Let’s Talk: Obedience and the Law

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Jackie Hill Perry
Welcome to another episode of Let’s Talk a podcast for women where we seek to apply biblical wisdom to everyday life. My name is Jackie Hill Perry and I am here with Jasmine Holmes and Melissa Kruger. So far, we’ve talked about boundaries. We talked about shame. We talked about false teaching, we talked about work, everything except cupcakes. And today we’re going to talk about obedience and the law.

Jasmine Holmes
Nice easy conversation. Yeah. It’s really simple. Since I’m very anti shame, I’m obviously also very anti obedience.

Jasmine Holmes
So I’m not gonna be much help in this.

Melissa Kruger
Well, let’s even let’s even start with how do you feel when you hear the word obey? Like, what’s, what’s the reaction?

Jackie Hill Perry
It depends who it’s coming from.

Jasmine Holmes
My parents were very like, oh, like, child’s place, like stay at a child’s place. Be a child, like whenever we would have adults over and like, we knew like if there was a roomful of adults and the kids were in the room. If the kids would like interject, it would be like, What what are you doing? Why are you talking your child stay at a child’s like child so whatever I hear obey, I think about like, Child’s like, okay, okay. Sorry. Yeah, yeah.

Melissa Kruger
Yeah. And it’s actually like a putting away of you. Yeah, like are quiet the interview? Yes. Yeah. be seen and not heard. Uh huh. Yeah.

Jackie Hill Perry
Yeah. I think if God says, Obey, I think there’s a much more I’m way more willing to be okay. Because you’re got That’s right. It’s when cats are like, obey your husband. Or people, even the Government and Authorities. I don’t understand the usefulness of it. But I’ll trust all y’all. So I think when I don’t trust you, right, that hold obedience thing just becomes a lot more complicated for me.

Melissa Kruger
Yeah. Yeah. And it’s like, which law am I obeying? So if it’s God’s law? Yeah. Gotta do that. Yeah, yeah, that’s exactly. Yeah. That’s an interesting,

Jasmine Holmes
That trust aspect is huge. Because like, we know that God’s laws for our good, right and our protection, and hopefully, yeah, we can we can obey, we can, we can trust, but the earthly iterations of that don’t always inspire confidence in the idea of obedience.

Melissa Kruger
Well, so that gets me to the question, what is the role of obedience in the life of a Christian because we know that we’re saved by grace, not by works so that no one can boast. I mean, that’s what the Scriptures tell us. So doesn’t matter how we live as a Christian?

Jasmine Holmes
Yes. Forget well, because we’re saved for unto good works. Yeah. I Paul talks about that. I was just in Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians, all in the same week. And it was all like, beloved of Christ, you have been saved. Here’s what you were saved from. This is what you were saved for. Now walking it? Yeah. And that obedience is part of that’s, that’s what it means to walk in into obey. What God the path that God has set before us as believers?

Jackie Hill Perry
Yeah, yeah. Faith without works is dead. And I think we know that we even TGC we did the whole book of James last year, but it’s, it’s like, man, my faith, my works don’t earn my salvation. But they do prove that there is a work that has happened in me that’s leading me now to obey God.

Melissa Kruger
Yeah. Because James is where it gets confusing. I mean, because James two says, say, faith by itself, if it does not have works is dead. It also says in verse 224, you see that a person is justified by his works and not by faith alone, which you know, to all of us. Yep. Because then I’m hearing Romans will all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and are justified by hit by His grace as a gift. Yeah. So is this confusing? Hold on. So you’re saying, do my work, justify or just faith justify and always what I like to say is, I became Melissa Kruger, I was declared to be Melissa Kruger, on July 26 1997, when I got married, that I was declared to be, but if you ask me to justify that, I’m Melissa Kruger to prove to you I have to get my passport out. My passport doesn’t make me Melissa Kruger, it just justifies that I am who I say I am. But what declared me was when I said I do, yeah, like that was a moment. So the moment we come to Christ is by faith alone, by grace alone, by God alone. We’re declared righteous. But then our works prove that we’ve been declared righteous. They act as our like, they’re like saying, no, no, I really am a Christian. Yeah, because my life is now being lived by the Spirit of God, which shows up in obedience.

Jasmine Holmes
Did you change your name right away? Are you like obedient? I guess, took me five years.

Melissa Kruger
Three, it took me a while. Time to change my email.

Jasmine Holmes
I still like yeah, PayPal stuff comes to my house is still addressed to Jasmine Baucom. And I’ll see Baucom stuff. And I’ll be like, oh, yeah,

Jackie Hill Perry
I think the most hurtful part about that this is has nothing to do. But was having to change my passport? Because that’s a lose all of my stamps and all the places I’ve been. I’m sorry. I sound boastful. Yeah. I mean, you know, could have three stamps. You never know.

Jasmine Holmes
I had, I had a few, not as many as Jackie Hill Perry, but like, I had a few but I had to change mine. I changed my passport and my Well what happened was the filament today, I don’t care about it until I had Langston. And then on the hospital door, it had my maiden name. And then on his little crib, it said little baby Baucom. And so it was like, oh, yeah, no, yeah. He was like, that’s an iPad, and I changed it like the next.

Melissa Kruger
And but I do think it’s a good way to look at it. Like, there there is even a growth process right, there is a Christ. And we are Christian. Right. But we might not even know what the Bible says. So we might be living in sin unbeknownst even to us. Yeah. I mean, because I think of who was it Apollo’s that Priscilla and Aquila taught the way of God more accurately. Yeah. You know, like he was trying, you know, who’s going out and trying to tell people about the gospel, but he didn’t understand them fully. And they come along and teach him the way of God more accurately.

Jasmine Holmes
But that analogy pushes so far, because like you’re declared mostly Coover on your wedding day. But like, how long have you been married now?

Melissa Kruger
It’ll be 25 years this summer. Are you

Jasmine Holmes
Would you say that you’re operating more like a family now? That yes, we’re eating? Yes. Yeah. So it’s just like that constant growth into the family of God. Like you’re there? That’s right. Right. It’s right. Nothing is going to stop you from being there. Yes. But there’s still this growth into what it means to be part of the family of faith to be part of the family of you know, and those outward things are important. They like they become, they become kind of like signposts.

Melissa Kruger
That’s right. That’s That’s what I like. I’d like to say you’re given this new heart, and it starts pumping blood to all the outer members. But that takes time, you know, is we’re being changed from the inside out. Yep. Not the outside in. And so we grow increasingly, if we’re growing in the Lord, we’re going to grow increasingly uncomfortable with some, because we understand your it’s like your taste buds change. Yeah, yeah. It’s like, I don’t have a taste for that. I may yearn for it. But our tastes slowly over time change. And I think we also at the same time, start recognizing the innocence more Oh, like, maybe I didn’t say, Yep. But I thought it. And now I know my thought was bad.

Jackie Hill Perry
So one of my favorite shows is Top Chef right? on Bravo, Vish, one of the best shows Nora. And when they get toward the end, where it’s like three or four competitors, by this time, they got the cream of the crop. And the judges will often say everything is so excellent. But we so everything we’re saying is nitpicky at this point. And I feel like the longer I am in Christ, it isn’t that I’m excellent. Is that my I had to make little tweaks to my life where it isn’t. I’m a drunkard. Isn’t that, you know, I’m a modest like I don’t these big external changes is just the way you speak to your children, how long you spend on your phone, like these really small things that you have to just be conscious of and change and it can feel unnecessary, but I really do think that that’s a part of killing the little leaven, and making, like being aware of the little foxes because to me, it’s just like, if I don’t care about the list of then I shouldn’t be shocked when I fall off a cliff. Right? Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I don’t want to fall off cliffs.

Jasmine Holmes
Another that made me think your Top Chef analogy. When we think about writing a book, I you sign a contract. And like you’re the I signed a contract with carbon, everything. I hadn’t written carbon ammeter yet. Yeah. And then I wrote it. And then they were like, great. Now we’re just getting started time for the editing process. And then it went through the first round of edits, where I was like editing content and stuff, and they’re like, Oh, that’s really good. And then they’re like this footnote, says Page 67. But I didn’t find it on page 67. It’s actually the sentence ends on page 68. So I need you to go back in and like, make sure that the footnote is exactly it’s so intensely exactly but I bought I signed the contract and I got the advanced I’ve been hired. Yeah, the covers done like all that stuff is done. They’re not done. He’s made but I’m still doing so much work. Yeah, to make the book a reality. Yeah, even just a couple months before. We’re in trouble.

Melissa Kruger
Yeah, and I love it. It reminds me of the like good works which were prevented paired in advance for you. It’s like you signed the contract and God has plans for your life. He does. Yeah. That he prepared in advance for you to do and you’re supposed to walk in them. Yeah.

Jasmine Holmes
And it takes a little he takes our little works. Yeah, that are so just like, Baby works. Yeah. Like they took my first draft, but it’s terrible footnotes. And they’re like, good job, Jasmine. Yeah, that’s right. Cool. It started.

Melissa Kruger
I know how you write I’m sure it was not…

Jasmine Holmes
They were like you finished and then they’re like, Okay, now do better.

Jackie Hill Perry
I have a question, guys. I’m listening to y’all listening to us. And then I’m thinking about people who may be a lot like the rich young ruler, who while listening to us, they’re saying, Yeah, I obey all the time. I’m good. But we don’t have to have a pocket. If we go have a podcast about obedience workshop, they talk to me, because I understand obedience. Like how do we want avoid that kind of like spiritual arrogance? And how do we even deal with friends and family members that kind of feel like they don’t have anything to tweak? They don’t have any areas of disobedience? Like they’re just kind of out here. Perfect. You know?

Jasmine Holmes
So I think I have the most boring testimony of the three of us.

Jackie Hill Perry
There’s no such thing as a boring testimony. You were raised from the dead and delivered out of the darkess into his marvelous light.

Jasmine Holmes
But I was like six. I didn’t do anything. Ya know, at bible camp where they call you up to give your testimony. It was like, it was like it was a crackhead. And now, I look like it’s like, it’s so intense. And you’re just like, I was sick. And then I’ll talk to other Christian people who like oh, so GABA, like when was your rebellious? You know, like, yeah, because you become a Christian when you’re super early, and then you have a rebellious phase. And then I was like, Oh, that was when I was 14. And I was really scared that I wasn’t safe. So I was trying to be really good. That is rebellious. It is rebellious.

Melissa Kruger
We all want our children to rebel just like that.

Jasmine Holmes
So it’s soul crushing like, and I don’t think people realize how soul crushing legalism is, which is why like tongue in cheek. I think a testimony like mine does seem really boring, because it’s like, well, yeah, you know, but like, what did you do? Like you didn’t do anything? You didn’t do that much. But I was living in shame and living as though Christ did not died from my sin and living like a Pharisee.

Melissa Kruger
And the biggest condemnation. I mean, I was reading in Matthew this morning, was always the Pharisees. Yes. Woe to you, you whitewash tombs. Yes. You clean the inner ear. You clean the outside? Yeah. Hey, yeah, you’re right. You’re right.

Jackie Hill Perry
Melissa, encourage her.

Jasmine Holmes
But we talked about this yesterday, Jack and I were talking and we was like, we do this every shame Dusties ever use shame to teach? And like if he does, it is with the Pharisees. It’s not what the people who are like, ah, you know, I? I’m bad. Like I am. Yeah, I am broken. It’s what the Pharisees were. He’s like, Look, I need to get you. I need to get you down. Yeah. To where you realize that you are in need of me. Yeah, completely and totally because I mean, shame. And false.

Jasmine Holmes
Humility can kind of look like you really understand the word of God. And you’re this like, self flagellating, like, yes. You know, I just wanna be holy, like, I just want to be good. But something that I realized my first year of marriage, that had actually been told to me in relationships prior to with my husband, was I was really bad at apologizing. I’m so bad at apologizing. I apologize all the time. Like, when I’m in labor. I’m like, I’m so sorry. Oh, my gosh. Like I remember, like, pushing went out. And like, after my first push, I was like, somebody is so loud. I am so sorry. That is like, whoa. And so I’m just like, I’m an apologetic person.

Jasmine Holmes
So when people would be like you don’t like when people that I was in deep relationship with but say you don’t really apologize. I’d be like, I apologize. All the time. I’m the best at apologizing. But it was just the precursory I’m sorry, let’s move past it. Because if if I repent, if I like stop in it, and really express grief over my sin, then I’m going to have to come face to face with my shame. And you’re gonna see me and I’m going to be naked. And I don’t I don’t want to do that. So just like Sorry, move on. Yep. And it’s only been through marriage and relationship with Philip that I realized that pride in me that even though all of a person who’s always like, Oh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. It’s just to get through it’s just to get past it to get past the awkwardness. It’s not to actually say there’s deflection, right? It’s not to actually say I sinned. Yeah, I am bear.

Melissa Kruger
Whereas the Sermon on the Mount was the antidote to the rich young ruler. Yeah, we really think about it because what Jesus do and sometimes we want to say oh, Jesus started expanding the law. He didn’t actually expand the law. He showed it for what it was always meant to be. The Pharisees had limited it so they could hop over the fence. Right? Yeah. So they had said, Well, of course I’ve never stolen.

Melissa Kruger
Yeah, of course, I’ve never, you know, lusted or I’ve never committed adultery. But then Jesus says, Have you lost it? Within you committed adultery in your heart? Yeah, I mean, because you get to the, for me, probably the best exercise was writing a book on envy and coveting. Because all I mean, the 10th commandment assures you if you thought you were without sin, I’m now going to get into your inner desires, because coveting is all about inner desires. You’re not actually taking your neighbor’s cow, right? You’re not actually taking your neighbor’s wife. You just want it and, and God calls that sin idolatry.

Melissa Kruger
And so when you really get to that, it’s like, an I think what we are tempted to do is to lower the fence like the Pharisees. Yeah, we can jump over. We don’t really want to go. Oh, no, me wanting Jasmine’s cute jogger pants here. Yeah, like in an inordinate way. Not just saying, Oh, they’re cute. Yeah, but me, me actually saying, I don’t think God is good to me. Right? I’m doubting um, because this is what the Israelites got in trouble for all the time in the Old Testament. They grumbled and complain. And you’re like, that’s not sexual immorality. That’s not all these things, you know, grumbling and complaining, and they didn’t get in the Promised Land? He didn’t when you think about that, like, it’s because their hearts were discontent with what the Lord was doing. So he gets at us. He will show us if we think we’re not lawbreakers. We are.

Jackie Hill Perry
Yeah. And I think that’s why it’s so necessary for us to see how much like obedience is. It’s like a product of our faith. You know, like so many times we try to obey, apart from faith, which only leads to self righteousness, and a lack of intimacy and exhaustion. Really? Yes. But like when the law was given, what’s that? Exodus 19? You know, shortly after Exodus started today, oh, here over your building the calf? Yep. Why? Because they didn’t know what happened to Moses, therefore, they don’t trust that God is able to go before them. And it’s just like

Melissa Kruger
You were too long coming down from that mountain. So we made a calf it came out of the fire.

Jasmine Holmes
You’ve literally walked on dry land

Jackie Hill Perry
He did a lot to show you that He’s faithful. He just made a covenant with you. He’s not gonna break it. Yeah. And he’s rescued you before he even gave you this law. So this isn’t to earn salvation. You’ve already been set for it. You already been delivered, you’re already been saved. This is just saying, I love you, God, thank you. Let me like walk in your way. So I can be like you. Yep, is but if they didn’t remember, then they didn’t hold fast to what God had revealed himself to be and what God had said, therefore they didn’t obey.

Melissa Kruger
I think that is actually a huge part that we haven’t talked about. The law was graciousness to Israel, not condemnation, meaning he said, Because you are my people, because I love you, I’m actually going to tell you how you work best. And you know, if you act like all the other nations who are literally burning their children in the fire, to these gods, you know, if you do all these things, it’s actually not going to go well for you the law. When we I think when we turn on a different lens, I think before we become Christians, the law is condemnation, for sure. It is what is screaming out, you are not enough, you are not enough.

Melissa Kruger
But once we become a Christian, we can say with Psalm 19, love Lord, his lovely delighting the soul, the commands of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise, the simple, you we can say those things in a different way. Because all of a sudden, the law becomes what we base our life on. Because I actually don’t know how to live. It’s saying, humbly, I am human, I am finite. I don’t know how to go in this world. But I’m going to trust in this book. Because I believe it’s true. And that is not a position of pride. That’s actually a position of humility to say, I don’t know what’s best. So I’m gonna put my trust in lore. And I’m going to do what he says, even when it didn’t make sense to me sometimes.

Melissa Kruger
And I’m going to go forward with that. That’s, that’s a life of faith. Yeah. Yeah. The life of pride is I go my own way. I make my God’s ways that didn’t sound right. I’m not going to do that. Yeah, I’m going to walk in my own way. One thing that has really helped me because I think when you get in the Old Testament, it gets really confusing with regard to the law, because there are all these laws, so a lot of them that we now don’t obey. In the Old Testament, people kind of categorize law with civil, ceremonial, and moral law and civil law are laws that were given to the nation of Israel. Yeah, because they were a theocracy.

Melissa Kruger
They work differently. Then, like laws for our country, for instance, then Syria. ammonia laws all dealt with the temple regulation. So only this tribe of Aaron could carry the pole. Only this tribe when they’re moving the tabernacle all over the place. And then it also dealt with the goats and lambs, and the birds and all the different ways of sacrifice. And then you have the moral law. In the Old Testament, that is summed up in the 10 commandments, like that’s the basic summation of it. How does understanding those three types of law help us interpret Scripture? Well, when we talk about obeying God, yes, when someone comes to you and says, you’re eating Trump, how is that any different than me? Stealing from someone? Yeah.

Jasmine Holmes
Right. I mean, for I think a lot of times, when the law is brought up in like our cultural context, in that way, it’s usually to try to discredit obedience to God in general. So we could explain, like, there’s civil law, there’s ceremonial law and those there’s moral love. But really, that’s not the question that people are normally asking. They’re normally just doing a, you know, serpent in the garden, Did God really say, moment, but if they really wanted to know about why I’m eating shellfish, it’d be really good conversation to talk about Peter and x. And how God gave him every good thing to eat. And like, showed him that, that that law was for a season for an illustration for a purpose, and that Christ filled that law. But really, it’s impossible to understand those three different categories of law without understanding Christ.

Melissa Kruger
What would you say? If someone says, Well, does that mean the law is constantly evolving? Meaning, you know, shellfish used to be bad? Well, so now, if the law could evolve, if we’re going to say that, which I don’t think the term, I would say, maybe I’m going to answer my own question here. I would actually say the law was fulfilled. But because some will say, Yeah, well, that was for that season, but now we’re, we’re more okay. Especially with areas of sexuality, right? Yeah. Now, we understand that this is okay. Or this is okay. Or, you know, you know, God doesn’t care who asleep with Yeah, that whole type thing? Just because all the Old Testament laws changed, right? So it’s just all got God has kind of an evolving process as what pleases Him and what doesn’t?

Jasmine Holmes
Well, I would just ask like, okay, so Christ came, and then that changed some of the iterations of the law. So if you’re arguing that now the law is different again, what happened? What happened? Yeah.

Jackie Hill Perry
And in the New Testament, the moral law is still upheld. Again, the Sermon on the Mount, very ethical. Yeah, very moral. When Jesus is talking about marriage, he harkens back to the reality no, this is one man, one woman, one flesh. You know, Paul, like, obey your body submitter bodies a living sacrifice, holy, unacceptable unto God. Like there’s still a lot of morality. Yes. Ethical legislation, like, like, ethics are being legislated still, yeah, in the New Testament, and so we can’t just throw the whole baby out with the bathwater as if God’s holiness has changed, right? Yep, that hasn’t changed at all, and never will.

Melissa Kruger
That’s exactly right. And the nation of Israel was set for a particular time, the church is the fulfillment of that. So this, you know, he says, all of you who believe by faith are actually sons of Abraham, like the church is the people of God that he was calling out from the nation of Israel, rice comes, and now we’re living in the church. And we’re governed not by the law, but by the Spirit, but the Spirit will never act in contradiction to the law. And so there’s this wonderful Galatians five, where it gives this contrast between I tell you walk by the Spirit and you won’t, you’re not going to satisfy the desires of the sinful nature.

Melissa Kruger
And he says, Those are actually obvious. Yeah. And he lists them out. And he says, Those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. And he says, But the fruit of the Spirit is love and joy. And yeah, like, I think it shows us the law shows us what life by the spirit looks like. So forever wondering, you know, am I in the spirit on this? Well, does it look like love and joy and peace and patient kindness as defined by the Scripture, because here we can even get into? Does it look like what God says love is look like what God says joy and peace are and that’s a really different view. So the law is given to show us how to live as a Christian, but it does also act as a tutor to guide us to Christ when we see we can’t fulfill it. So there are these different ways it’s used in our life because I think the more you are trying to evey you’re feeling shame. And, like, I can’t do this. Yep. And so how do we see In our hearts, how do we distinguish between a spirit desire to obey God and kind of a legalistic desire?

Jackie Hill Perry
That’s a wonderful question. Wonderful question. Was that Family Feud? Great question. Great question. That was a good question.

Jasmine Holmes
It was a good question. Um, willingness to repent is my main one. Because if I am living out a pharasical place, and somebody comes to me, and says, like, hey, actually, Jasmine, when you did x, that really was hurtful. If I’m living out of a fair, sacred place, I’m going to argue them down and be like, no, no, I didn’t hurt you. Because I’m perfect. No, no, no, no. But that willingness to repent, that willingness to recognize our standing before a righteous God is an important element of knowing whether or not we’re obeying God because we understand who He says He is. Or we’re obeying God, because we want to take his place. We want to be God, like, we want to be perfect.

Jackie Hill Perry
Yeah, this is complicated, because I’ve been in so many settings, where legalism was the culture. And I thought it was faithfulness. The first one of the first churches I went to, when I was a new Christian, it was just a world and we end up finding out it was a cult, but it was just a world of like lock keeping. And to the point that, you know, if, if I was on Facebook, longer than 10 minutes on this, um, this is an idle, I’m spending my time unnecessarily. Or if I’m on the phone, or if I meet a stranger, and I don’t give them the gospel, then I’ve given into fear and cowardice. And so it was just like, this, this yoke and this burden that I thought was holiness.

Jackie Hill Perry
And it wasn’t until I stepped out of it, where it’s like, is it not also gospel centric to befriend them? Yeah. And to say, how are you? Are you good? We’re gonna give you a high five, you know, like, That’s kindness. That’s, that’s love. It’s not necessarily evil, for you to not go through Yeah, we sinned against the Holy God, and He sent His only begotten Son so that we can, you know, live and he atone and propitiated for us and grow from dead and now we got to repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you want to say it’s prayer? Like, that’s not? That was good. That’s not necessarily the thing I was laying off the top of it? I don’t know.

Jackie Hill Perry
So I guess, taking the Bible for what it says listening to the words of Jesus more than we listen to the words of people. And even identifying and being able to discern our motives, right? I think motives are a huge thing where it’s like, I could be in his heart because the heart is deceitful. But I could be in a situation where the pressure on me is to give the gospel, right. But I could actually be resting in wisdom to say, Maybe I need to befriend this person, not necessarily fear. So let me discern my heart and not necessarily what the culture is imposing on me, for what I should do doesn’t make any sense.

Melissa Kruger
Yeah, absolutely. Well, because that’s a really, actually a great point. Because there are commands given go make disciples, right. But there’s wisdom about how to do that. There’s a command Be kind, but kindness to your child might look like disciplining them. Right. You know, I mean, so it doesn’t, you know, it takes wisdom to actually and I think it takes dependence on the spirit to actually know what is love in this moment. Love might be saying the hard thing. Love might be hugging someone. Love might be crying when they cry and being joyful. When they’re joyful. It. It’s situational. And that takes a spirit.

Jasmine Holmes
Yeah, that and that’s one thing the first did not have. Yeah, was the spirit, the mind of Christ? Making I always talk about my Yeah. But like, yeah, just replacing the mind of flesh in the heart of flesh with a mind that we have access to the very mind of God, the Holy Spirit. And sometimes I think when we dilute obedience down to a checklist, and not down to a constant submission to the Word and the Spirit is calling in our lives, we lose the heart of what obedience to God is for a believer, because we’re just like, just knowing what to do. Like I want to rush past that discernment. I want to rush past that need for love that need for patience. I just want to know just just, yeah, make me a robot. So I can just like fulfill all the commands

Melissa Kruger
Because it has to flow in scripture out of abiding, because Jesus says If you abide in Me, you will bear much fruit. So for me, if I’m trying to obey apart from abiding, I know it’s gonna get ugly. I’m going to be the dry and brittle branch who’s judgmental? I mean, some of the signs for me like a calm signposts. If I’m convicted about something They like don’t watch that show. And then I hear y’all talking about watching that show. And I’m like, they should know better. They’re not Christian or like, yeah, when I see judgmental illness in my heart, that to me is a check. Are you a vein of a legalism? Or by the spirit of true? You know, it doesn’t mean that we can’t be discerning because there’s some things that are just wrong and Scripture not saying I can’t say, yeah, if you’re telling me you’re sleeping with your boyfriend, I’m gonna look at you and be like, Okay, I’m concerned about where you are with the Lord. Because it’s pretty clear in Scripture. You’re not supposed to I’m just concerned. I’m not saying yeah, right. You’re right. But let’s talk, let’s talk.

Jasmine Holmes
Jump out of the alley and like douse you with holy water.

Melissa Kruger
But on things that are what the Scriptures called disputable matters, you know, can I graciously let you make your choices and trust the spirits leading you and be the same with me and know, I might make choices that other people don’t agree with? Like when it comes to things like alcohol, or foods we eat or whatever? Yeah, like you might be like, I only pick organic because…

Jackie Hill Perry
Because that would be creating your own law. That’s right, and subjecting other people to obey. That’s right. And they’re now at that point, they’re obeying Melissa and not the Lord. That’s right. And that’s not good

Melissa Kruger
With when it comes to our children, them? Because sometimes, when obedience becomes a sweet, sweet word, off our tongue, so is when our children obey us. How can we avoid legalism in our homes. And this could even be with your roommate, you know, because I mean, I tell you, I remember living with roommates in college, and the kitchen sink could become a breeding ground of you must not be a Christian, because you’re never putting your dishes, you’re never claiming them. For everybody else, or whatever, like we can become, in our family life really legalistic? With the people we’re around the most. How does that show up? Or maybe it doesn’t in your house? Maybe your homes are just Grace based?

Jasmine Holmes
No, I think understanding the other part, I say this all the time, but finding the understandable part of the other person, like why. So I’ll use myself as an example and not fill up. I don’t screw the tops on things. I like Screw them once. And you know, I’m saying like, I don’t like tightly screw the tops on things. I’ll just be like, Yeah, I’ll just be like, you know, just fit and then I’m on to the next thing. And it drives fill up. Insane. Yeah, it drives him crazy driving me crazy, right? I do now. And he’s like, like, whenever whenever he finds one, he’s like, Babe, like, I know, proud of you screwed on that top. But I wasn’t not doing it because I don’t love him or because I don’t care about the freshness of the bourbon or because I don’t care about that. I just was like, I’m moving fast. I’m moving on to the next thing I’m trying to. And so I think, you know, he had to understand that about me, as opposed to him just kind of being like, she’s a pig who never screws, the tops on anything, because she hates me. She hates my bourbon. She hates everything that I stand for.

Jasmine Holmes
And we need to get a divorce. That’s like where I am with my pregnant self. Like every template does any little thing. I’m just like, I’m just done with you get over here and hug me. So I think like understanding others, instead of just reacting immediately to the things that they do not do like what was their you know, what was the expectation some parents, some families clean a dish, as soon as they’re done with it, some families, let it pile up, and some families put it in, you know, it just not making a moral thing out of just differences of opinion, differences in the way that people were raised differences of preference. Although I have now convicted that I should share the top settings.

Jackie Hill Perry
I think for me, my children are disobedient. And they’re growing in obedience, which is good to see. I’m sure they’ll regress at some point. But I think having an environment of love and joy that is not contingent on their behavior. And so I don’t ever want them to feel as if they have to be good kids for mommy to love them. And I think when it becomes that way, then I am completely creating an environment where that’s how they’re going to interact with God right which is if I don’t do the right thing with God, then he’ll be distant. He’ll be vengeful, he’ll, I mean, God is just what you get. Like he was just in the way he placed his sins on on his son and so there’s, there’s openness and there’s a freedom if we accept the love that he’s already given us and so I think for me, it’s just like okay, how do I discipline you and like you said in another podcast, share my disappointment, but at the same time, Ruth that in the fact that I love you still like nothing has changed right with us. So…

Jasmine Holmes
Yeah, and also just with my children My son Wynne is super emotional. So emotional like I am. I just every time he does it, I’m like, Yeah, I get that you feeling really big feelings? And I think in some households, things that are just like a personality difference can be penalized. Wow. Yeah. Um, so it’s like, he’s not, you know, he’s crying, right. But he’s not screaming. He’s not like throwing a tantrum. He’s not he’s just he’s feeling he’s just feeling those feelings. And in some homes, that’s like, you’re not allowed. Don’t ever show me that you’re sad. Don’t ever show me. I had a mentor once, who she was over my house. And when he said, I told him to do something, and he did it. And I said, okay, and he said, I’m mad. And she said, Oh, you need to break him from that. And I was like, breaking from what?

Jasmine Holmes
And she said, You need to break him from I’m mad. And I was like, why? And she goes, he shouldn’t he shouldn’t tell you that he’s mad. He should just, that’s all school. Yeah, she’s, she’s like, he should just obey and be quiet and keep his feelings to himself. And, you know, it was so interesting, because she truly believed that that was like extremely righteous advice that she was giving me on how to have a respectful child who knows how to control their emotions. And our parenting philosophy is just a little bit different. Where if I asked you how you feel, you’re allowed to say how you really feel you still got to do what I told you to do. I mean, and I expect you to do it. expediently and without like, throwing a tantrum, but if I say, are you okay? How are you feeling? And you say, I’m mad, like, yeah, I get mad sometimes too. Crazy thing is you still got to do what? He said. We had that conversation all the time. Like, I just, I just don’t want to do it. I’m like, yeah, yeah, sometimes I don’t want to do stuff, either. Yeah, they still do it, though.

Melissa Kruger
Yeah. And that’s what’s so great about the Psalms. They teach us what to do with our emotions. pour our hearts out to God, you don’t pummel your brother, right? That’s not okay. Yeah. But you can go and say, I’m mad to God, there is a slot against the law. Yeah, yeah. You can say I’m upset about this. This isn’t going well. Yeah, whatever. And I think that’s actually a good lesson to teach. that obedience is not stuffing. But it’s freedom. Yes, you know, that that is actually being able to call out to God and say, I don’t want to be like this. Yeah, this feels like death helped me. And by the Spirit in us, He will help us do this. Because I mean, I think about Jesus on the way to the cross. He wasn’t skipping. Yeah, he was on his knees in prayer, saying, Father, if it be your will take this cut from me. So he wasn’t, I think, I think we do need to deal with the fact that obedience can be really costly. And I think sometimes in the Western Church, we think obedience should only be when it feels good to us. So I think there’s this rightness about being able to say, this doesn’t feel good. This feels like carrying my cross and Jesus like, yeah, it feels like sometimes it feels like death.

Jackie Hill Perry
Yay! If you’re eye causes you to sin, gouge it out. Oh, he’s saying that obedience will be excruciating. Yeah. costly.

Jasmine Holmes
I mean, I’m, you know, pregnant right now out of obedience. Yeah, it’s costly. Yeah. Sometimes staying married out of obedience to God is costly. And sometimes there’s just so many things. Obedience, doesn’t always, like you said, doesn’t always feel good. And I think that that expectation that it should always feel good is dangerous, because eventually, then God’s law, it doesn’t become the standard you’re feeling about becomes the standard.

Jackie Hill Perry
Yeah, I’m super bitter. Yes. Because you haven’t been obeying from the heart, right? Or even trusting God with the way your heart feels as you obey. Like, this is a relationship at the end of the day. Yes. As you said, God, I don’t I don’t want to do this, but help me help my unbelief. And that’s where the relationship is just solidified in a different way that we’re the obedience. It doesn’t lose its difficulty. But there’s a sense of purpose right attached to it.

Melissa Kruger
Yeah. I love how the psalmist says, I will run in the course of your commandments, because you have set my heart free. Yeah, but it’s him setting our hearts free. And I think that’s how we can always look back at our obedience. One day, yeah, I think of the song Holy, holy, holy, where it says they take their crowns and they’re casting them down. I think that crown that we will all wear, we will say, not to us, not to us, but to your name be the glory. Because if I obeyed one day of my life, it was because you saved muscle and you change my heart and you worked it in me. And it’s all your glory. And I think when we can obey like that, that spirit led…I’m getting all teary.

Jackie Hill Perry
Oh, come on.

Melissa Kruger
It’s bad that we want to put before people. Yeah. The other is angry and bitter and legalistic and not life giving. And we want to say, Hey, this is life. Yeah, it may be hard. It may be death, but it’s life. Look at you. What is your favorite era of history?

Jackie Hill Perry
Carved in Ebony.

Jasmine Holmes
Guys, it’s about 10 Black women in Christian and American history. Who I think everybody should know about. I shot them before I started so good. Yeah. So that was my litmus test was like, do I know about them? Yeah. And none of them? I did. And so it was just really cool to learn about their lives and see their faithfulness. And I kind of talk about their stories now. Their stories impacted me. Yeah.

Jackie Hill Perry
Is that your favorite era? Or? No?

Jasmine Holmes
Um, it depends on if it’s American history than yes. Because they’re all Civil War era, like, right? But they’re so Elizabeth Freeman is like right after, or during Revolutionary War. And then the last lady named Helen Burrows is in the early 1900s. So write that let that like chunk between it Antebellum and the Progressive Era is like my favorite American part of history to study. But then if it’s like world history, my favorite is ancient history. I read. I read The Iliad, the Odyssey pretty regularly, so I’m not teaching this year. And I have two students who are coming over my house to two of my old students are not my students anymore when they’re reading the Odyssey this year, and they’re like, I just don’t understand. And I was like, Y’all should come over. We should like read it together. It’ll be so fun. That’s my other. My other era.

Melissa Kruger
My favorite, my favorite is WWII. My kids are like “You’re reading another book about World War II”.

Jasmine Holmes
Did you read Kate Quinn’s stuff. Yes. Right. Yes. The Huntress?

Melissa Kruger
Yes. Read all this.

Jasmine Holmes
The Rose code.

Melissa Kruger
Oh, I just I just read that. I like that. About the codebreakers? Yes. I just read that one. Just like two weeks ago. Yeah. Read that one. Yeah. Yeah, I’m pretty much I like any books by like biographies. I read the splendid bio, which is about Churchill in the Battle of Britain. And all that was going on during that I’m, I love that era. And then I also love Russian history. I’m a big, every elective I took in college was Russian history. Who told me that I just love it. I find them fascinating. Who I haven’t read.

Jasmine Holmes
This is a new one. It’s about black women in the black women who served in over two sisters in arms. I’m reading it right now. Okay, it’s pretty good.

Melissa Kruger
That’s good. Yeah, I’ll have to get that one

Jasmine Holmes
I know. I was like, I was like World War Two. There’s a story here. I gotta get this.

Jackie Hill Perry
I like I like any history, especially Corki. History. Like, is it CNN, it’s somebody or History Channel. They have like this series where they talk about the history of like, ketchup, and Heinz and Nabisco Yes. So maybe that I don’t know, that era, but it’s it’s a kind of history because it’s just like, oh, yeah, we all eat ketchup. Yes. It’s how it came to the history of Kellogg’s cereal. Oh, it’s interesting. It’s crazy. Because it was like a health food.

Jasmine Holmes
Yes. Yeah. And he was like, obsessed with you take this out of unity. He was just like obsessed with enemas. Like, that was his health. His health goal in life was like, this is the pinnacle of health.

Jackie Hill Perry
And it’s deep when you get into the history of like, it was like wars like so like, Oreo was at war with this other because they call them biscuits at that time, this other Biscuit Company, and it’s like one of them have more money. And so one of them got more popular, even if they weren’t at first.

Jasmine Holmes
Do like can like conspiracy?

Jackie Hill Perry
I hate conspiracies.

Jasmine Holmes
I’m sorry. I mean, I’m not a conspiracy person over there. But because normally when people are into like quirky parts of history, there’s also a connection of like, like, I have a friend who’s just convinced to the moon landing did not like like, you go to dance. There’s nothing you can say. Like, there’s nothing you can say. He’s just like, the fan is the the there’s no wind in space, but the flag is blowing. So it’s obviously a soundstage. And I’m like, okay, all right. Okay. Sure.

Jackie Hill Perry
I like facts. Like the what ifs? They stressed me out. All right. Good talking about history and law and obedience and things.

Jasmine Holmes
Our sponsor for this season is Crossway. We’re really excited. They have sent us so many books to love it read and look at and get to know. Today’s book is really great in connection with our discussion about obedience in the law. It’s the perfect book to tack tack on to talking about obedience in law. And it’s let me get the title right, “A Dozen Things God Did With Your Sin and Three Things He’ll Never Do” by Sam Storms. So Melissa, can you tell us a little bit about this one?

Melissa Kruger
Yeah, I love what this book does, because he actually goes through 12 things that God did with sin, like forgiving it, passing over it casting into the depths of the sea, you know, and so it’s it’s a really fruitful, I think meditation to say, oh, yeah, I know, you always think about your sin in terms of regret. Right. That’s, that’s great. But let’s talk about what God now thinks about your son. Yeah. So it’s turning from a man view to a God view. And I love that.

Jasmine Holmes
Turning from like you. Yeah, it’s the stewing in the sin to ok, this is God is active and involved in casting our sin away.

Melissa Kruger
Yeah. And what hope there is, yeah, for us, the three things that he’ll never do, yeah, yeah, that’s interesting. Intriguing.. But you have to get the book to get the book. You have to get the book to find out the three things he’ll never do. Yes. So Jackie, is it in your trunk?

Jackie Hill Perry
I bought 100 of them and I’m selling them on Etsy. Oh, at a discounted rate. Good job. I know. Is it a 30% discount, though? Not quite. Maybe 5% Because I need my profit. But I’m kidding. You can get them Crossway.org/plus. And when you go there, you can get 30% off because you know, saints love a good deal. But that’s it for this episode of Let’s Talk. Come back next week for a discussion on idolatry.