Stuart & Cliffe Knechtle | Do Women Have Value? Do Men Have Value? | Give Me An Answer

just endless amounts of questions to science and do we ask the same amount of questions of science that we do of something like the Christian [Music] faith a little an an analogy for you so then you can kind of understand what I'm saying so there's a little brother and there's an older brother and the mother tells both of the brothers don't eat the food that I just made it's not for you to eat yet we I don't want you to eat it the little brother go ahead and eats it and he's like oh my gosh

it's so good gives it to the older brother you should have some and the older brother knowing that they're not supposed to eat it it's kind of hesitant but the was like no like we totally should so he does and the mom comes back obviously knows that they both aided and she's angry and so they both get punished but then she punishes the little brother more than the older brother by not letting him go out or he's grounded or she beats him or he just seems to get a more severe punishment than the older brother

does that being said the way that it kind of relates to the Bible is with Adam and Eve Eve got there after Adam Adam was there before Eve he knew better in the sense he's almost the older brother while Eve is the younger brother of course they both knew not to do it but Eve does it and then she ropes Adam into it and they're both kicked out of the Garden of Eden now since then it almost seems as if women just cannot get a win in the world they're constantly just being almost shat on

you know they can't they don't have rights they don't have rights to their bodies they're constantly being mutilated killed only seen as nothing more than bodies for men to use and objects they are not allowed to be out and about in some societies they have to be fully clothed and it seems like no matter how hard feminists try or try to progress it's always going to be like that so my thing is is the punishment that women seem to have because they were the F Eve was the first person to eat the forbidden fruit and

kind of she was the reason why this whole started is that a fear punishment and why is God so like you know almost against women in that sense where it's like we just can't get a break and we we're constantly having to be under men we're constantly having to be submissive and we just aren't ever going to be able to live a life living in the complete s of things that's a great question a good question I think there's absolutely been abuse worldwide going back to the early Roman Empire where Christian values have impacted that

culture that's when women have gotten a fair shake and have become equal to men now there's still shades of abuse absolutely but if you do your I'm sure you have I'm not saying you haven't but if you if you do your history on it the Roman Empire and the Greeks they treated there was a saying out there that talked about thank heaven I wasn't born a Jew or a woman and so there's every single part of culture was against women but then all of a sudden you have Paul talking about how there's neither male nor

female but all are one in Christ you have all of a sudden Genesis chapter 1 all are created in God's image it's not like Adam had more of God's image in him than Eve but you're right men have had in many societies at many times more power in a way than woman again does that mean that God is somehow punishing woman more than man for something that happened in in the Garden of Eden I don't know about that I'm not sure I I think that's a stretch obviously to give birth to a child is a

very painful thing a lot of women die in most cases so I think it's fair to assume that you know we're still kind of getting punished for that because it's still the same today women are still having tremendous birth pains and whatnot yeah so in that sense based on that context wouldn't it be fair to say that women will be saved in childbirth countering a gnostic tradition it's just the spiritual that matters instead it was the physical yes it was painful but it's not like women were just going to be saved through having a child

that's not what we're getting all the way back from what Moses is saying no it's countering a type of Gnostic tradition a lot of ancient Traditions which is all about shed the body and just go with the spirit so do women have pain and childb birst sure we don't know ultimately why women have kids and men don't don't is that painful yes do I believe that women in many ways are lifted up in the Bible at different times than men more so yes there's endless amounts of prophets that are women in the Bible there's endless

amount of examples of God being a mother hen collecting his hands to him there's endless amounts of examples of women being the first to the tomb so they're the first ones who encounter Jesus Christ as God himself clearly through the resurrection women were the first evangelists John chapter 4 woman at the well goes and shares with Capernaum so women are lifted up endlessly that's why the Christian faith has been able to make this Revolution and and even the last uh in the 1990s feem the last feminist movement was largely dominant by Christians actually even though

again there has been abuse with certain more conservative Christian fundamentalist sides but the last in in the 1990s clearly was done by Christians so the Christian Movement has propelled women more so than any other culture or religion it's it's not even close like Iran not too long ago had the biggest fastest growing church for a time because so many Muslim women were becoming Christians risking their very lives but they had freedom and had a type of not only authenticity but a type of value to their lives that they couldn't get in any other religion yeah

so if a woman is getting abused by her husband and in the Bible it says that you shouldn't get a divorce in that case now let's say she wasn't a Christian before she made a mistake but now she is a Christian and she knows that that but she's still an abusive relationship would you say based on the Bible should she or should she not get that divorce and try and put herself and the safety of herself you know the Bible says unfaithfulness so adultery somebody who runs away and abuse so those are the three reasons

why you can divorce see in our culture today I can have you know it's like Amy Schumer talks about even though she's pro-choice she made the joke not too long ago of saying I have a vacation coming up so I'm going to have an abortion and she's saying this is the way kind of our culture is going today it's based off my own free choice if a baby gets in my way because I have a vacation coming up why not just abort it that's totally fine and so when it comes to understanding something like the

power of abuse the Bible never talks about staying in a relationship see that's a total that's bastardizing what the Bible talks about staying an abusive relationship where do we get that modeled nowhere nor do we get stay remain in slavery I mean look at onesimus read the book of phiman you're not supposed to stay in slaved when it's abusive actually Paul talks about receive this brother back as a brother in Christ I heard a terrible story about an extremely gruesome thing that happened to a woman not too long ago where she was genuinely just minding

her own business and a man came and attacked her and raped her and mulated her body and just all these terrible things and I was just kind of like damn like what did what did women do to deserve that almost it was kind of like and a part of me was thinking like never mind but yeah that's just kind of why I brought it up where it just seem like why would God allow that or is God punishing her is that what you're you know I was thinking cuz I used to be a Christian myself

um the whole reason you know why God allows bad things to happen is because of Free Will and then um he's kind of saved some people other people would ask why didn't you save me then you have to save everybody then it would take away our Free Will and that kind of defines his purpose of you know us having it but a part of me also kind of felt like it was almost kind of narcissistic is a strong word but my thing is why would he create a problem and then be like I'm the only

one that can solve it you know what I mean so like I get all of that but at the same time it's like why would he create people know they're going to sin and then be like oh like you guys are going to go to hell but I can fix it but it's like you're the one who created us so like you know what I mean CU he still felt like it was worth it if we have an eternal loving relationship so lasting forever that that's worth the rescue mission and he would endure the most

intense amount of suffering way more so than any of us combined even saving us in that kind of way showing us that type of love because of what what we're going to have in eternity see it's so easy to get stuck here in this is our 10 years 20 30 40 some of us live to 100 and and that's really it and we have a horrible existence here we're raised red in tooth and Claw and we're just nashing at each other all the time and then that that's it well if there's eternity out there like

he promised this is this is the smallest blip on the radar yeah why couldn't he just make us to glorify him and sing for him in the beginning without having to bring in all the sin and sadness and evil just because of what you just stated a second ago though no the way that he's going to truly love you is by giving you Freedom now is it evil that the robot is doing what it's programmed to do no it's just doing what it says it's not necessarily that you know they're not going to be happy

or that it's going to be sad or things like that so if we were kind of programmed in that sense to worship God and he's happy that we're there to worship him then there wouldn't be anything bad so again why is food will necessarily necessary well can a robot love no but that it doesn't seem like love was necessarily the he wanted people to be there for him so well he doesn't if if God is omniscient and omnipotent created the entire Cosmos I don't think he needs people he created us because he's been living in

father son Holy Spirit throughout time so perfect Community loving relationship and he wanted to share that with people who he has created like and so you well I I just it's interesting that you talked about Free Will free will but then I heard kind of a contradiction in there because all of a sudden you turn to he created this problem no he didn't create any problem he came to actually fix the problem after we created the problem the whole Foundation of Christianity is to love God love God so if you want wanted us to love

him he could have just made us love him he's my dad can you imagine if he came and said Stuart you have to love me you have to listen to everything I say and you must love me and you must come out here and act as crazy as I do doing this kind of thing together no I act crazier than he does and that's not cuz he makes me it's my own free choice and so he decides whether I'm ultimately going to have this free choice when he brings me into the world with my mother

in many ways but they respected my free will they didn't brainwash me they said follow Christ if you'd like or follow the culture if you'd like never was it a type of of brainwashing and just to the second point there if he said again if he said you must love me now he did he did lay out some different types of Virtues and thank heaven he put some guard rails down otherwise I'd be living any old kind of way I'd like so he put guidelines down just like God did God the Father did and I'm

either going to respect that and live into the fabric of the universe and live a flourishing type of life or it's going to be my own personal autonomy and freedom and I just decide whatever I want and oh by the way I'm going to become a very anxious person if I do that very anxious person so he wanted to share and this point on worship look since you brought up a good story that I liked I'll try and I'll try and bring up one that's the Lesser but when it comes to say a a mother

had two different sons and this mother they were both adopted kids and she worked her fingers to to the Bone to get them through college would it make a lot of sense if these children either turned after college after this mother a very poor mother very poor neighborhood single mother worked her finger to the Bone to get them through college would it make a lot of sense that after years and years they would just occasionally write a little thank you letter to mom or would it make a lot more sense to say you know what

I love Mom and thank heaven for Mom that she did this for me I'm going to visit her a little bit more even in person rather than in occasional Love Letter all right well that's a form of great gratitude great gratitude to Mom so it would make a lot of sense if God the Creator created us in that kind of way sacrificed so much through his son dying on the cross for us a a form of worship and gratitude makes a lot of sense for us to do so and we're all going to worship something

on this planet and if it's something finite it's going to eat you alive it'll Crush you if it's your own attractiveness if it's money that will eat you alive but if it's something like the god of the universe outside of space and time who you cannot lose well now all of a sudden that worship is going to fit and it's going to help you a lot why did you lose your faith um just had a lot of questions and you seem to answer a lot of them very well so thank you for that but a

lot of times in the church they kind of stick to a one-dimensional teaching so if you ever try to go outside of the usual you know give money because God says to be generous you have to be kind to people don't be angry and then you ask them kind of difficult questions they don't really know how to answer I I was just like oh I okay Y and there's so many different unanswered questions in science you know their philosophies of Life endless amounts of unanswer questions how about Free Will how about Consciousness how about love

how about why do we sacrifice and live for human rights where does that come in science that doesn't make any sense how about proof nobody even agrees on what exactly proof is and there's barely anything we can prove even in this world there's endless amounts of questions to science and do we ask ask the same amount of questions of science that we do of something like the Christian faith and if anybody comes to you and ever says oh don't ask questions well Jesus allowed doubting Thomas to ask many questions job many questions David many questions

habach many questions Elijah Jeremiah I mean Rahab endless amounts of people were allowed to ask questions all the time I mean look right in John chapter 1 Simon and Nathaniel come and see come and check me out Nathaniel endless amounts of questions so never allow somebody to turn you away from the Faith by saying oh here's a singular monolithic way of just looking at it oh and by the way don't ask questions because I'm highly insecure and don't have answers man you're a delight to talk with thanks for raising those issues all right you I

I'd like you to respond to some of the following thinking the first point you raised was the place of women ma'am if there is no God why is woman valuable um I believe in God so I wouldn't necessarily know how to answer because I know that there is a God I just have kind of questions about it doubts but I think it's pretty obvious to say that there is a God and he exists so yeah okay then why are we valuable if you believe God exists would it be bad to say I we're not would

that be kind of crazy I think we are to each other but in the grand scheme of things we're just all Pebbles on a rock so right we're just accidental collections of adoms why do you live your life as if women are valuable I just believe that people should help people just because kindness is just better than beautiful but if tomorrow you decide that the real purpose of your life is to be unkind that's not wrong it's not right it just is if God is just the P higher power just a force there is no

right and wrong there is no justice and Injustice there just is and if I want to slap him in the face that is if I want to feed him dinner that is one is not superior to the other it's just is it's just reality when you start making qualitative statements Cliff if you smack him in the face that's evil Cliff if you feed him dinner that is good now all of a sudden you're putting value judgments on us you're saying what is morally good and what is is morally evil but if there is no God

man there is no moral good and there's no moral evil it just is like if we lived in a world where things are what they are you cannot live that out see you started everything beautifully with the value of a woman ma'am the value of a woman is intangible you can't scientifically prove value right but you're so committed to it that even though with the top of your head you like to say well you know it just is it's all relative you can't live that out see ma'am I would not follow Christ if he didn't

make sense I would not follow Christ if The Sermon on the Mount was a bunch of gibberish the talkingspy enough it makes sense and you're spot on ma'am sexism is horrible the denigration of women is horrible what do you mean horrible Cliff well what I mean is a woman has value why because she's created in the image of God not the higher power not a force she's created in the image of a god who's got character which means this woman all women are to reflect the character of God in Integrity Justice love forgiveness kindness goodness

were you going to stay l or no um funny enough yeah uh I was struggling with my faith for a bit yeah and it wasn't up until like yesterday that I opened my Bible for the first time in like a couple months wow so the fact that I'm here is kind of like crazy it is crazy so like I said questions have been weighing on my heart so I really appreciate you guys coming here and answering some of them for me I think it's definitely giving me a lot of clarity and things that I can

think about and reflect on so I really appreciate you well we appreciate you tremendously thank you well I'm Cliff good to meet you thanks so much for talking to us thanks to meet you I think as college students we can all test that we want to make a lot of money when we graduate however Mark says that it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to get into heaven do you feel like I could go on to be a millionaire while still being Christlike yes and I

hope that you would use that money for good works I hope you would understand your greatest gifts and how your greatest gifts and talents meet the world's greatest needs and so by you having a million dollars or two or three million doar I hope you would see the needs and give a lot of that money away but think about some of the greatest biggest Christian organizations that have reached so many well they were backed by some people who had a good amount of money so no you have to have money and you have to be

careful with it cuz money Jesus talks about money more than anything else in the Bible and the point that he's making there is that so much of life is about gaining things because you have to gain to live the man who does not provide for his family is worse than a non-believer okay that's pretty clearcut he's got to make some money to protect and provide for his family and yet the poison po the poisonous of money happens so quickly because for some reason when somebody makes a lot of money all of a sudden they're the

expert on everything I don't know why that is but Jesus says watch out money sex and power the biggest idols and you can fall prey so easily so make as much as you can save as much as you can and give away as much as you can good question we've disc people have discussed before um how the Bible has been used to justify really more wrong things but were those people's interpretations of the Bible incorrect yes there definitely has been so um what makes one person's interpretation of the Bible more or less correct than someone

else's excellent question I'd go right back to the earliest Creeds what happened to Jesus who was he what did he teach how did he live was he raised from the dead and how that message based off of the eyewitness testimony of what was seen and who who encountered him dur especially those three years of his ministry here on this planet how that message was pushed out to the entire Roman world before a word of the Bible was even written so ultimately at that time there were thousands of Christians before a word of the Bible was

written so to just attack the Bible you got to be careful oh but wait a second you know how do we have the right manuscript because almost 6,000 manuscripts were pushed on and on around 100 to 200 ad they started really circulating and before then there there was a photograph which was original manuscripts but immediately immediately those were written and proliferated because of the early eyewitness eyewitnesses beginning to die off so no longer was an oral eyewitness testimony see some people say well you can't trust that it was just you know telephone no that's called

oral tradition and if you if you do your study from that time period oral eyewitness testimony was trusted even more than the Written Letter in many cultures so be careful though cuz you're exactly right there's different translations but I would go right back to the earliest Creeds Creeds which the earliest Christians talked about so First Corinthians 15 3-8 and Philippians chapter 2 parts of Colossians which talked about who Jesus was and what was this great resurrection that he pulled off was it true or was it just a a total fairy tale and some reason though

so many people would have been dying for what they claimed to have been a lie I don't know anybody who would die die for what they knew to be a lie I I know people who would be brainwashed or who winked into a type of philosophy and say I'm going to I'm going to fly a couple airplanes into a a couple buildings because of that but that's not dying for what you know to be a lie does that make sense now what part I love the question what part of the Bible you know Frederick Douglas

for example he was enslaved right and he was one of the great abolitionists and also an incredible evangelist and he had this incredible balance when he when he interpreted scripture see he could have interpreted scripture like his white slave owners or he could have interpreted his scripture like black liberation theology any number of ways Black Jesus white jesus Arab Jesus he could have taken any of them yeah I think he was pretty consistent with what he knew the earliest Creeds talked about Jesus and what Jesus said in terms of we are Fallen Fallen sinful human

beings but then we are also saved and created in God's image and that there's neither slave nor free male nor female and because of that he said and he cursed a little bit here so excuse my English French he said my slave owner was a bastard but I still care and love for him because he created he's created in God's image so he hits the sin honest about the sin the original sin and what he did to him I can't even imagine what he did to Frederick Douglas and yet he he had the sincerity and

the love in him to say and yet he's still creating the image of God so that incredible balance and honesty with the text is what what we want what part of scripture do you have a tough time with or where did this question really come from uh during colonial times and especially since today is indigenous people's day um the scripture was used to justify a lot of um violence and hatred towards Native people M um yep during that time so yep and so that's sick you know if I if I'm buttering my bread over here

with my butter knife and I'm using it I think in the correct kind of way but then come over over and stick it in one of you guys well that's weaponizing a a butter knife I could do the same with just about anything and the Bible you can definitely do it with slaves obey your masters or let me go get a black slave who is very rhetorically gifted and let me get him to go and rip these verses out of context to pacify those who perhaps would have started a rebellion a slave rebellion and rip

these texts right out of context so yes the Bible can be weaponized that's why you have to read understand authorship context understanding how Christ would have talked about it yeah you have to be careful when it comes to prayer you got to be smart when it comes to the Fellowship of the Believers when you're reading through it so you got to be smart and you got to be honest but I I believe you know even those white slave owners even the ones you know there's a good book called so the Civil War is a theological

crisis and basically what it's talking about is no all these interpretations that were racist that were saying let's keep slaves black slaves down and oppressed basically what's going on going on there is financial gain they weren't really they knew they were not saying that the Old Testament Paul Christ were saying black African slaves need to be enslaved for life and that's the Commandment oh come on I've never met a person not one who truly honestly believes that we may somebody reached out and said hey would you have a conversation with the leader of the KKK

uh I don't know I I wouldn't be I'd have a conversation with anybody and I want to look him between the eyes and say you genuinely answer me genuinely you honestly believe that God whether it's the old or new testament wants you to keep black slaves and I want to see how he deconstructs contextualizes and clearly says this is what the Bible says and yes because the majority of them don't believe that even even despite the racism in Romans 6:23 it says for the wages of sin is death but the gift of God God is

eternal life through Christ Jesus our lord meaning that through Christ Jesus is eternal life and how would you explain to somebody in another religion that without accepting Jesus Christ as your lord and savior you might not have the chance of going to heaven and also for the people who might argue against that saying what makes your religion right and others wrong so I would say you don't have to say here is Jesus Christ here is specifically how you get to heaven yes did he say say I am the way the truth and the life yes

did he say that I am the door yes did he have seven I am statements in John yes before Abraham was I am clear claim to be the one who forgave sins accepted worship dies King of the Jews everybody in that culture would have known his claim that you have to come through me to get eternal life but hold on a second Hebrews chapter 11 talks about how the Patriarchs will be in heaven and they never knew Jesus Christ now that doesn't just open up the door to universalism oh it doesn't matter what you believe

you're in you know that's the American way now doesn't matter what you believe everybody's going to heaven everybody's a good person other than you know those couple of guys like the Hitlers maybe they won't no the whole point of it is are we giving up our lives to gain our lives through Christ by searching after him when we get the opportunity to see I believe based off of what he taught what the Old Testament taught that eventually it wasn't just the Jews it was a light to All Nations and then what Jesus did in reaching

people what the disciples did in reaching people and how that just proliferated everybody's going to have a fair opportunity whether to accept Christ or not and those perhaps maybe there are some though who won't specifically get special Revelation in the Bible many have not actually well okay Romans 1 and2 talk about the starry skies above and the human conscience within Paul talks about so is that going to be enough to lead you to push you outside of yourself to trust in God to accept God or not so yes you have to go through Christ but

at times what does that look like well I'd be very careful of those missionaries who come and say you have to specifically say Jesus Christ is Lord and believe in him with your very heart obviously we get that in scripture right or is that book of Romans and yet be careful be careful that's one verse it is through Christ but I know a lot of people who' have had altar calls and I've said oh that's great you came to know Christ cuz somebody said hey would you like to put your faith in him right now

I asked him a week later who is Jesus I have no idea but I said I believe in Jesus I I went to the altar that counts right you you have no idea who Jesus is at all one thing he taught what he stood for somebody just said you want to put your faith in him now are you seeking after him you see how there's a risk there I mean that that's dangerous I think it's great that that person said that but now there needs to be some level of followup to have some understanding of

who Christ is youy guys thanks so much for watching this episode hit that subscribe button we love for you to join the family also want to invite you to our church in new Canan Connecticut it's new Canan high school and it meet Sundays at 9:30 a.m. [Music]