A lively Scriptural discussion with pilot-turned-author Michael McPadden transcends cockpits to explore faith and the Divine Story. Michael shares his views on biblical interpretation in Genesis to Revelation Abraham's Promise Finding Christ and Seeing God, which blends military precision with theological exploration. Without ever facing a faith crisis, he unveils a steadfast belief in predestination. He recounts the influential figures that have guided his path from aviator to philosopher.
As Michael discusses the name of God in Exodus and explores the deepest meanings of terms like "Elohim" and "Ruach," he grapples with the deepest meanings of biblical narratives. His insights bridge the gap between ancient texts and quantum physics, offering a different perspective on the singular yet plural nature of the divine. As we traverse the theological landscape, Michael elucidates the hero's journey within the Christian faith. He differentiates between faith and faithfulness through their original Greek connotations and emphasizes the transformative power of prayer and belief.
As Michael shares his ambitions for his book, consider the legacy one hopes to leave behind for future generations seeking a profound connection to God. His reflections on the dichotomy between atheism and religious belief and the human fascination with the afterlife underscore the potential of aligning oneself with divine consciousness. Michael's work shares his hope that this book is not just a guide; it's a beacon for a deeper study of Scripture.
With 4Freedom, all your communications, internet activity, and app usage are encrypted using multiple layers of robust, military-grade encryption algorithms that surpass the standards used by the NSA.
You can start your secure account today:
https://www.4freedommobile.com?ref=bridgebuilders
A lively Scriptural discussion with pilot-turned-author Michael McPadden transcends cockpits to explore faith and the Divine Story. Michael shares his views on biblical interpretation in Genesis to Revelation Abraham's Promise Finding Christ and Seeing God, which blends military precision with theological exploration. Without ever facing a faith crisis, he unveils a steadfast belief in predestination. He recounts the influential figures that have guided his path from aviator to philosopher.
As Michael discusses the name of God in Exodus and explores the deepest meanings of terms like "Elohim" and "Ruach," he grapples with the deepest meanings of biblical narratives. His insights bridge the gap between ancient texts and quantum physics, offering a different perspective on the singular yet plural nature of the divine. As we traverse the theological landscape, Michael elucidates the hero's journey within the Christian faith. He differentiates between faith and faithfulness through their original Greek connotations and emphasizes the transformative power of prayer and belief.
As Michael shares his ambitions for his book, consider the legacy one hopes to leave behind for future generations seeking a profound connection to God. His reflections on the dichotomy between atheism and religious belief and the human fascination with the afterlife underscore the potential of aligning oneself with divine consciousness. Michael's work shares his hope that this book is not just a guide; it's a beacon for a deeper study of Scripture.
With 4Freedom, all your communications, internet activity, and app usage are encrypted using multiple layers of robust, military-grade encryption algorithms that surpass the standards used by the NSA.
You can start your secure account today:
https://www.4freedommobile.com?ref=bridgebuilders
My guest today is Michael McPatten. He is the author of Genesis to Revelation Abraham's Promise Finding Christ and Seeing God. Growing up in Virginia, michael dreamt of one day becoming a naval aviator. That dream came true in 1981. That dream led to another dream that saw him become an airline pilot for both Northwest Airlines and Delta, retiring as international airline captain in 2017. And retirement Michael gave you time to something he loved only second to flying, which is reading the Bible and studying mythology. Michael published his first book in September Genesis to Revelation. We're not reading and writing. We enjoy spending time with his wife, their children and their eight grandchildren. Welcome Michael to the podcast. Welcome Michael, how are you doing today?
Speaker 2:Keith, I'm doing great. How are you?
Speaker 1:I'm good Glad to have you on.
Speaker 2:Great.
Speaker 1:I'd love to get to know my guest a little bit better before we dig into some very deep topics today. What's the best piece of advice you've ever received?
Speaker 2:I thought about that question and I think there's been a lot of good advice, but each advice that we get is usually for the stage of life we're in. I think the best piece of advice I got was writing this book from Revelation and it says if you are destined to go into captivity, into captivity you will go If you are destined to die by the sword. By the sword you will be killed. This is the belief and the endurance of the saints predestination.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Once I got my head around predestination and accepted it, my life changed dramatically for the better.
Speaker 1:Well, you picked an easy topic to get your mind wrapped around predestination.
Speaker 2:We didn't talk about that earlier.
Speaker 1:No, we didn't talk about that. I'm curious, michael. Everybody has people in their life who have served to inspire them or, in their journey, kind of be an important part. Who are some people, if you want to kind of give a shout out to, who have been influential in your life?
Speaker 2:You know, it's kind of like the question about advice that I've received Every stage of my life. There's been somebody, somebody who kind of took me from where I was and passed me on to the next person. You know and you don't even recognize that they're doing it.
Speaker 2:It's not always mentors. You know it can be your boss, it can be coworkers. I've got great advice from children before. So all along, all throughout my life, I've gotten all of these mentors. You know, if I learn anything today from you and I expect I will then you're one of those people. You're the latest in a long line of people Keith Does that make sense to you?
Speaker 1:It does make sense. Yeah, I can think of a lot of people who, at different points, just happen to show up. They just the right time with just the right influence or impact on my life. I remember when I was a young pastor and trying to figure out how to lead, I ran across John Maxwell and it's like, oh, that's what leadership looks like. So you know, it's always cool.
Speaker 2:You know, it's funny as we model ourselves after our inspirations. And when I was younger, I went into the military, I was in the Navy, and so the people I looked up to, the leaders that I looked up to, the guys in my squadron, were who I wanted to be like. They were all the same, so I became like them. I talked a certain way, my mannerisms were a certain way. Now, fast forward 30 years. I'm out of the military, I'm doing my own thing and I go to an air show and I meet a couple of young officers flying an airplane and I go up and I start talking to them. Man, it was like being transported 30 years in the past. I swear I was like I know these guys. They haven't changed in 30 years.
Speaker 1:That's so neat. So you kind of gave us a little glimpse about you begin your life in the military, so kind of give us your personal journey and tell us the lessons you learned along the way.
Speaker 2:Okay, I think the most unique thing maybe about my personal journey is I never went through the phase where I was really angry at God or didn't believe in God. I was raised Roman Catholic, so right from the back we start off there's a God and they're Satan and you believe. But then when I became a teenager, I remember meeting a guy who was an atheist and he says I just don't believe that there is a God. And I go that's interesting, oh God, huh. And he goes what happens?
Speaker 1:then when you die.
Speaker 2:And he goes well, nothing, you just go back to nothing. So I played with that. I wanted to kind of believe this new idea. I thought, oh, this is kind of an interesting idea, I'll think about it. I couldn't shake it. I mean, I always knew there was a God. I never it wasn't like oh, god's with me and I'm having a wonderful time. I still had a hard life like everybody else, but I just I never felt like there is no God or anything like that. I think that's unique Because I think it's almost part of the Christian journey to have this, you know, this dark night of the Christian soul they talk about, where you do feel abandoned, you do feel alone. I have felt like that in my life, but not like the God had left me. It's just just these feelings of aloneness or solitude or whatever. But I think that you know, as far as my journey goes.
Speaker 2:It was pretty boring, to be perfectly honest, until I started to write the book. You know, I just had issues with what was being taught in the Christian church that I didn't feel was right, that I could not find scriptural backing for, and I started doing my own research, which is, I know, terrifying to most pastors. But hey, the point is. The point is is I started to do this research and I did discover things that were anomalous in the text, things that don't add up, things that are contradictory, you know, and you'll see those channels on YouTube.
Speaker 2:Oh, they love to point out all the contradictions in the Bible, and most of them are fake, but they always like to point out the contradictions. Sure, there's contradictions, so what? That doesn't mean a thing. There's a million things that line up in the Bible and you find a few that were all okay, you know what? That's not evidence whatsoever, anyway.
Speaker 2:So I started to write the book and I started to understand that these myths in the Old Testament were symbolic myths written with two storylines the front story of Joseph or Moses and then the back story, which tells the story of the human soul. If we know what the story is ahead of time, we can monitor our progress. We can see where we are on the path towards our day of the Lord. Now, this is something that isn't taught either. Hey, you're going to have a day of the Lord, keith. You can't get out of it. It's not optional, it's going to happen to you. It might happen soon, it might happen tomorrow, which would be amazing. I would be very happy if I heard about that, but without a doubt it will happen. If not while you're alive, it will happen as you die. So that's part of our dying process. This day of the Lord that Paul talks about. I'm kind of going off track here, that's okay.
Speaker 2:That's the question.
Speaker 1:I think we need to probably help define some things, because you use a term myth, and for the Christian, especially the Lutheran Christian which I am, the antennas go off when I hear the word myth. So define for us what you mean by the term myth.
Speaker 2:Okay. So it's interesting because, yeah, when I say myth, the first thing you think about is an untrue story. But I tell you that Genesis one, for example, is a myth. You go, wait a minute. That's a story about the creation of the universe. Yeah Well, so the universe was created and as Christians we believe God created the universe. That's what Genesis one tells us, but it does it in a mythical format.
Speaker 2:So a myth is any story real or not real, fiction or nonfiction that is told in a mythical format. Mythical format is writing a front story of the myth with words like the story of Adam and Eve, and then there's a backstory to every myth. That's written in symbolic language, and typically the symbolic language has something to do with our spiritual journey. Whether the myth is a pagan myth or whether it's a Jewish myth or whether it's a Christian myth, all these myths are written to teach us spiritual lessons, and the spiritual lessons are all taught in the symbolic language buried within the myth. Okay, so I was talking to you earlier about the story of Abraham. Abraham was a real character, but his story is written as a mythical format. So it's a myth but it's true at the same time.
Speaker 1:And see we actually in our church. Buddy stopped using the word story.
Speaker 2:What are you? You can't say myth, you can't say story.
Speaker 1:We use the term account because we believe that we believe that the words and the parts of Genesis and the story of Abraham are an account, a written, accurate record of what happened, and we don't use because that storm, a storm idea to story in our minds gives people the wrong impression of confusion between true and untrue. So we stand on the fact that we believe the word of God is true and an error and everything is accurate as written. Now we also believe that some of the accounts have symbolism attached to. So we kind of agree with you that there is symbolism. So, like we talk about there are types and different anti types of Christ.
Speaker 1:Well, there are types in the Bible of Christ. We see that Moses is a type of Christ. He kind of mirrors who Christ is going to be, even as talked about in the New Testament, that when at the Transfiguration, who's at the Transfiguration? You have Moses and Elijah, so you have we see that as being the law and the gospel coming together at the Transfiguration. So we kind of use that term account versus story, because story is what you tell your kids before they go to bed.
Speaker 2:So you're right. You're 100% right, and that's not the only word that I'm going to say wrong today. But you're right the account is the best way to describe a story or an account from the Bible because they are somebody's written record of what happened, and so I believe all of it. Like I said, abraham has to be a real character, he has to have carried Genesis out of Sumer, or none of my suppositions at the beginning of the book really make any sense.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Well, here's why. Let me let me explain something real easy here. So so I'm in the middle of Genesis one, reading about the creation of the universe. I'm going and I see there's poetry. So each day is divided into two parts. There's the part where God wills creation, and then there's the part where God creates creation, actually builds it. And so I was going there's, what is the name of God? I'm looking at this, thinking to myself.
Speaker 1:What?
Speaker 2:did? What did God tell Moses his name was? So I go back to Genesis or to Exodus three to read that I go through my chapter three in my book is a long legal brief about proving that the name of God is an.
Speaker 1:I am that I am.
Speaker 2:That's ridiculous. The name of God is I am and I become. That is the name of our God. He is a singular God and a plural God mushed into one thing I am and I become. So that's what I deduce from chapter three. When you go to Genesis, chapter one, I am and I become is is listed over 50 times in that chapter in one way or another. Here's one way when they talk about God creating, they use the word Elohim. That's the only term for God that they use in chapter one. Elohim is plural for God. Eloah or L is singular, so they use Elohim. So if you read it in the English, it's actually in the beginning the gods created the universe, the heavens and earth. But they also use a form of the verb to create or raw singularly. So you have a singular God creating a plural universe. So it's plural Elohim creating, singularly creating. So that's that bad grammar.
Speaker 1:No one ever answers it.
Speaker 2:But I'm telling you that that's how they tell you God's name with a plural singular name. In Genesis 2, his name changes to Yahweh Elohim, singular Yahweh, plural Elohim. I am and I become Okay. So this is what we see in Genesis 1. So this is just a symbolism that they're using to tell us what God's name is. In the beginning they tell us that it's supposed to say let there be light. That's not right. When you read that Hebrew text, what it says is I am light, god becomes the light and the darkness. The darkness is the physical world and the light is God. That's all it is. This is God, but the darkness is the physical world. So in Genesis, chapter 1, you have to read my book because it really gets into it.
Speaker 2:We don't have time to go into it now, but trust me, the authors of Genesis describe the creation of reality the same way quantum physicists describe the creation of reality today. 4,000 years ago they knew about quantum and they knew how reality was created. They called it God Particle physicists. They're not quite sure what's going on. They know what's going on through experimentation, but they don't know that it's God that's doing this. The Sumerians, abraham's ancestors. They knew who was doing all this. They said it was God.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm glad you pointed out you know, some of the things that always gave me pet peeves about God's name and the Old Testament, because I thought the Elohim part, of course, was beautiful, because it does try to describe the Trinitarian aspect of God, that there's Father, son and Holy Spirit. But we also in our church body and I'm sure you guys talk about in the Catholic Church as well that God, the Father, created the universe. What's also interesting about Genesis is there is also the appearance of the spirit Ruach, which hovers over the earth. So the Holy Spirit is also there at creation. So I think it's kind of neat that at least those two presences are there at creation. Now the Son is there too, but you don't see his name show it anywhere in Genesis. But you know there are all three of the presences, all three of the aspects of God. God's divine presence is all there. So I love that the Ruach hovers over the earth as it starts out in Genesis.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the actually, when I was writing my book, I was compelled to read Genesis and I kept thinking. I remember reading one time, a long time ago, that the two most important books in the Bible were Genesis and Revelation. I'm going well, I can't read either of them, so that's not going to help me at all. I have no idea. Genesis is what? Are you kidding me? A guy and a woman, and they're hiding in a tree and a talking snake and how do you hide from God?
Speaker 2:This doesn't make any sense at all. Right, and I'm looking at this stuff, and when the first symbol popped into my head, when I saw that this was symbolic for something else, I started going oh wait, wait, there is something here, isn't there. You can't know your Christian journey unless you know where you came from. Genesis tells us where we came from. It tells us why we need a Messiah. There's no reason.
Speaker 2:And so you go to Genesis. You learn about how the human machine works. Okay, that's what Genesis 2 and 3 tells us. It tells us how the machine actually works, how we got messed up, and it kind of tells us how to un-mess ourselves up. But that's not its purpose, so it doesn't do a good job of that. It just says here's why you're messed up. Then you can't really go through the Old Testament because it's not going to help you. You have to go then to the New Testament to find out what the Messiah is saying. Then, once you have Christ in your life because Christ is the teacher you can read all the spiritual texts in the world you want. You don't have Christ in your heart to teach you what they mean, right? Then what's the point? So we get Christ. Now we can go back to the Old Testament and we read those stories and they're all telling us the same story as the story of the human soul. The story of the human soul is best allegorized that's what Paul likes to use. Allegorized. It's great Anyway.
Speaker 2:So it means that you know the symbolic story, the best symbolism, metaphor for the journey of the human soul is in the days of creation. In the days of creation, god creates the evening, it says, you know, and he becomes the evening and he becomes the morning, but there's no darkness.
Speaker 2:So what you're led to believe is that God is not part of the darkness. God isn't the darkness, but he creates the darkness. He manifests the darkness, but God is not the darkness, and that's something that people have got to figure out on the run. This world, you know this material world God creates, he manifests all God, but God is not the material world. The material world is an illusion in our mind. It's an illusion, you know. The physicists will tell you that, the Bible tells you that. But you have to know it's an illusion that God creates so that we can have this experience of life. You know that's what all this is about, anyway.
Speaker 2:So the Genesis account tells us where we start, why we're here, what went wrong. The Messiah then tells us how to pray and believe. So praying, if you want to look at it this way, opens the light up onto the path we're traveling and believing which Jesus was adamant that we needed to learn how to do pray and believe, believing moves us along the path closer to our day of the Lord. That's the purpose. That's what Jesus came here to teach us was how to get to this day of the Lord before we die. You look like you want to say something.
Speaker 1:No, I have a lot in my mind here, I know.
Speaker 2:That's the problem in my book. It's so dense. We could go anywhere with this thing. We could.
Speaker 1:Anyway, when you talk about the day of the Lord, I'm going to jump back a little bit because that's always fascinated me. Because there is a day of the Lord mentioned in the Old Testament and it's misunderstood by the Jewish people. They saw the day of the Lord as God's retribution on Gentiles for all the things He'd done to them. And I remember preaching recently on Amos and in Amos the people going yeah, lord, bring that day of the Lord to get those nasty Gentiles. And he's like, no, really, the day of the Lord is kind of your reckoning for drifting away from me, and it was misunderstood by. It's not the punishment on the Jewish, on the Gentile people, but it was this God kind of bringing people back to Him again and it was God's way of reminding us, when we have drifted away, that it's there reuniting with the human and God again. And so that was the essence. Do you want to hear?
Speaker 2:my take on it. It's a little different, but it's close. So it's all symbolic to me. I see everything as symbolism, so I'm not saying I'm right, I'm just saying this is how I see it. And so the day of the Lord is always portrayed as the destruction of the physical world. In the Old Testament, I think Tupeter and Acts also talks about a physical destruction of the earth. Paul talks about the day of the Lord as our receiving Christ fully into our lives, becoming full blown saints and fully righteous before we die. That's how Paul interpreted the day of the Lord. Now, what was interesting is that what Paul was preaching was that this day of the Lord can. It's not a fixed event in time. The day of your death is whatever day God has selected that you will die. You're going to die on that day, on the hour and the minute. That's fixed. What is not fixed is when you receive the Lord on your day of the Lord, intrigued.
Speaker 1:I am intrigued, okay.
Speaker 2:So what we're doing is we're praying to have Christ, to have that day of the Lord event come early. So the Greek word for this is pro-el-piso. El-piso is translated usually as believe, it's not. These are to hope. It's not hope, it's expectation. So when you put pro in front of El-piso, you get early expectation of Christ. That's what all these people that Paul's writing to were expecting.
Speaker 1:This is the good news.
Speaker 2:You didn't have to wait till you died. You could have this happen in your lifetime. So the way this works is have you ever heard of the hero's journey? No, I haven't. It's a secular version of the Christian journey, because the hero's journey is the journey of the human soul from the point we're born until the time of the day of the Lord. It's all a myth. The ancient myths are about the human soul, so all of them are hero's journeys. Joseph is a hero's journey, moses, ruth is a hero's journey. They're all hero's journeys.
Speaker 2:Hero's journeys basically start off with a call to adventure and you cross the line, the Red Sea, and you enter the wilderness. And you travel through the wilderness defeating the three major sins, which is lust of the eye, lust of the flesh and pride of life. At the end of it, you reject the world and your ego and self-awareness, human self-awareness. You reject that for Christ. You take the leap across the threshold and you become one with Christ. That's your day of the Lord. That happens at the end of the road of trials and now you have to go home. So that's the hero's journey.
Speaker 2:The point is, we're all on a hero's journey. We're all on it, and what the Christian message is, as I understand it, is that you're going to pass through anywhere between five and 17 gates. These are trials and tests in your life that you have to pass through to become the man of Christ that you want to be. We all want to be right, but these trials that we go through, all the hardships in life, they're the ones that are creating the man that will become that man, because we have to burn these things out through trials and tribulations while we're going through life. The little fights with your wife, the different frustrations and stuff. They're all building us into better people, all these little trials. So when you pray and believe yourself into Christ, this is what you're supposed to be doing. You're supposed to be a better man in Christ. You're squishing together all of your gates, all the trials you're supposed to go through to get to the cross, to Christ. Right, when you're squishing together what happens? The cross grows heavier.
Speaker 2:You have to pass through every gate. Only now you're saying well, I want to end a compressed format, god, so I can get to this day of the Lord earlier. Does this sound familiar? Like a Christian's life is difficult when they choose the path of the cross. That doesn't make any sense. I just explained how it makes sense. You're still going to go through all the gates. You're not hopping over anything. You go through all the gates. You're just squishing them together through prayer and believing to get through the gates to the other side, which is where you want to be, which is your day of the Lord.
Speaker 1:So a couple things. The wait, no, You're great Keith.
Speaker 2:I already liked you a lot, because you're just sitting there listening to this going. Okay, I can deal with this. You're great man, Go ahead.
Speaker 1:No, I wanted to explain a little bit better. So the way we interpret the day of the Lord in my tribe is that is the day of the Lord's judgment on the final judgment, and so when Israel was, I think I probably didn't explain it as well as I could. The first time, when Israel is what wishing for that day of the Lord for everybody else, they're ignoring the fact that their day of the Lord comes as well. It's for everybody when Christ comes that second time. I want to get into something else you said, because I think the role of faith is important in this discussion, because what you just described, the gate thing defined for us, when you talk about faith and versus faithfulness, how do you define that?
Speaker 2:Okay, so I have a whole chapter on belief, believing and faith. Faith is an English word that didn't even enter the language until about the 13th or 11th or 13th century somewhere in there, right? So those words that we read in the Greek, they only mean well, they mean believing, belief or to believe. So these people who are being described as the early Christians were called believers because they believed. And you've got to remember now the Christianity was competing with hundreds of religions at the time. You know all the cults of Jupiter and the cults of Artemis and Isis. You know all these people worshipping these various gods.
Speaker 2:So what made the Christians one? What made Christianity so popular? And two, why did Christianity grow so fast? Why were they so excited? What was all this good news about? That was making this faith grow crazy, right?
Speaker 2:So when I see the word faith, you can use the word faith if you want, but what I say in the book is that you have to understand faith only means belief, it only means to believe. That doesn't mean that I have trust in this person or anything else that they put to it, for example, when Jesus is telling the story about the talents, right? So the master goes away and the servants are left behind and one of them doubles five, and one of them doubles two, and one of them buries his talent, right. And so the master comes back and takes that one talent away from the servant who didn't do anything with the money, supposedly. But the end of it is what's interesting, what the master says to each of the servants. He says he says, you know, come my good and believing servant, not faithful, right? So the point is, is when we think of faithful, we oh, this is my trustworthy, my man from Friday, right, he's trustworthy and he's my right hand man, as opposed to the servant who believes.
Speaker 1:So, looking at the Greek word pistols for just faith, as we just we're talking about, it has multiple meanings and you're right, it could mean believing. It could also mean reliable, so we could be saying here is my reliable servant.
Speaker 2:Well, so here's. Here's the problem with that is that these terms were added later, when, when Paul was writing, when the gospel authors are writing, when, when, when John of Revelation was writing, pistols only meant believing. It was. If the God of the goddess of persuasion was, I think it was pistols, but anyway it was named after her. So the idea is to persuade someone to believe something other than what they might believe now. So when they add all the terms to it later, they change the meaning. So what words? With what? Did they think pistols.
Speaker 2:So when you look back at the ancient Greek writing, pistols only meant to believe or believe. So this is a big thing in my book, like if you read the introduction of my book, I say, look, they've changed a lot of these words. We got to go back to the beginning. What did they mean back then before? It's been 2000 years. So they have changed the meanings of a lot of these words. Right, when Paul talks about faith, he's talking about your personal ability to believe, because Jesus said you know God, it's your faith that has healed you, your ability to believe this reality. Because Jesus was telling her he didn't heal the girl. Remember the girl with the bleeding condition. He's saying I didn't heal you. God healed you through your own belief.
Speaker 2:You did this lady? You did this, and so because of her ability to believe in the new reality, right? All it is is. That's perfectly normal, by the way, that's just a placebo effect. 30% of the population has the ability to believe something that's different from reality. Through the placebo effect, like when they do drug trials, 30% of the people will always be cured by the new drug, even if it doesn't work right, because they'll get cured by the sugar pill too, because they just believe that's what belief is. It's spiritual healing done correctly. That's what I say.
Speaker 1:And we will disagree on that.
Speaker 2:But really well, tell me, I'm interested in what you think.
Speaker 1:Because to me, if we say that she healed herself, that minimizes the God portion of who Jesus was.
Speaker 2:Oh no, what I said was God healed her, but it was her belief. Through her belief, god does. All the healing Acts tells us that Jesus didn't heal anyone. God healed people through Jesus, right, uh-oh that's what Acts says that God? Does all the healing. That's OK, we don't have to agree?
Speaker 1:No, we don't. We were probably just differing on that apart. That's OK.
Speaker 2:I don't mind a bit.
Speaker 1:No, it's fine, you know. And when I looked up because I also wonder, I looked up the word faith in the Hebrew and it's a very different meaning in the Hebrew than it is in the Greek, with Greek the word for faith amet. Amet actually means trustworthiness, or to prove something, to be firm. And so I wonder how much of sometimes, as Jesus is speaking, sometimes in Aramaic or in Hebrew, and the Greek are translating it and they use the word faith to translate the word amet from the Hebrew. They mean similar things. So if you go and put those two together, it means to have a firmness, a trustworthiness, and you'll see that. Talk about how God is trustworthy, god is faithful, god is steadfast.
Speaker 2:And so that's another thing that they what they'll do is they'll put in like. So the term that they use is pistos theos, which is a believing God, but they turn.
Speaker 1:Oh, god is faithful wait a minute.
Speaker 2:I get that. But you know, the same God is trustworthy, kind of says what we you know he might not have been. You know, that's the way I guess how I hear it, you know, says like it could be that way, or we would say it's, it's not.
Speaker 1:It's not something that God is trying to achieve. Is this? It's a status thing? This is who God is, is not God's. God's at one time was and was not. This is just a state of who God is. God is trustworthy, not God is Morphing into trustworthiness. No, that makes total sense. No, I, we're on the same track, you and I just there's some things that I've you like I said. I like I said earlier.
Speaker 2:I can't not believe what I believe. You know, I went in there. I've got scripture that backs everything up that I'm saying. So it's like this is I would. If someone has something better. I'm like I said, I don't have a horse in this race I it doesn't matter whether hell exists or not to me because one. I Can't be a better person that I'm trying to be right now and I'm not that good. Be perfectly honest, number one, I try, you do too. We're all like this, right, we're trying, and but but let's say there is no hell, no one asked me no one.
Speaker 2:No one asked for my vote on this, so there is there is. If there's not, there's not. I just telling you what I read at sea and then and I'm asking people, go read it yourself. I don't believe me. Go read what I'm reading and see. If you don't see the same thing, it's uh, you know you're not gonna believe anything that Christ doesn't allow you to believe until the time is right.
Speaker 1:Right that's why I see it, you know and you know, I guess I would add this we, the, the idea of we're all trying to achieve the, the person that God wants us to be. We realize, as Lutherans, that we're never going to achieve that, that perfection, and that's why we live under God's grace and the, the part about heaven and hell. We believe, because that is that that comes down to again today. Of the Lord, that is when, that, when Christ comes back and God says those who believed, those who had faith, you ascend to heaven. Those who reject it Refuse to believe. You have punishment, and so yeah.
Speaker 1:But but going back to something that she said, I was wondering I want to get back into. When you talk about your atheist friend who did not believe in hell, I find it interesting. Even the people like the Egyptians believed in afterlife and and they spent their entire existence with those who had money Preparing for the world to come, because they knew they would spend more time there than they spent here. So, even atheist, to me it takes more faith to be an atheist. It doesn't be a Christian, because you have to. You have to force yourself to believe that there is no, there's, there's no divine.
Speaker 2:You know 50,000 years ago. Neanderthals, if you believe, you know beyond six thousand, but but they have evidence. The Neanderthals were burying their dead in preparation for an afterlife.
Speaker 1:These aren't even full humans. These are.
Speaker 2:Neanderthals doing this Okay so this is.
Speaker 2:This is widespread. We all have this sense of something beyond. So, basically, um, if, if I had, if I wanted someone to take away something from my book that Well, I believe would really help them. One is is the section on prayer and believing that Jesus taught us to the section that Paul.
Speaker 2:What Paul tells us, he shows us the various gates of the awakening, like what this happens, you're here when you, this happens, you're here, and then Finally, right before the day of the Lord, there's this thing that Paul calls the apostasy out and the apostasy as the breaking away, where we start to see ourselves as being separate from the man of sin, the, the sin and not my members, as Paul called it right. We start to realize that this ego, this personality that exists within this man is not me. It's program code that lives in the head, but it's not me, and you get this internal separation. Then you get to a point where you you the things that I want to do, I do not do, and the things that I hate. That is what I Do right so you're going.
Speaker 2:No, I don't want to be like that anymore, I want to be like this.
Speaker 2:But you're still doing it right, you're still track and then, but slowly, that becomes de-emphasized. You become less and less of an ego. Once that separation, you start to see the difference, you know. You know I delight in I, I am the man internally that delights in God's law, not the man of sin. That's the sin of my members. It's not much I could do about it. It's what Paul said. So once we get to that point, then things accelerate really quick. And then they say Jesus said be alert. Be alert, for even the Sun does not know. Only God knows. The day Right, and the day of the Lord is an awakening process that you will go through. Keith. You need to start praying and believe in this.
Speaker 2:Okay, nothing else matters pray and believe that the day of the Lord, your day of the Lord, can become sooner for you. I.
Speaker 1:Guess I'll just add this one thing that reminds me kind of what you were talking about with Paul, and they're good that I would do. Luther, one of our great theologians, would say we die daily to sin. You know, it's like he says. It talks about the new man and how the new man has had to learn to swim. Well, because every day we sin, and so you know, we're drowned every day to sin, but he's learned to swim.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, we see Paul. Paul talks about the new man, and that's what every day, every day, we wake up and we believe ourselves to be slightly better than we were the day before, slightly closer to Christ. Yes, we're dying to that physical sin of ours. This, the sin is the ego, the sin is the physicality that we take on when we enter the man as human self-awareness and become this guy. Right? So, as we pull ourselves out of human self-awareness to enter into the awareness and consciousness of God, that man so goes about his business. But it ain't you anymore, right? You don't identify as that man anymore, right you? Just you observe God's creation from a backseat. You go us a lot better. My thought it be.
Speaker 1:I don't know, that's true, I'm just making that that's good. So I love to ask my guest this question Michael, um, what do you want your legacy to be?
Speaker 2:Oh, that's easy. My book, you know I I started this book and I it was a hobby. I'm not a writer, I don't see myself as an author, but I Put everything into this book. Everything that I that I found in the, the Bible that I felt was true, I put in this book. And this is the book that I want my grandchildren to start their lives with to go out into the world. So you learn this book. Life's gonna be a breeze. You'll understand Everything that's going on in your life. That's my legacy, I hope oh cool, so working.
Speaker 1:Let's just find your book and we're gonna find you on social media.
Speaker 2:Okay, I have a website it's wwwmichael-mickpaddencom, and then that has links to the book and some of the reviews and whatnot. I have a Twitter account that's Genesis to Rev Um, and then the book is on Amazon. If you look up Genesis to Revelation by author Michael Mcpadden, it should come right up and it's got a Kindle version, paperback and up and hardback.
Speaker 1:Cool. Well to Irish goose got goose. Talking about the Bible is always kind of cool, the old Hanes. Thank you for joining the podcast, michael, and and blessings on your continued journey. May God continue to bless you and the journey of faith that you're walking on.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, keith, and the same with you. God bless you and your endeavors, and we're all learning right. Let's hope that we continue to learn and open our minds to God's.
Speaker 1:Yes, we're all learning. Thank you for being on, michael.
Speaker 2:All right, thank you, keith you.