anyway, I feel like I can't.
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I don't know if there is.
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I think let's just go to some Bible verse that people might go to.
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I think it's like bless your enemies, love your enemies.
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Is that where we're going with?
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So there's a few, I think some of the pushback from it is well, I think a lot of the pushback comes from people's inability or failure to think in different categories.
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Right, that, um, how a nation establishes its policies is not the exact same as how an individual person, um, you know, um, that nation states, families, can embody the love of God in different ways.
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Right, and that's going to look different depending on what the institution, what the particular situation is.
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But so some of the pushback, I think, is coming from that root of not thinking in the right categories, but also in, just, I think it's mainly an appeal to compassion and saying, okay, you know, aren't we supposed to love our enemy?
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Aren't we supposed to love the stranger?
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Aren't we supposed to love the foreigner?
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And so, um, the answer is yes, we are supposed to do all those things, but love, um, you can love two people genuinely and sincerely, and yet the way that you treat them does not have to be the same thing, right, Right, um.
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So this I'll quote Augustine, augustine, the, you know where we get the idea of Ordo Amoris.
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You know that phrase.
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He says one ought to love all men equally.
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So we can say we love all people equally.
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But then he says since, however, one cannot do good to all, we ought to consider those chiefly who, by reason of place, time or any other circumstance, by a kind of chance, are more closely united to us.
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So he says, okay, we can love all people equally, in some sense of the word love, and yet in another sense of how we practically love them, it's not going to be the same.
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For instance, you can't buy dinner for every hungry person in the world tonight, but you can for one, right?
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And so does that mean that you, you know, don't love all people equally?
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Well, in a sense yes, and in another sense no.
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Because you love all people the same, you will buy dinner for that one person, but also you can't love everyone the exact same because you can't buy dinner for everyone.
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Does that make sense?
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Yeah, All right.
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So recently, so on January 28 of 25, the US State Department expanded exemptions to the aid suspension, and so they said to cover humanitarian programs, life-saving medicine, but it would get rid of DEI, diversity, equity, inclusion, ideology programs, transgender surgery and non-life-saving assistance.
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And so I think what happened is people got upset that any cuts were being made at all, and I think what the administration was doing is saying we are not for the diversity, equity, inclusion, we are not for abortion, we are not for transgender surgeries, and so we are going to cut those programs.
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Or I think there was one that was like $70,000 to create a musical in Ireland, for that was advancing transgenderism, and so they cut that.
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And you're like why is anyone's, why are taxpayers from the United States spending money on a $70,000 musical for transgenderism?
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That, to me, was wild when I read about that, found out about that, and so I think a lot of these cost-cutting measures are actually really healthy, and I'm not saying that you shouldn't use USAID to create stability throughout different theaters of operation and create goodwill between the United States and those abroad.
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However, I do think prioritizing it's our own country and when there are those in North Carolina or in Los Angeles who've gone through natural disasters and they're struggling to rebuild their homes and rebuild their lives.
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Priority should be put on your own people as opposed to uh, foreign aid, and I think that's what they were trying to get around, and so I do think that's the right answer.
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Like those rebuilding their homes in california, north carolina, need the help over, and or maybe say first, before you give help to um, those in foreign countries yeah, exactly because jd, you know J D, you know the way JD Vance said it.
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He said you know it's.
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He said it doesn't mean we hate anyone, right, um?
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And he said he didn't say you never help anyone outside of your own country, Um, but he said there's an order, you know, of priorities and so what you just described, yeah, like you, you've got to take care and the the.
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The reality is, if you do a really good job taking care of your own country, you're going to be poised to be of help to others, whereas if you don't prioritize the health, safety, security, prosperity of your own country, you will eventually collapse from the inside, you know, and you won't be able to be of any good to anyone.
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I think this is funny because I think every person that's criticizing this has heard the saying on an airplane put your mask on first.
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I was just going to say that Exactly.
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There's one person that's going like nah, that's dumb, you better put your mask on your kid first.
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Well, while you're putting the mask on the kid, you pass out.
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Well, that's not going to help that kid out at all, because that kid can't function.
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That kid can't help you, he can't do anything.
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And so you've got to prioritize your own health before you then prioritize the health of even your own child, and that is the best thing for that child.
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Likewise, it is the best thing for the free world when the strongest nation takes care of its strength and mobilizes.
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It helps those in need within its own borders and then can go forth.
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And again, I like that.
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It's not that we don't help those outside the United States.
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In fact, I think we do.
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Exactly, yeah, you want to be a nation that is prosperous and that is a blessing to other people, but you can't get there by continually debilitating yourself, by prioritizing those outside, you know, while you're suffering on the inside.
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So, while we're in trillions of dollars of debt, while we have, like you know, some of the situations you just explained, to take care of yourself first allows you to be able to be in a position to take care of and help others.
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Yeah, what other thought, what other pushback do you think people would give to that Cause I'm trying to make like the legitimate.
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I want to hear the other side of the argument.
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I just have a hard time getting there on and I guess I would go with, maybe.
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Love your enemies, do good and land, expect nothing in return, and your world will be great and you'll be called sons of the most high, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil, or if your enemy is hungry feed him.
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If he is thirsty, give him something to drink, for.
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By doing so, you keep burning coals on his head, or how about?
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But I say to you, this is Luke 6, 27.
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I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, and we have been doing good to those who hate us.
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We've been giving aid to those who are actively trying to kill us for years, and I think sometimes that might be what's been sustaining the evil that's been going on is our own aid, and I don't think it's helping us.
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I don't think it's, you know, pushing back darkness.
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In fact, I think it's, uh, helping to perpetuate something that needs to be ultimately stopped.
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What are you thinking there, br.
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Brie?
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I mean to me through all of this.
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My one question I would ask someone who disagrees is if you are struggling to pay your light bill and your husband is giving all your money to a married woman down the street, how would you feel, Right, I'm sure you'd be jealous.
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I'm sure you'd be ticked off.
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I'm sure your marriage would not be Strong.
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Strong, Right, I'm sure you'd be jealous.
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I'm sure you'd be ticked off.
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I'm sure your marriage would not be Strong, strong.
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So why is it any different with our country, right?
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Or if your pastor is handing out all this money and your church is falling apart, or our benevolence like, yes, we are helping the community, but if a member applies?
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And we're like oh sorry, this money needs, yeah, Like there is priority and, yes, with the overflow, we bless those around us, again those around us.
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You're not going over right to another church our benevolence.
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Priority is members first yes members first, then regular attenders, then, uh, people who live in the neighborhood, and then extended beyond because we want to be, um, a light in the dark for them.
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That's a great point, and and so I think that's where the people we should be supporting first, probably Mexico and Canada, since there are two neighbors which, ironically, I think, is just who Trump made a business deal with and we're not going to tariff them.
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I think both of them said, hey, no tariffs and we'll stop the flow.
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I think it's a 30-day pause to assess how things go, or something like that, right right.
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So I think that's sort of wild that you're having to negotiate with neighbors but you have to do this with your own neighbors, like I've had to have you know arguments or you know moments with my own neighbors to kind of like, hey, keep the volume down when you have your Bible studies late at night, because you know we.
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To kind of like, hey, keep the volume down when you have your Bible studies late at night because we go wild at my house and we had to have some concessions and I sent gifts to create a bond of peace between my neighbor because I think that's super important, because I value my neighbor and I think we need to be doing that.
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But when it comes down to valuing across several neighborhoods over to an uh, you know a street there, it's good, I don't think it's bad, but I should first take care of those closest to me because that seems like the most that makes common sense, yeah, and people have.
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You know some of the pushback people have cited, like the good samaritan story, as like oh, this is someone who was.
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It was a Samaritan helping you know someone and we we're assuming the guy beaten up on the side of the road was an Israelite.
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You don't really it never says right, it says um.
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I think it does say.
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It does say yeah, so, yeah.
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So the idea there is that like, okay, they're different, you know they're different, uh, ethnicities, nationalities, they're not, you know, kinsmen in a sense.
00:19:55.818 --> 00:19:58.560
And yet he takes care of that guy.
00:19:58.560 --> 00:20:00.542
So, like, doesn't that disprove it?
00:20:00.542 --> 00:20:10.211
He's taking care a Samaritan, taking care of an Israelite, and so people have brought that up to say like, oh, that's not like my country first, or whatever.
00:20:10.211 --> 00:20:42.364
But I think it just really proves the whole point of like this was someone who was, who was his neighbor in the sense of he's right here, someone that he could help with his own money, right, um, that, like you know, and if you were to see the man beat up, left for dead on the side of the road and say I can't help you because I'm sending my money across, you know, the other side of the world or whatever, to people that I don't see, that I don't have proximity with, that, I'm not whatever, and so I can't help you.
00:20:42.423 --> 00:20:51.134
Who's right here and in that story, jesus is shaming the religious leaders who did not prioritize their own.
00:20:51.134 --> 00:20:53.346
Yeah, they overlooked.
00:20:53.346 --> 00:20:56.048
They did the exact thing they were talking about.
00:20:56.048 --> 00:21:05.448
They said no to helping the one that was their own kinsman or their own nation, because it was inconvenient.
00:21:05.448 --> 00:21:14.853
Whatever the reason was, we don't know, but it was something that everyone assumed a priest or a levi would take care of his own countrymen.
00:21:14.853 --> 00:21:16.662
That was sort of their literal job.
00:21:16.662 --> 00:21:21.432
And then when a samaritan has to do it, it is shameful to them.
00:21:21.872 --> 00:21:29.384
And I think that's the whole point of that story is what god's saying is because you're missing the whole point of the gospel, I am.
00:21:29.384 --> 00:21:33.523
I first come to the jews and then I'm going to go beyond.
00:21:33.523 --> 00:21:34.807
There's an order I said reject.
00:21:34.807 --> 00:21:40.827
There was an order even in god's expression of his love of christ, of salvation.
00:21:40.827 --> 00:21:43.133
It first came to the jews and I don't.
00:21:43.133 --> 00:21:44.542
I'm not upset by that.
00:21:44.542 --> 00:21:46.692
I'm not sitting there going like how come I got?
00:21:46.692 --> 00:21:51.805
Second, I was had to stand behind the jew, jews in line to receive my salvation.
00:21:51.805 --> 00:21:55.461
Well, clearly it was ordered that way because salvation is from the Jews.
00:21:55.560 --> 00:22:01.538
Jesus said that to the Samaritan woman who's confused about her own religion.
00:22:01.538 --> 00:22:03.805
It's like listen, salvation is from the Jews.
00:22:03.805 --> 00:22:23.290
It is priority first, and Paul went first to the Jews, then to the Gentiles, and so I think all throughout the scripture you have a hierarchy of relationship, a hierarchy of priority, and because if you don't have a hierarchy of priority, then you have chaos, you have complete anarchy.
00:22:23.290 --> 00:22:33.788
You have kind of like, do whatever you want to do with whomever you want to do it, because we would say our intimacy, our love, our finances has a hierarchy of priority and it should go to our family.
00:22:33.788 --> 00:22:42.042
If you're like a person that you know in your will, you give it all to a foreign country and you leave your family.
00:22:42.042 --> 00:22:44.471
That's out of it, family out of it that's in desperate need.
00:22:44.471 --> 00:22:47.189
You would say you are messed up.
00:22:47.189 --> 00:22:50.189
You would say you did not take care of your family.
00:22:50.189 --> 00:22:50.872
You're worse than an unbeliever.
00:22:50.892 --> 00:22:52.819
You're worse than an unbeliever and you've denied the faith.
00:22:52.819 --> 00:22:54.306
That's what 1 Timothy, 5.
00:22:54.601 --> 00:22:56.790
And Jesus criticized Jews.
00:22:56.790 --> 00:22:57.895
For this, remember Corbin.
00:22:57.895 --> 00:23:19.250
Yeah, corbin, corbin said, like you say, I'm giving all this to God and so I can't help my mom and my dad, my mom and my dad, whereas Jesus, look, you are obliterating the fifth commandment just so that you can say I'm honoring God.
00:23:19.250 --> 00:23:22.061
And, by the way, the way you honor God is by honoring those who loved you first.
00:23:22.102 --> 00:23:24.107
Yeah, the fifth commandment is an example too.
00:23:24.107 --> 00:23:25.811
It doesn't say honor everyone.
00:23:25.811 --> 00:23:27.483
It says honor your mother and father.
00:23:27.483 --> 00:23:32.183
Yes, we do honor everyone, but there is a great degree, a greater degree of honor.
00:23:32.183 --> 00:23:40.833
Um, herman Boving says this way um, the command to show love toward everyone does not preclude different degrees of that love.
00:23:40.833 --> 00:23:43.201
Some people are much closer to us than others.
00:23:43.201 --> 00:23:49.827
Some are bound to us by a physical relationship, social, political relations, spiritual unity or by friendship and the like.
00:23:50.480 --> 00:24:03.669
Aquinas says this Wherefore, in matters pertaining to nature, we should love our kindred most, in matters concerning relations between citizens, we should prefer our fellow citizens and, on the battlefield, our fellow soldiers.
00:24:03.669 --> 00:24:06.587
So like, should you love your enemy?
00:24:06.587 --> 00:24:11.923
Yes, you should, but that looks different for someone who is, uh, a soldier in a war.
00:24:11.923 --> 00:24:34.307
Uh, that, what does it look like to love your enemy and you know to be a soldier who's faithful to your mission and stuff like that, and you're got, you got to prefer, prefer, uh prioritize and prefer your fellow soldiers in a way, um, and so, understanding there's different categories to apply, what love looks like and there's different degrees of love.
00:24:34.307 --> 00:24:37.801
I think really helps you actually think through this thing.
00:24:37.801 --> 00:24:43.022
It's not saying you need to hate everyone, you know, reject people, don't ever help someone.
00:24:43.022 --> 00:24:46.862
No, as Christians, we should love our enemies, we should love the foreigner, the poor.
00:24:46.862 --> 00:24:52.188
Um, but what that looks like, and you know how we practically do that there's.
00:24:52.188 --> 00:24:57.648
There is an actual, rational and biblical order and approach to it.
00:24:57.648 --> 00:24:58.590
Yeah, does that make sense?
00:24:58.590 --> 00:24:58.932
Yeah, yeah.
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