Narrative Instruction

In today’s episode of A Cup of Friendship, Rhett Palmer and Mike Bagby sit down over coffee to explore how God teaches through story. Focusing on the power of narrative in Scripture, they unpack how biblical accounts are more than history—they’re instruction, revealing truth, character, and guidance for our lives today.

Through thoughtful discussion and real-life application, Rhett and Mike highlight how understanding the stories of the Bible can deepen our faith, sharpen our perspective, and help us recognize God’s hand at work in our own story. ☕

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_02 0:00

He is the great I am. His first friend was Abraham. Surely said Abraham. I am that I am.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

I'm report. I'm sitting here with my friend, the rabbi himself, Michael.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Well, we're all rabbis of uh one sort or another. You know, we all have had experiences with God, and God has spoken to us, and he's uh shown us things, and we are carriers of his word. So yeah, we all are uh rabbis. We've been around.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Our point of cup of friendship, though, is that it's conversational in that I've always noticed like uh you know the I don't know if it's a pejorative term, goyam, but you know, uh the Jews have a rabbi, and the Jews will tell you, oh rabbi, rabbi, this question, that question. And the rabbi will say the only stupid question is the one you don't ask. Whereas the uh the non-Hebrew will have a, you know, I'm speaking at you and everybody be quiet. You know? And so I think we have a lot of preachers on the radio and people that talk at people. And I'll never forget what inspires me is that when uh Bill Clinton was going through his darkest hour, uh a sinner, sure, like all of us, uh I I really prayed for him, worrying that he might be depressed and thinking suicide. You know, the whole world is on his case. He said, Dr. Billy Graham flew in to see him. He said he didn't speak at me, he spoke with me. And so I think what we're doing with Cup of Friendship is we're offering friendship to everyone who's out there, that you can come here and we're going to have conversation. Which is different than speaking at people. We're talking with you folks. That's is that would you say that's a common objective of ours?

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Well, uh when you're sitting around and with friends, discussion should be happening.

SPEAKER_03 2:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

And uh when you're drinking a cup of good coffee, that seems to promote that, because coffee is the friendship drink. So um I enjoy engaging people and hearing. I mean, I learned so much. You know, in our Bible studies that we do at the Rio Coco Cafe, um I'm put in the position of uh what what I I'm the authority in the room, so to speak.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

Manager.

SPEAKER_00 2:26

Because I'm uh pay I'm paying the rent on the building, but the conversations, as you know, that are going on, we have so much wisdom in that room uh on Thursday morning, on Saturday morning, even uh even Tuesday morning uh with our men's group. There's so many years of people walking with the Lord and experientially knowing him, not just hearing about him, not just reading about him, but just walking with him and knowing him. And this is the reality of what our life should be is that we are experientially knowing him through our own experience. He's not a God that's far off. He's someone that's wants to speak to us and he wants to us to speak to him. He asks us to talk to him, he asks us daily to uh tell uh tell him what we think of him. He asks us to uh clear the slate with any offenses that we have with the people around us. He asks us uh to ask him for to give us our daily uh needs.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

Catherine Coleman said he's closer to you than a breath. I thought that was really good.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

Interesting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

Well, all things are possible through God. There's no doubt about it.

SPEAKER_00 3:44

Well, I hear a lot of people say, Rhett, well, if it's in the Bible, I believe it. Okay? If it's in the Bible, I believe it. Have you heard people say that?

SPEAKER_01 3:55

Oh, yeah. But whose interpretation of that?

SPEAKER_00 3:57

Well, I mean, what are they referring to? I mean, because when we look at the Bible, uh we see the lives of these biblical characters, we see their thinking, we see their way of life, and sometimes we think we should imitate those people in the Bible, those followers of Jesus in all aspects of their lives. But what I see is the Bible is filled with men and women that uh they're interacting each with each other, and oftentimes it's not pretty what we see. You know, Eve believes the servant, she disobeys God, while her husband just apparently just idly stands by, letting it all happen, and then he joins in. And then we see Cain killing his brother Abel. Noah gets drunk, he passes out naked in his tent. Abram tries to pass off his wife Sarah as his sister in order to gain favor. Joseph's brothers kill him, or plot to kill him, then they decide to sell him as a slave. And then Judah goes to a prostitute and has sex only to discover that it's his daughter-in-law. And this is all in the first book of the Bible. Then we have adultery, deception, and murder, and this is in the life of our great hero, the king of Israel, David.

SPEAKER_01 5:15

David, yeah. There's so much more Paul Paul Paul signed murder warrants against the Christians, but he was a Jew.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

So if it's in the Bible, I believe it. Really? Okay. But Paul told his friend his friends in Corinth, he said, if uh you should imitate me as I imitate Christ. And I think uh the key phrase is uh as I imitate Christ. Just because someone in the Bible does something doesn't necessarily mean that we should be doing it too. Um it's obvious for some of those unrighteous practices, but it also applies to I think less obvious religious practices. Um my dear friend Craig Inglert, he's uh founding pastor of Hope Chapel, one of my dear dear friends. As a new believer, Craig became involved with a group of very zealous Christians in California. Called, I think they were called the way. And he'd uh they decided they were going to do the do their best to imitate all the aspects of the early church that's described in the book of Acts. And so they decided that they would not own any personal property. In fact, they prohibited anybody in their group from owning anything. And where do they get this from, Rhett? Well, Acts four says, and all of the congregation who believed were of one heart and one soul, and not one of them claimed that anything belonging to them was his own, but all things were common property to them. Okay? You see, they they understood this passage of Scripture to mean that Christians shouldn't own anything. And even though there's really not any specific command or guidance in the Bible about this, that we shouldn't own homes, tools, vehicles, or animals, but yet the reality is much of the guidance in the Bible is being good stewards of the possessions that God has given us and to manage them well and to use them for God's purposes. So d do you see, uh I mean, like for example, uh Proverbs twenty-seven, one of my favorites, uh know well the condition of your flocks. Put your heart into caring for your herds, for riches don't last forever. A crown might not be passed to the next generation. After the hay is harvested and the new crop appears, and the your mountain grasses are gathered in, your sheep will provide wool for clothing, and your goats will provide the price of a field, and you will have enough goat's milk for yourself, your family, and your servant girl. So, you know, there's a lot in the Bible that tells us to be good stewards of the things that God has given us. But this particular group that Craig got involved with said, Wait a minute, God says that we shouldn't be owning anything, that nobody should own anything. We should all own everything.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

That's not biblical.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

It's not biblical. See, this group took a narrative of what some in the church were doing as they were led by the Holy Spirit, and they turned it into an instruction. It was a narrative.

SPEAKER_01 8:29

That's what a kibbutz is, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:31

Well, a kibbutz is uh Cooperative. It's it's a cooperative. But in Acts 4, in that verse 32, uh the key phrase is not one of them claimed that anything belonging to them was his own. Well, things did belong to those individuals, but they realized that God was the source and God was really the owner, and when God needed to use them for especially helping other people, then they were required to give those things to the people that God directed them to.

SPEAKER_01 9:03

It's also an easier way to live. I had a beautiful home for many years, but I understood from the start I never really owned it. I was just the overseer that everything I have, including my own body, belongs to God ultimately.

SPEAKER_00 9:14

Trevor Burrus, Jr. When when people uh ask me, are you the owner of the Rio Coco Cafe? Yeah, I say, no, I'm just the responsible party. I'm the one that God has entrusted to keep the floors clean, keep the plumbing going, and steward. And uh pay the bills. Uh I'm the steward of it, okay? But um eventually Craig left this group. Things really got weird because he he saw they were uh very controlling and he realized that what they were doing was not really scriptural.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

So I think it happens a lot throughout history. Men wanting to control others using becoming religious as opposed to spiritual relationships.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

Trevor Burrus, Jr. Precisely. And so what I notice uh is that there is a difference in by in the Bible between narrative scripture and instructional scripture. Aaron Ross Powell Okay.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

Narrative scripture and instructional scriptures. Okay, would you give me two so I can differentiate from those?

SPEAKER_00 10:11

Aaron Ross Powell Well, uh cults get started when people take narrations and turn them into instructions. Just as that the the people of the way took that passage from Acts chapter 4 of people uh didn't consider themselves as owning the things that they possessed, but they made them available for anybody who had a need. They turned that into an instruction that Christians should not own things. Okay. Paul wrote to his friends in Corinth, he addresses this. He says, Now these things, brothers, I've figuratively applied to myself and Apollos for your sake, so that in us you may not learn to exceed what is written, so that you will not become arrogant on behalf of one another. You see, sometimes we place more meaning into a passage of Scripture than the writers intended. And this is what the church in Corinth uh was told not to do.

SPEAKER_01 11:08

Well, it's kind of like um I um it's okay if I put in a little story of mine personally. A few years ago, I uh I went I don't know what had hit me, but at one night I said, you know, I I don't know if I want to go to your heaven, Lord. I said, because if if if the angels and the people there are going to be puffed up, uh I I just can't take an eternity with puffed up people and um, you know, judgmental or whatever. So anyway, I go to sleep, I wake up in the morning, and first thing I happen to open up to the story, and it was essentially Jesus answering my prayer before I went to bed. So he is sitting on the grass with his disciples, and up come these uh Pharisees. Now the Pharisees are dressed uh, you know, uh with beautiful gold and white and blue outfits, and they come up, they call him rabbi, so they honor Jesus. They said, Rabbi, rabbi, you're there eating with your disciples, but they're they're eating with uh their unclean hands. And Jesus looks up at them and says, What goes into a man and comes out the other end does not defile a man, but what comes out of his mouth defiles. You follow the precepts of men. You should follow the precepts of God. And I thought, oh, so you're answering my prayer last night. Even you don't want religious people in heaven. You want people that have a spiritual eye.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

Right. And religious people often take passages and uh that are narrations of what happened and turn them into some sort of doctrine or instruction.

SPEAKER_01 12:36

And it's because they feel scared and they want to create boundaries and they want to create a religion. It's why when Jesus came, we don't want the Messiah here. I'm a rabbi, I'm recognized in the marketplace, everybody admires me. We have our families. Well, this is not a convenient time for the Messiah to show up. I'm going to lose my position.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

Right. Uh we're uh very comfortable when we can control things. Yeah. Okay. Um, uh, Randy, my friend Randy Smith, the director of Christian Travel Study programs that we do our study tours in Israel and Greece and Turkey and Italy with.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

And if people want to find out about taking one of those tours, where would they go to?

SPEAKER_00 13:16

They could go to our seekthelamb.com site.

SPEAKER_01 13:19

SeektheLamb.com.

SPEAKER_00 13:20

That's our ministry that we do our uh uh school project and other things in Honduras and Nicaragua.

SPEAKER_01 13:25

You think we can get him on the air sometime? Uh you know, I've had the I had the mayor of uh Jerusalem call a few times.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

If he if he uh that's a possibility. He's in uh actually in Athens today with a group and uh repairing, they're helping a church repair a camp area where they have meetings. Um I presume this is Athens. In Greece.

SPEAKER_01 13:46

Not Athens, Georgia.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

Oh no, in Athens, Greece. He's that's where he's at today. Wonderful. But uh Randy says that uh there's three things that the scripture contains there's facts, there's truth, and there's myth. Okay? He says that facts is most of what happens, okay, when uh stories, when accounts are told of what happens in the Bible. And remember, when you tell a story, you summarize it. You don't give every detail, you just give the facts to make the point. And so the result is often the biblical narrative often contains only partial information. Okay? Uh only the information that Mark wants you to know to tell the story about Bartimaeus. He's the blind uh beggar sitting at the gates of Jericho. Matthew says there's two, but but Mark tells you there's one, and he tells us his name, Bartimaeus. Probably because the son of Timaeus was well known among the Christian community. Okay? But uh facts are what happens. Now, truth is a little harder uh to grasp because when Jesus tells his parables, he's telling us a story, and there's usually a principle of truth in that story. Um details don't really matter.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

Yeah, you can talk around an issue, and this is why your great orators use the power of story to communicate, and that's what Jesus did.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

The third category is um a little more difficult. It's myth. It's um these are uh often used by various groups to use prove the Bible uh a particular point. But myth is when the Bible records accurately something that was said that is not true. Okay?

SPEAKER_01 15:33

They record something that is accurate but not true.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

Okay. It's accurately recorded, but it's not true. There's Satan saying to Eve, You surely shall not die if you eat the fruit. Now, that's a lie. But it's accurately reporting what is said. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 15:54

Um what does it say? In Genesis?

SPEAKER_00 15:57

This is in Genesis. This is in the Garden of Eden, you know. Did God really say you can't uh eat of that fruit? Oh, you can eat of any tree of the garden, but this one we can't. He says, Well you're not gonna die. Now it accurately records that. But that's but it's not a truth. But it's myth. It's not it's not true.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

But do you think he actually said that too? Eve.

SPEAKER_00 16:19

Of course he said it's recorded in Genesis.

SPEAKER_01 16:21

That's not the myth. The myth is that you'll die if you eat the fruit.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

Yeah. Myth is when biblical records accurately record something that is said, but it's not true. What is said is not true. Like, for example, um in the first chapter of the book of Ruth, Naomi, Ruth's mother-in-law, declares, For the hand of the Lord has gone forth against me. Now, remember, she's lost her husband, she's lost her two sons, she's returning from Moab, and she's coming with her daughter-in-law, Ruth, because the hand of the Lord has turned against her. Now, you know what happens in the book of uh Ruth. Okay. Ruth is goes out in the fields to Glean, she meets Boaz, Boaz likes her, he decides he's going to redeem her land from uh Bemelik, who's the um, I think uh the well, it's a it's a bit complicated, the story, but he redeems the land, he marries Ruth, they have a baby. Uh the chapter four, Naomi is sitting in Boaz and Ruth's home with her grandson, who is the great grandfather of King David. So the question is, is it true what Naomi said in chapter one, verse thirteen? For the hand of the Lord has gone forth against me?

SPEAKER_01 17:56

No, she was having a uh Eeyore moment.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

An Eeyore moment, okay. Oh well, oh, things aren't working out. Because really, the book of Ruth should be the book of Naomi. It should be titled that because this is Naomi. It starts off with Naomi, desolate and thinking that the hand of the Lord has turned against her, but really all God has done is emptied her hand of things that he didn't really want. I mean, why did they go to Moab in the first place? Okay, that's they disobeyed God by even going among it. Why did they allow their sons to marry Moabite women? The commandment in the Bible is not to not to allow that. They really stepped outside of God's boundaries of what he considered to be good things. They suffered the consequences, and now God is going to take those things out of Naomi's hands that she probably never should have and fill her hands with very good things.

SPEAKER_01 18:58

Aaron Powell And that can be applied to all of us. I remember I a year before something happened in my life, I was walking into my closet in my bedroom, and I felt an uh not an audible voice, but say, you know, in order to give you something new, I have to take away something you have. Within a year, I lost my 26-year relationship with secular radio. I was devastated. But within a few months, I was invited onto a Christian station with a hundred times the power that I formerly had had, you know.

SPEAKER_00 19:30

So sometimes God has to empty your hands of things so that he can give you better things. So um that's why I think the story of Naomi in the Book of Ruth is an incredible story because she finishes with she's now in line of the kings of Israel, and she's now uh an ancestor of the Messiah. Okay? Okay, that's that's a pretty good place to be, all right.

SPEAKER_01 19:57

Uh I want to apologize about that earlier statement.

SPEAKER_00 20:04

So there's a I think a big difference in the Bible between a narrative of what happened or what is said and instructions for the believer. So we have to ask ourselves when we read a passage of scripture, is this an instruction or is it a report of what was said? All right? No. Let me give you an example of narrative scripture. One afternoon David got out of bed and was taking a nap and went for a stroll on the roof of the palace. As he looked out over the city, he noticed a woman of unusual beauty taking a bath. He sent someone to find out who she was, and he was told she's Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, and the wife of Uriah the Hittite. Then David sent for her, and when she came to the palace, he slept with her. Now, this was obviously something that David did, which was not good for him. It was not good for the nation of Israel. Can you imagine us trying to use this passage as a biblical instruction with our wives? Honey, um, adulteries in the Bible. David's one of our heroes. He did it. I think it's okay. Would that work at your house? Okay. But instructional scripture is different. I'll give you one example here. Ephesians chapter 5. Do not be drunk with wine that will ruin your life. Instead, let the Holy Spirit fill you and control you. So this is a definite instruction on we are how we are to handle alcoholic beverage. Don't get drunk. Now, God says in Psalm 104 that He gives us the wine which makes our heart glad. So that's a gift from God.

SPEAKER_01 21:55

And a little bit of wine is good for digestion, Borough.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

In Hebrew culture, wine is a

SPEAKER_01 22:00

gift from God, but when you for those of us who have a propensity for addiction, we say nay.

SPEAKER_00 22:06

So um yeah we have to uh understand the instruction here. Now many Bible readers I think have subconsciously changed narratives of of biblical behavior into biblical instruction. And one of the most famous one of these is has to do with a guy named Gideon. Do you remember Gideon? Yes. He was a man that received a command from an angel to go and battle the Midianites a little guy. Who were raiding the Israelites stealing their crops and herds and destroying many lives in the process almighty man of valor.

SPEAKER_01 22:46

Yes what me?

SPEAKER_00 22:47

Yes. Gideon responded to this command by the Lord with you remember how he responded? What? The famous fleece test. Oh okay and so we see this scene uh happening in Judges 6 because the angel of the Lord came sent under the oak that was in Ophrah okay and uh Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress okay winepress he's kind of down in a hole uh beat you know he's flopping around well but he's he's concealing himself a winepress where you know the the wine goes down into a uh a container and he's in the container okay he's hiding from the Midianites and the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said the Lord is with you oh valiant warrior down here in this wine press and of course Gideon just unloads on him and says Well oh Lord if the Lord is with us then why has all this happened to us? Where are all his miracles from which our father told us about it. I mean these are things that we say did not the Lord bring us out of Egypt? But now the Lord has abandoned us and he's given us into the hand of Midian and the Lord looked at him and said Go in your strength and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian. Have I not sent you so now he's saying Come on Gideon I've chosen you you're gonna go out and smite the Midianites Gideon said O Lord how can I deliver Israel? Behold my family is the least in Manasseh and I'm the youngest in my father's house but the Lord said to him Now you notice we went from the angel of the Lord to the Lord here in this and oftentimes we see that happen that the angel of the Lord suddenly in the conversation becomes the Lord. Now who is who is this character that looks like an angel but suddenly he's the Lord?

SPEAKER_01 24:50

It's God incognito.

SPEAKER_00 24:51

It's many think it's Jesus in a pre-incarnate appearance He's coming down and he's communicating with humans okay anyway so the Lord says surely I'll be with you and you shall defeat Midian as with as one man. And so Gideon of course he's questioning if I found favor in your sight then show me a sign that what you speak to me is true. Don't depart from me until I come back I'm going to bring you my offering and lay it before you the Lord said I'll remain until you return so Gideon goes out he kills the goat he prepares it he gets some bread he gets some flour he puts some meat in a basket he puts the broth in a pot he brings them out to the angel of the Lord under the oak tree he presents them the angel says take the meat and the unleavened bread lay them on the rock pour out the broth Gideon did so then the angel of the Lord put out the end of the staff that was in the hand touched the meat the unleavened bread fire sprang up from the rock consumed the meat and the unleavened bread then the angel of the Lord vanished from his sight. Okay? Definite sign. Gideon asked for a sign, right? Okay? And the Lord gave him a sign. When Gideon saw that it was the angel of the Lord he said Alas Lord God for now I've seen the angel of the Lord face to face and the Lord said to him Peace to you do not fear you shall not die and Gideon built an altar there to the Lord and named it Yahweh Shalom the God of peace okay? Now it's an interesting concept here of the God of peace but he's getting ready to go and smite the Midianites that word shalom actually has a a deeper meaning of when everything is in God's balance, when everything is in God's order there's peace. The Midianites were the ones that were always following the Israelites when they were coming up from Sinai into the land they were picking off the stragglers they were raiding the uh the uh caravans of the camps and that just went on for years and they're still raiding the Israelites now God is finally going to even the scales he's going to bring justice he's going to bring shalom and so Gideon now says Yahweh shalom the God of peace Yahweh shalom so now God's given him a sign he's given him a uh a mission it seems very obvious that it's all coming from God but Gideon has doubts so then Gideon said to God If you will deliver Israel through me as you have spoken behold I will put a fleece of wool on the threshing floor if there's dew on the fleece only and it's dry on the ground then I will know that you will deliver Israel through me the fleece test. He drained the dew from the fleece a bowl full of water but none on the ground but that's not quite enough what happened said to God do not let your anger burn against me that I may speak once more. Please let me make a test once more with the fleece let it now be dry only on the fleece and there be dew on all the ground So God did so that night for it was dry only on the fleece and dew was on the ground. So here's the question we were just read this story of Gideon God comes to him he gives him a mission he shows him a sign and he says go in my power and Gideon says well could you just like show me this again and then can you show me even one more time? Okay So how are we to respond when God commands us to do something Rhett. Are we to just do what he says or are we to lay out a fleece or two? Trevor Burrus What do you think? Well I think when God is nudging us to do something or go in a certain direction it is a good thing to ask for clarification and confirmation. But once God has made himself perfectly clear then I think we really have only one response not to irritate him but to obey and go and do what God says. For Gideon I think the message could not have been clearer he had no doubt of what God was asking yet he tested God not once but twice. Now just because Gideon put out his fleece doesn't mean that we must teach our churches that we must all go out and buy fleeces and when God tells us to do something we must put them out and this see this is how we make decisions. See this is a report this is a narrative of what Gideon did the fleece test is a result of a man of God not believing a message from God given through an angel okay you see the instruction for me is to study the scriptures to know the word to walk with God through his word and not with fleeces have a sense of humor because he tests Gideon a couple times he takes an army of thirty two thousand thirty two thousand and he whittles it down to ten thousand and then he whittles it down to three hundred he does the same thing to Gideon that Gideon did to him.

SPEAKER_01 31:04

And briefly that's when they get down to drink water and he says all those that laid flat on their bellies send them home.

SPEAKER_00 31:10

Right right right okay so the with the three hundred men and following God's specific order Gideon defeats the Midianite army and becomes one of our biblical heroes.

SPEAKER_01 31:21

By confusing the enemy they wake up in the night and they let all these flames and so the the Midianites believe that uh there's a multitude there's a million of the Jews out there so they f in fight with each other in the dark of night and kill each other.

SPEAKER_00 31:38

Yeah it is uh so Gideon's one of our heroes a man of little faith he demonstrated unbelief he was disobedient but yet he was used by God to accomplish something much greater than ever he could have done on his own. We sometimes find ourselves in that place where God has told us something to do he's given us enough confirmation and yet we're still laying out the fleeces testing God okay so I know that happens to me sometimes but uh I look for clarification. I mean my life has been full of God nudging me to do things that I had never done before and I think probably with you too when I was very comfortable in my church on Maui in the summer of nineteen eighty four a guy came to our church and told us about the war in Nicaragua, the problem with the refugees especially among an indigenous group called the Miskitos. How the Sandinistas had burned over a hundred villages, destroyed uh the the cattle and um cut down the fruit trees and there were sixty thousand refugees uh across the river in a very swampy remote area of Honduras. And he was collecting supplies to uh take to these refugees because nobody was really helping them and I thought that's a good thing I'll get involved and so I went around to uh our churches on Maui and I collected about 4,000 pounds of uh shoe boxes that were filled with food with medical supplies with clothing and and we gathered these boxes we shipped them uh to California and we eventually got them to Honduras and I went in November of 84 to help distribute them because it seemed like a good thing to do and I was a photographer at the time we had a costume photography business in Lahaina it was paying the rent and I was very comfortable uh being at Hope Chapel I had a great community but read I got stuck in Honduras and that uh two-week trip uh took us six months to get all of our relief cargo out to those refugee communities and in the meantime one of the uh refugees who was a teacher a guy named Augusto Vicente asked us to help him start a school because the kids had not had school for five years at that point because of the war going on in Nicaragua. And we bought notebooks and pencils and blackboard paint and some plywood and we made blackboards and Augusto began teaching first grade. And the next year we had three communities three other communities say what about us? So we had four schools in eighty six and by eighty seven we had twelve schools every year we're adding a grade. Now I read we I'd never done anything like this before but God was definitely in it and he just kept nudging me and Truman who was uh the mosquito guy that uh became my brother in the process of all this and we ended up starting a school brought project that has educated tens of thousands of kids and adults over the the last 37 years. But God was nudging me and had I stopped and uh threw out fleeces um probably things wouldn't have happened. I just felt God had given me enough signs that I was to step forward and watch his provision and his plan come to uh fruition. That sure changed your life it definitely the remainder of your life really so but Rhett I know people that read the Bible and they see the narrative of things that have happened and they somehow turn them into an instruction of things we should be doing. And I'll give you one tragic example we had a worship leader in our church in Maui that was um was actually a guy from Florida and uh he became one of our worship leaders and um he always had sort of this uh like uh Hebrew sort of songs and singing and um uh he we became friends uh with his family had a couple of uh young boys and uh Laura and I and our kids became friends with their kids and and eventually my friend the worship leader in reading the scriptures and saw that uh a uh that some of the patriarchs had second wives he decided he was going to take a second wife and his wife said what you're gonna take a second wife he said yeah it's uh it's in the Bible and so he brought he owned property out uh on the east side of Maui and he had a cottage and he brought this woman in and she lived in the cottage and as soon as she arrived on the property his wife and his kids left but he was taking a second wife it was a disaster it was a disaster for his family a disaster for his kids and disaster from him for him and he ended up having a relationship with the daughter of his second wife which is just very sick but it all started off from him taking uh a narrative of what people did.

SPEAKER_01 37:24

What was that narrative?

SPEAKER_00 37:26

The pay you know patriarchs David had many wives right when Solomon uh made a a political alliance uh what sealed the deal was a take one of the daughters of Pharaoh as his wife but in those days it wasn't like you've had a maid who cleaned your house and you really liked her you took her under and married her with other women to protect her because a woman had no authority uh in that society.

SPEAKER_01 37:50

So I've often wondered was it a sexual relationship or was a was a there was the wife like Sarah was a wife but there were also maidservants underneath Sarah. Well we know in Sarah's case she gave her maidservant Hagar to her husband to have sex with him to uh because she tried to do God's job she was not uh patient and waiting for uh for that to happen so Rhett I just uh I just think when we read the scripture just we're gonna read about characters that do things and Paul says Imit me as I imitate Christ how did it go from from uh from David having multiple wives and Solomon to knowing that we should only have one wife who changed that Moses gave a decree for divorce Jesus said well he gave it to you because of the hardening of your hearts but I say Yeah I think I think as we read the Christian scriptures uh we're told that um like for example our elders should be a uh the Greek word says a one woman man or one woman man that uh uh a woman uh in English it says uh uh a uh husband of one wife and obedient children too and obedient children and a lot of times that uh it's in Timothy and in Titus where uh Paul's giving that instruction to his disciples and a lot of times that's been used in uh our modern church culture as if you've ever been divorced for whatever reason then you're not eligible to participate in ministry and that has had often some pretty tragic results in uh in our Christian community yeah a friend of mine went to Baptist we decided he got born again he used to sell oil to the beautiful women on the beaches of Key West well he got born again and then found Kathy they got married he decides to go off wants to go to Bible school but then he has to go to four years to get his four year degree then he goes to Bible school for three years or whatever it is then he gets his degree and then all of a sudden the Baptist where he graduated from said uh up on the panhandle floor said oh you can't preach in the Baptist church why because you have a history you were divorced all those years and they wouldn't let him preach yeah we had a situation in our local church here where we had a small group leader that was actually a convicted murderer that had been pardoned and released from prison.

SPEAKER_00 40:19

He was one of our small group leaders and um but there was another guy that was um in our church community that was uh we wanted him to be our small group leader but he was not allowed because he had been married before and his wife had left him but because he had quote been divorced uh the church leadership at the time decided he wasn't eligible to be uh one of our small group leaders and so we had a convicted murderer oh and by the way the convicted murderer had a daughter from a previous um um relationship but he never married the woman so because he never married the woman he was eligible to be one of our small group leaders because he never had been divorced right can you see the complexity and the confusion in trying to adopt these standards but what the Bible says literally is that should be a husband of one wife and the Greek word literally means a one uh a one woman man which in the Greek culture means a man that only has eyes for his wife a non-flirtatious man this is what the qualifications of elders are is you want someone who's not flirt flirtatious who has eyes only for his wife okay it says you don't think Jesus is going to condemn men who were divorced one day who then became preachers and married someone else foolishness. Well I can speak personally I don't think he does uh I married a uh girl that I went to high school with and to college and uh before my first deployment uh on the USS Kitty hawk she said to me one afternoon I don't want to be married anymore and I said why not she said I just don't and when I got back from that cruise there were papers awaiting me. Now I wasn't walking with the Lord at the time and that was what I thought was the dear John letter handed to me personally okay I thought that was one of my worst days as I look back it was one of my best because nine years later I met this uh Japanese girl that from Honolulu, Lara Uetta.

SPEAKER_01 42:43

I know I knew she was Japanese.

SPEAKER_00 42:44

Yeah she's fourth generation Japanese her great great grandparents came to uh Hawaii to work the sugar plantations so there's big Japanese culture during World War II were they put in in uh nobody in Hawaii was uh was sent to uh any of the camps like trust uh Japanese there on the island yeah uh how do you look at that so there she was waiting for you you know yeah it was it was it was actually one of my best days because the woman I'm with right now the mother of my four children is the perfect compliment to me. She is I I gotta say Red she is the most beautiful woman I've ever laid my eyes on.

SPEAKER_01 43:23

The Lord told me that I was going to meet that woman and uh it's been amazing you know just I mean a few weeks ago I uh I had sent you a text which you had not gotten apparently I thought you had and I had said please confer with your wife it says only a fool does not confer with his wife and I said when I used to travel and sing in churches I would stay often at pastors' homes and after a certain amount of time I'd go to the pastor and said does your wife approve of me and like me you might say well why? Because women have an intuition and as long as they would approve a man everything was all right. So I sent you a note recently saying does your wife approve of a couple French button but before I could respond to you that was a Thursday morning. I went to a meeting and your wife was there with tears in her eyes saying across the whole crowd she's saying this Rhett, I'm so excited what you're doing with my husband and blah blah I thought she had certainly that you two had confirmed you read that. Not at all so I marveled at the fact she answered my question before you had a chance to respond. And so all is well because you know I believe that you you you yeah it's a team and you got to make sure that the wife approves so she's a very good teammate too yeah lovely woman a bit emotional sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 44:36

Yeah thank god they are though right uh and I have uh living with her watch tone I right I have to watch my tone I can't honk uh the horn in my driveway okay because she thinks I'm being when I'm urgent she considers I'm being angry with her I think that a lot has to do with the environment she grew up in as well so um so yeah let's uh read the Bible and let's understand that there's going to be stories of things that are have been done there are things that are going to be said that are simply not true it's just a report of what's said you know when uh when Saul and his son Jonathan were killed by the Philistines uh Samuel chapter 30 a uh a guy shows up to David's camp in Ziglag and said that uh he had uh come upon Saul was wounded Saul had said just go ahead and kill me and uh uh he said I have and I've brought you his crown well he was lying because that's not what happens uh Saul fell on his own sword uh this was a battlefield scavenger but the report that he gave was a false one but it was an accurate report of what he said so there's a lot of he lose his head because of that law yeah yeah yeah there's a lot of uh things in the Bible that are just narratives and but there's instructions and we really need to focus on the instructions well we'll see you soon for another Cup of Friendship here with Michael Bagby and Rhett Palmer.

SPEAKER_02 46:10

God bless you folks aloha he is the great I am his first friend was Abraham surely said Abraham I am the I am gonna kill the red