It’s Christmastime with Justin Taylor and Collin Hansen

Life and Books and Everything — Clearly Reformed

00:00

It’s Christmastime with Justin Taylor and Collin Hansen

December 18, 2024

Life and Books and EverythingClearly Reformed

We’ve all been waiting, and it’s finally here: the annual Christmas LBE. Listen in as the three amigos talk about Christmas movies, favorite books, which LBE member is the most like Jerry Seinfeld, and, of course, the airing of many grievances.

Chapters:

0:00 Sponsors & Intro

5:50 The Vibe Shift

20:10 Let’s Talk About Christmas

30:02 Sponsor Break

31:20 The Airing of Grievances

49:27 Books & Everything

55:22 Until Next Time…

Books & Everything:

How to Memorize Scripture for Life: From One Verse to Entire Books

Desiring God | Great Joy

Puritan Treasures for Today

Westminster Theological Seminary Biblical Language Certificate

The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness

Daily Doctrine: A One-Year Guide to Systematic Theology

Christopher Ash on the Psalms

The Beechers: America's Most Influential Family

Swing Low, volume 1: A History of Black Christianity in the United States

Letters of John Calvin

Digital Liturgies: Rediscovering Christian Wisdom in an Online Age

Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold

Pastoral Theology

Transcript

As always, grateful for our sponsors here at LBE, thankful for Crossway, and they're highlighting this week how to memorize scripture for life from one verse to entire books by Andrew Davis. I read a version of this years ago, or at least a self-published version that Andy did, and now I'm glad that Crossway is doing this. Andy is a pastor in North Carolina, Baptist pastor, and I don't want to flatter him, but he is, it's amazing.

I mean, he's just memorized books and books and most of the Bible. And he has written this book with his years of experience on extended scripture memorization to help you. It does take work, it takes discipline, but he has a manageable, time-tested pattern for studying scripture and for life.

So check that out, how to memorize scripture for life by Andy Davis and Crossway. Also, desiring God, they are highlighting this month, Advent, Good News for Great Joy. Join John Piper in this series of 25-Daily Advent Meditations from the Solid Joys Podcast, began the beginning of December, runs up into Christmas.

These reflections will help you savor the glory of Christ in the lasting treasure we have in him. Make this Advent season meaningful. Subscribe to Good News of Great Joy in the Solid Joys Podcast from Desiring God.

Readings and salutations. Welcome to Life and Books and Everything. I'm Kevin DeYoung, your host pastor of Christ's Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina.

I am joined today by my semi-special guests, Colin Hanson and Justin Taylor, Los Treisamigos. Welcome back to our annual Christmas LBE, end of the year, end of the season. I can't think of two other Collins and Justins that I would like to be with.

How are you guys doing? I think we get a little less special every time we join. You sort of, our introduction just keeps descending. Well, next time it will be 3-8th special.

I'm zero special. Justin, do you have snow on the ground there? We don't. Two-hour late start for the Christian school this morning with dense fog and the cement looks slightly wet, but you can't really drive on it because you just spin your tires.

So the fun, gray season of Iowa winter. I think I've mentioned this before and for as much as any Iowa listeners out there, I loved my two years in Orange City, Iowa. Of all the places I've lived, it was my least favorite weather.

Windy all the time, colder than Michigan, not as much snow, hot in the summer. I mean, what would the Travel Bureau in Sioux City tell us, Justin, what am I missing about the weather in Iowa? Yeah, this show is not brought to you by the Iowa College Department. Yeah, it's the cold that gets you.

It's the wind. I mean, it gets you. Really.

The wind chill. The wind chill. Don't forget this, Kevin.

I was reading my parents' Christmas letter. Just got it in the mail. And they were taking me back to the summer when all of our family was back in southeastern South Dakota on the farm.

And I just thought it was just the mosquitoes. Maybe I'd forgotten how bad they were. Oh no, it was a special mosquito swarm year where you just were, as they say, carried away every time you went outside.

So don't forget the mosquitoes. I think that Ann Seltzer did that crazy poll at the end of the election, where she was off by like 16 points, just to try to just eyeballs on Iowa. What was the word on the ground there? Were you surprised that she was off by, you know, almost approaching quarter of a hundred? Yeah, I mean, it was an interesting poll.

And, you know, the funny thing is, in retrospect, you're a genius, right? Everybody looks back to it. Oh, yeah, that was off. But at the time, you're like, wow.

What do we know for sure until you find out? And she put her neck out there. I mean, maybe she was being partisan. Maybe she was doing funny business, but she essentially kind of ended her career by publishing that.

She said she was already going to retire, but I guess kudos to her for still publishing with the data showed. I used to know how polls worked. I thought it.

Now, like, I don't know anything. I don't know how they weighed them. I know nothing.

Have you ever been pulled? I've never been pulled. I get called all the time. I never take them.

Really? Yeah. So here's one thing that I want to just tout, and this is maybe a humble brag from an island. I didn't get one political text.

The entire thing. What? What? I was getting a dozen a day. I don't know how, but my mom's like, I get them like 10 times an hour.

I've never gotten one, so I'm living the dream. I don't even know how that's possible. So we're going to turn to Christmas very quickly.

But are we, I don't want to talk too much about the election, but Colin has, is there a vibe shift to use one of the words of 2024? I mean, it certainly feels different than even a few years ago. You know, woke is an overused term, but you know, the backlash against woke the, you know, you've noted before. You're almost seeing that Christianity is so transgressive that people are, if not converted, you know, I don't know about that regeneration of the heart.

But there's, there's an interest. Okay, I'm going to stick out. I'm going to be different.

I don't want to go with where it seems like the culture is going. So I'm going to give Christianity, and not just, but traditional Christianity, a look. You're the journalist among us.

Is this fattish, or is there something deeper going on? Well, you identified what I had listed as really my top observation of 2024 when I compiled that, that list that I always do for the gospel coalition. And I think the simple way to put it is that whether it's going all the way back to growing up in the 1990s or coming of age and career in the 2000s all the way through to 2008, that whenever you saw certain kinds of transgressive anti-institutional media, I think of people like Bill Maher, you know, going all the way back to the 1990s into the 2000s. You just knew, okay, this is going to be anti-Christian.

It's going to be anti-Christian because that's the man. That's the person we're trying to take down. That's the thing we're all trying to get past.

That's the thing that's holding our society and holding me as an individual back. And now if you transported that to 2024, the same kind of settings, it would be still anti-institutional. But the institution that they're referring to now would be media, academy, entertainment, sports, which would, to borrow from what you're saying earlier there, Kevin, that would be sort of the woke establishment pushing a lot of different agendas.

And then the response, the transgressive response would be more in line with traditional forms of Christianity. Now, it's a hybrid. It's still kind of a pick and choose dynamic, but it's just not- It's a bar stool Christianity for many folks.

Yeah, and I think that the bar stool, yeah, the bar stool thing is a little bit different because I see some less, just more transgressive, less Christian there. But just when you all of a sudden, you're seeing Kid Rock evangelizing Joe Rogan on the most popular podcast in the world. That was an amazing segment.

You're just a little confused, but also kind of grateful and just hopeful that it's a sign of something else that's happening more broadly speaking, but I'll kick this back to you guys. Derek Rishmaui friend was texting me recently with some thoughts that I hope he's going to develop, but he said, we simultaneously have a dynamic with young men in particular where they are under structured in their lives. They're looking desperately for structure, but also trying to evade the structures of that establishment that you're talking about there that they find to be oppressive.

I thought, ah, now that's an interesting mixture right there of looking both for help. I need structure that's kind of Jordan Peterson response there. But at the same time, the anti-woke, everybody's telling me I'm inherently bad because I'm a man, that kind of thing, there's push back against this.

I don't know if you guys see the same thing, but that's the vibe shift if there is one that I'm picking up Kevin. And I think it's always good to remember when things can seem to shift so quickly. It usually means it's relatively shallow.

There's lots of prognostication that I've gotten wrong, but I do remember saying even on some of the, well, I didn't know what's going to happen on the trans stuff, but I remember saying to people, maybe even on here. We're going to either look and see that was the beginning of a soft totalitarianism, or we're going to look back and say what sort of madness took over our culture. And thankfully, it seems like we're trending closer to the latter, though there's still contested space for sure.

But some of the trends, when they come on so quickly, you just know this is not deep into the psyche, but it's at a level. But the surface level can really make a difference. It's a little recently of the church lady on SNL.

Oh, really? Yeah, he came on there and he made some Hunter Biden jokes and some other kind of political jokes on both sides. But that was something that he made jokes on both sides for SNL. It was kind of nostalgic to see it if you grew up with Anna Carvey doing the church lady.

And yet, it didn't have the same punch, and it's illustrative of what you're talking about, that when we were growing up, if you wanted to find a character that was quintessential, you know, tut, tut, finger at you, always talking about, yeah, kind of a moral scold. It was a church lady. The number of people who are watching SNL, who have, you know, in their life, that kind of scold, you know, a very dour sort of church lady in a frumpy dress, it's got to be minuscule.

Those are not the moral scolds in our culture. So that's not what, you know, comedians, which are sometimes the canary and the coal mind, are pushing against. And so there is an opportunity for the church, which I think is really exciting and unique, especially among young men.

At the same time, we need to realize that we need more than, you know, if it's a true work of the spirit, he uses lots of things. But it needs to be more than a transgressive cultural moment to have this last in people's life for a long haul. Yeah, one of the interesting dynamics, and I don't really know how to put the two things together, we're living in the TikTok generation.

Everything is now sound like culture. And if, I don't know when the last time you guys watched a network, a new segment was, but, I mean, let me summarize what's going on with Israel and Gaza and Hamas in 38 seconds. I mean, it's all generated towards just very, very clipped, decontextualized information.

And yet at the same time, you have Joe Rogan sitting down with Stephen Meyer, who is, you know, he got a PhD in philosophy of science from Cambridge University. Which is school with Mark Dever. But school with Mark Dever is just very intelligent on intelligent design and science and Orthodox Christian Orthodox small O. And Joe Rogan has them on for, I think, three and a half hours just to talk.

And, of course, with Joe Rogan, you know, I was like, well, what do you think about UFOs? You know, while he's smoking, while he's smoking a joint. But where else in our culture can you sit down and listen to a conversation about substantive things for three and a half hours? So at the same time that we have this very TikTok short attention span theater vibe in our culture, we're also now, by God's providence, and through his common grace, we have conversations where you can do it. And actually consider deeper things.

And, you know, Jordan Peterson is very frustrating because he can't answer the question of whether or not he thinks Jesus was born of a virgin, like that to him is just, he either was or he wasn't. It's not a difficult question. And yet at the same time, he's raising questions and talking about issues that just where else we're going to talk about that before, other than reading it in a book.

So there's something very interesting going on in the culture and allowing at least Orthodox Christians to, I don't want to say have a seat at the table, but be part of some of these conversations. It's not without significance that Ross Douthat, who I think the three of us would agree is the best opinion columnist operating right now is an Orthodox Roman Catholic and is coming out with a book on apologetics. So there's something here.

Oh, really? I mean, just a straightforward evangelistic apologetic call. Yeah, go ahead, Justin. There's something interesting, but we all know without regeneration, it's good.

It's, you know, it's maybe loosening the soil, but you can't plant the seed of faith without the sovereign work of God. So we thank God for what he's doing and asked for him to do more and do the deeper work. And my word to pastors in particular, and I've started writing this article a number of times and Lord willing will finish it at some point, is I want to tell pastors use the medium.

Obviously, I'm doing a podcast. People do podcasts. Other people, you know, I don't use Twitter so much anymore blogs.

Lots. So there are, there are different mechanisms. And yet I want to say to the pastor and to myself, beware of the internetification of your pastoral ministry that the, the ordinary means conservative is a fine word, but, but I want to say ordinary means confessional pastors.

There is such a temptation, because you see it out there, that pastoral ministry becomes shaped by these other sort of means. So whereas when we cut our teeth as it were in blogging, and there were tons of bloggers, there was lots of bad blogging, and we probably did, I'm sure we did some of it, but there is something at least that requires some more discipline and hard work to write something out. And we'll probably see the same thing with podcasting that many of them will come and then they'll go.

And just like blogging eventually kind of became everyone was doing it, then becomes aggregated again with, with major hubs and that same thing was already happening with podcasts, but it's relatively easy. There's a very low barrier of entry to get a nice camera, to get a microphone and just pontificate and just become, here I am, me responding to things. I watch a clip, I talk about it.

It's very easy to do. And again, it would be going too far to say no one can do that or nothing good can come of it, but it's very tempting for pastors to think. Now that's what it means to do ministry.

And now they have a pastor who was trained to pray for people, to administer the sacraments, to preach sermons, to come down from the mountain as it were and deliver this message. And now even if his content is fine, he's inevitably pontificating on a whole bunch of things he's not an expert in, he's not trained in. And this is Samuel James Digital Liturgy's point.

You're training people to see, oh, this is what my pastor does, this must be what it really takes to be informed. And you're actually not making, you can say all things that are true every day and you're shaping people in a way that does not form them for wisdom. So I'm just cautioning myself and others who would too easily think, you know what I'm going to do is I'm going to be another guy out there who comments every day on just what other people are commenting on.

How do you avoid that? Okay, last question before we turn to Christmas. Colin, how do you think about that with with TGC not to become that? I would say that, you know, just do what the daily wire does but do it with a Christian gloss. Right.

Well, there's a lot of deep convictions about why we don't do things that way. But the primary reason is because we don't see ourselves as a ministry that is just a publisher. We see ourselves as a ministry whose job is to support the local church.

And when you see that historically set up our council at the core, that's the whole point. So we've got a book coming out next year with Crossway called scrolling ourselves to death. It's a response, of course, an engagement with Neil Postman's amusing ourselves to death.

Good title. Instead of TV, we're looking at the internet there. My chapter is on preaching and I expand there substantially on an article I wrote for Desiring God earlier.

But the point there is to recognize just how the internet has become that primary place right now, unfortunately, I'll say, where people are being discipled. It changes preaching quite a bit. My goal is to kind of flip that back and to say, what's really special is a pastor who knows your name and knows your issues.

And but then especially it's the sacraments. You can't digitize communion. You can't digitize baptism.

There's just something that's that's critically important about how God designed things for the local church to be the place where we were primarily discipled. So I think it's going to take a take a lot of intentional pushback. We try to do that in different ways, but I almost think, Kevin, that because all three of us have been so immersed in digital ministry from nearly its inception.

In some ways, that makes me at least more likely to issue warnings about it because I think I've seen more of the downsides and experienced more of the downsides myself and have come to see more and more and more of the beauty of what God does through the church. It's a good word. Let's talk about Christmas.

Do you guys have Christmas movies that you make a point of watching or make sure you do not watch? I've found we got rid of cable like a lot of people did. And it used to be we have cable and you turn it on and you just, there was always a channel showing elf. There was always a channel showing home alone.

So some of those, I feel like, oh, we haven't seen that this year because we'd have to decide we want to see it. What are a couple that you want to see? And do you have some other people's favorites that you can't stand, Justin? You know, the Christmas story growing up was like, oh, the Christmas story is on, which I think it's on like 24 hours a day, if you have cable. I don't think that movie's aged quite as well.

I was going to mention that too. It gives you watch it as a dad. You know, there's a few funny scenes, but yeah, it's not quite as funny as I remember it growing up.

You remember the tongue on the flagpole. You remember it'll shoot your eye out. Then you're like, oh, those two lines are sort of, can't make an hour and a half movie.

Watch those on YouTube. And the pink bunny suit, that's always a highlight. That's my brother, Jeremy.

I don't have a lot of favorite Christmas ones. I mean, a wonderful life is still, talk about a movie that doesn't age poorly. It's just, how can you see a movie so many times and it's just, it's still worth seeing.

The acting is so good and the story is so well told. And then the last one for me would be Muppet Christmas Carol, which my wife does not like. So I just think it's, I think it's such an endearing fun movie.

So I've mixed the Christmas Carol and Muppets. Somebody thought that would be a good idea and it turned out to be a good idea. I just, studio head, I would be like, I don't think that's going to work.

I was rigid with Muppets. I just showed that one to my family and actually none of us had seen it before. And I actually don't think my wife or kids even knew who the Muppets were.

So that made it even more interesting going in like, I don't understand who these characters are. Yeah. Midwestern.

My, my wife loves the George C. Scott version of a Christmas Carol. And so she always wants us to see it. And I don't mind it, but I was just saying to my kids, we got to watch that.

And they just said, Dad, that's so weird and boring. And you made us watch it when we were younger. I've had nightmares for years with that.

So I'm sorry to my wife a Christmas Carol. I do like Home Alone, though, you know, you watch those movies from the 90s. Like they, they, a lot of things got through the PG, you know, Christmas vacation.

And you watch that with the family. Oh, I forgot about that line or that scene. But yeah, I was going to say it's a wonderful life.

Boy, you know, it comes on and it's on the network on Christmas Eve. You're like, I should just go use one of our streaming services and not watch all the commercials. But it's on.

I'll just do the four hour version as we're eating or wrapping presents or doing cookies. And everyone has, you know, a bad Jimmy Stewart impression. And there's been lots of pieces written about that.

And it just still, you get to the end and I, I don't tear up because I'm Dutch. I just don't do that. But if I were a different person, I would.

And I see my wife will sometimes say, you are like, you are like George Bailey with too many times around the house. Like, fix this banister and stop the piano. And then, you know, you come to the end of the worst.

I know it is very good. Colin, what do you watch or not watch? Well, this isn't my biggest tradition, but I do have some ones that I like. Claws.

One of the more recent ones, Netflix. I just heard good recommendations on that one. That's a good one.

I think I just watched that one last year for the first time. I've not yet seen the best Christmas pageant. If I go, that new movie, of course, if I go, it'll be an honor of my late grandmother, that book.

I remember she's one who gave me the copy of that book. That book was pretty much her worldview. So that was not a surprise when I got that from her.

So that'll make me think of her, no doubt. One of my wife's favorites is the holiday. Just anything that's a little cottage in England in the Cotswolds that pretty much is going to sell her on that.

The Christmas part is just a bonus on that one. So, yeah, those are a few. Of course, she's also really big in White Christmas and also others that we mentioned in there.

But yeah, got to mention it. I just figured Colin would mention ones that I never heard of before to get to White Christmas. I think our people have recommended Claws.

I haven't seen that. Yeah, I was expecting to watch that one. A Christmas story set with Ludovisk or set in some Russian prison that has some existential crisis in it.

Colin, what are your favorite film in the world Christmas movies? It's true. If there were an edition out there, let's just look to our loyal listeners to ask for recommendations. I do have to admit, my son and I are re-watching the Life and Fate Russian TV series right now.

So, that's our Christmas viewing. So, you're not far off. I'd rather like some slow Terrence Malek, but I repeat myself.

You know, Christmas kind of stories that just end in a very way that you feel like, I think I should be moved, but I'm also bored. It's not quite my type of tea, but it is funny going back seeing how our culture expresses itself through these different things and just imagining true Midwestern story. It's not going to end happy.

It's going to end somebody's. Some bad things are going to happen. It's going to be weather related.

It's going to end with a three minute shot of a guy on his side and frozen with his eyes open. Pretty much. Some frozen lake, some snow drift somewhere.

It's only the Midwestern way. You've got to add, if you're Midwestern and Christmas, you have to add little house in the prairie, like Christmas specials or, you know, where they're. That's true.

There's only somebody like, mom's got gangrene under leg and that's thought off. They had me have been eaten by a bear. I think Shane Morris said his daughter calls it little trauma on the prairie.

Well, this is the longest winter book set in Desmets, South Dakota. That's an appropriate one. I'm sure they had a, I don't remember what they did for Christmas.

I'm sure somebody can remember, but I don't, I bet that part didn't make it into the TV series. That was a little more colorful. I saw a pop up on YouTube, the other week, special sitcom episodes that traumatized us as kids.

And I really couldn't watch past the first one. I mean, there's some like horrible abuse episode from Webster or something. But, you know, when you were growing up in the 80s and it said, and now for a very special different strokes, I mean, you had to buckle up because this was, there were no trigger.

I mean, I guess that was the trigger warning. But they did not think twice about, I mean, real preachy, real traumatizing. So that made you thankful for just gangrene on the prairie and, you know, pause just in an iron lung or something.

Those were, those were tougher times. What have they been using straw, tying straw together to toss it in to survive through there and pause strumming Christmas carols over there? It was one time where we were watching Little House in the Prairie when our daughter, who's 21 now, she was very small. And we like went upstairs to go do something and came back and she was like just downstairs screaming because it was Little House in the Prairie and a little doll that was like, or like a music box that was going off and some creepy guy over there.

They print dark very quickly. We either cleaned some things up or gotten soft, probably a combination of both. I remember with the 85 Bears and we'll get to grievances very soon and the Bears will make an appearance.

But the 85 Bears highlight video, they had a game against the Lions. I think it was Wilbur Marshall or Otis Wilson. They hit, I think Eric Hippel was the quarterback.

Like just head on head. He falls backward. I mean, he looked like he was dead.

He was just on the ground sprawled. I mean, how many concussions now? But I remember watching that and everyone's like, that is why we love football. He almost killed the guy.

He's just out there. That's what you do. So I'm glad that we have some measure of humane sanity now.

What were you saying Justin? I haven't looked this up. But I just remember that we had a board game with a VHS tape of the greatest NFL hits. It was like you moved your piece and then you press play and you watch some guy getting a mean Joe Green like kill somebody.

Yeah, just like, you know, a wide receiver going across and just getting absolutely like, and that was the last play he ever played. That was the greatest thing ever. The guy get a concussion live on TV.

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Alright, it is the annual Festivus airing of grievances. This is much, much bally hood, much anticipated among our listeners. I have a, a long list.

As my friend C. J. Mahaney has told me many times, I am compliant, but complaining. And so the list, I come by the list very easily. So I might have to intermingle my list of grievances.

Let me just give you a couple on the, the, the lighter side. Then I'll come back to some more serious ones. Mechanical pencils are too thick.

I don't want a 0.7 or a 0.9. It's very hard to find the 0.5, same with the pens. So somebody fix that. In what context are you using mechanical pencils? I still do when I, when I, I still use pencils.

When I make my to-do list and I cross it out, come on. Just pens? I mean, you're not even mentioning erasing in here. Well, yeah.

Well, I may, there's an eraser on it. I may have to erase something. I don't, I don't write everything perfectly.

I need editors, Colin. I need a, I need a pencil. I didn't know.

Okay. Yeah. Well, save the, the judgingness for grievances about Kevin's list.

Every time iTunes does an update, a bunch of my album split. I know everyone says, why are you, what are you doing down there? Aren't you on Spotify yet? Well, I still have them there. That's a, many people have that grievance.

I love drinking fountains and too many of them are low pressure and they're not cold enough. What I've learned is the ones that have the old fashioned little twisty knob at the top. Those, for some reason, I just know I am, I am in for something good.

It's usually good, good stream, very cold. Speaking of which, I like my water very cold. When I go to the UK, sorry for our UK listeners.

I do not understand your aversion to ice. We, do we just drink out of, just just get it right out of the toilet if we just want room temperature. If we just want tepid water, I want ice.

Lots of it. I want it very, very cold. These are cold drinks.

Okay. And then one more. I haven't got to the serious ones.

This, anyone who has flown next to me can tell you that this is a real grievance of mine. When the airline does their whole spiel about everything and it's the prerecorded and their last line is, we do all of this for one reason for you. I always turn to the person next to me.

I'm sure they appreciate it. I should be evangelizing and I say, really, that's the only reason. That's the one reason.

Maybe if you mean you do it for me and my money, I would like to try to get on the airline, get on the plane. I'm here. You do this for me, right? You don't need to pay.

There's no other reason you only do this as a nonprofit service to other. It was just like ferrying missionaries over to the mission field. They can say jungle aviation can say we do this for one reason.

Any commercial airline, they do not do it for one reason. I don't want to just admit you do it for pretty much one other reason. Glad that you're here to help.

Just like in the hotel. I don't want to be guilted into using my towel for a week to save a spotted owl. You're not saving owls.

You're saving money on laundry service. Just tell us the truth. Listeners know now that if Kevin was not the great, he formed popular pastor of theologian.

He would have been the next Jerry Seinfeld. People tell me I look like him. I sound like him.

You guys. He's 70 years old. I don't.

Justin, do you have any grievances? I reserve the right to come back to mind. I don't. I think it was scripture telling us not to complain.

It doesn't feel right to do it. So these aren't even Christmas grievances. If I wanted to do one about water fountains, it would be, was there some guy that his one job was to control the stream? It should land in the mountain.

It's like every church water fountain. I know. I just set it up to 11 and it's just going to squirt over there on the carpet.

It is impossible. You cannot get into engineering school. So these schools are filled with people.

Yeah. It's like I would like to just get a drink and it's squirting me in the ear full force. The other one just sparked from that was the bath towels thing.

I think about it every time I'm in a hotel. Please help save the environment and reuse your bath towel. I'll just say just admit like you are saving money and that's not wrong if you don't have to do as much laundry as a hotel firm.

But you are this noble purpose of we are saving the planet by you not putting your once used towel on the floor. So that's about the list of my agreements. Oh, I have another grievance that's very niche.

Good. I want to hear it. Love the niche.

You're the better. I think you can cut this one. But I just saw another person in an academic book say in a footnote.

Here's the title of this article. It's in and then rather than listing the book, they list the editors first. That was the previous grievance of mine.

It's not in Colin Hanson and Kevin Deung editors. This book. It's in the book edited by these two guys.

That'll be a grievance right there. Very, yeah. Very it'll be a grievance.

Well, while you've made a segue, we'll come to some grammatical grievances. I know that Justin has has discipled us all in the difference between an M dash and an N dash and a regular dash. We'll save that for a whole episode, but that that would be one.

I am. LBE. I will maintain to my grave that grow is an intransitive verb.

You grow crops. That's that's it. But I'm tired of when I grew up.

You you something grew, but you didn't you didn't ever want to. I'm going to grow your faith in God. Grow does not take a direct object except for crops.

So I that just greats against my ears. You'll be happy for this one. I think editor friends.

I tell people even even at the church if they write something do not use the word impact unless it's for a molar or a crater somewhere use a different word than impact. So I've many many writing grievances. Oh, here's one from books that you just sparked in me.

When an author, this is like a nonfiction book, instead of just ending with a, you know, a teaser like and general Lee had plans to take the battle as far north as he would ever go. Okay, that's a little like, Oh, now we're going to turn the page to Gettysburg, but the author puts and it is to that story that we will now turn. Oh, you don't.

But it happens all the time. What editors are allowing that to exist, Justin? Hopefully no cross editor has ever allowed that. There is a one that I'll probably offend some people if they do book endorsements, but I have a personal pet peeve of recommending a book by saying I cannot recommend this book more highly.

It's, you know, you're making the reader read that I cannot recommend this book. And then you add the more highly and they're not trying to do a bait and switch, but it comes across a little bit like I don't like you. I love you.

I always try to encourage their folks like let's just say I highly recommend this book. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. So that's another niche one.

Travis Hunter said coach prime ain't going nowhere. So he is going somewhere. He's only going up.

Okay. Colin. Got a few here.

Streaming services increasing their costs while also adding advertising so that they can give us more content that we don't want. That is definitely a grievance right now. Second, the smell of marijuana in every city.

Yes. Don't get it now. Combine that with a lot of people needs Colin apparently apparently a lot of, you know, if you guys saw the graph last week that showed that more people are using marijuana daily now than are drinking daily now.

So increasing addiction in general. Also, how long do you guys think it'll be before sports are entirely secondary to gambling? That basically the only purpose of any sport is so that it can be gambled on. Yeah, you saw the person who put down was at $3.1 million when the Eagles played the Panthers a couple of weeks ago.

So we only got since there was a, you know, they were favored. He got 500,000. But the Panthers almost won that game.

They dropped that. I mean, who's got 3.1 million? He was from Louisville. So I hope it's not like, you know, a Southern seminary donor or something who's now writing a big year in check or something.

But yeah, sports gambling could be another whole episode that's just exploded. And I think a lot of people are not thinking much. No, that's a fun hop.

It is bad in every way. It's actually a big pastoral issue as well right now. And I sat my nine year old son down recently and we were talking about sports betting because he loves sports.

And I said, Carter, remember, what is the rule of gambling? And he said that if you're good, they won't let you do it anymore. Exactly. Right.

They will lock you out if you're good. So if you're still playing, it's only because you're losing money. So just keep that in mind.

Last one. Christmas NFL games, especially on Wednesday. My Kansas City Chiefs now with our high ankle sprained Patrick Mahomes have three games in 11 days.

Oh, goodness. So yeah, Christmas day games. I had to again sit, talked to my son yesterday and I said, should we watch the Chiefs game on Christmas this year? He said, no, I don't want to watch it.

It'll only make me miserable. Exactly. I don't want to be miserable on Christmas.

I want to be happy on Christmas. It's bad enough what's in on Sundays other times of the year. So Christmas NFL games.

Not a fan. All right. I'll come back to my list.

I'll have other grievances. Printers. They just don't talk to computers.

It's just 50-50 whether it works. The toner racket. That is a genius racket.

Yeah, the toner racket is, I mean, that was some mob family that invented the toner racket. It's on that level. We could all air some grievances about what college football has become with the bowl season, with NIL, with transfer portal.

We'll do that maybe another time again. People really, really anticipate that. Every, almost every movie show that looks halfway interesting on a streaming service is rated MA.

And then you read the parent guide. And it's just egregious. And this is another, I mean, this is a serious grievance.

I don't understand how Christians are watching some of these. Now I'm the guy who, you know, Babylon beaded the thing one time with a glowering face of Kevin DeYoung. Every time you dial up, dial up.

Game of Thrones. But really, I go and look and I read the parent guide and it'll be full frontal nudity, you know, rapes. I mean, just all sorts of manner of things.

And then I just hear Christians, you know, have time to watch these series. And so that's a serious grievance. Okay, a couple of more.

I'm coming to my ultimate. Here's my penultimate, penultimate grievance. Ultimate's going to be Big Ten officiating, right? No, no.

But sports, penultimate, everyone knows who knows me. I don't have the best diet and I eat the same five things. People are laughing.

Ha, ha, ha, same five things. They don't know that that's a literal number of things that I eat. And one of those is Doritos and the other is Mountain Dew.

Well, three of them are different kinds of Mountain Dew, actually. And different kinds of Tostitos. So when a gluten-free staple disappears, I am very chagrined.

So may they rest in peace, and if any executive is out there can bring these back, vanilla rice checks, they were a favorite. And they just disappear. And of course, there's no announcement.

There's no one talks about it in the political campaigns. It just happens. Tostitos, I do live on varieties of Tostitos chips, but over the years they had these yellow triangle ones just gone.

They had these strips just gone. They had these orange bag. They were called hardy dippers.

They were my go-to. They just disappear. So when these things disappear, along with some flavors of bang, my preferred energy drink, and if you Google, just picture in your mind what someone would look like, who invents the energy drink called bang, and you got it.

You'll find it, and that's what it looked like. They went bankrupt. So they're on hard times, but Monster bought them out.

I know the travails of the energy market. Okay, here's my last grievance. You will appreciate this.

For those on YouTube, you will see this. Those listening you will not. I brought props.

Okay, this is from my closet. I have four jerseys in my closet. Bears.

Brian Erlacher. I think the best hockey jersey, Blackhawks jersey. This is a collector's item.

This is a bull's jersey, and it's 45. The return from Birmingham. It's her.

When Jordan came back, he got a 45, and the saddest jersey in all of sportsdom this year is Chicago White Sox. There is not, at present, a worst city, a worst city for professional sports than Chicago. My kids have often said, Dad, help me understand.

Why am I rooting for the Bears? Why are they ruining Thanksgiving for us? Why? Why? I've never lived in Chicago, my kids will say, you're right. They say, we've never lived in Illinois. You're right.

Dad, you haven't lived in Chicago since 1985. Said, I know, but they're just, they're handed down like a generational curse. And so I root for the Bears.

Last time they won a playoff game, 2010. Blackhawks. They had a good run.

Last time they won a playoff series other than the fake COVID year, 2015. Last time the Bulls have won a playoff series, 2015. Last time the White Sox have won a playoff series, 2005, they won the World Series.

Before that, 1917. So we're on about a 90 year cycle. So there's probably, yeah, so it was probably another 70 years before the White Sox.

And they, they were, you can't, whatever adjective you use. You're not using enough adjectives to describe how awful their historic year was. Let alone the Bears fired their coach in the season.

The Blackhawks fired their coach in the season. The White Sox, Billy Donovan survives another mediocre Bulls year. So there is no city right now, certainly with four professional sports.

You can mention the Cubs. They weren't very good this year either. That is, has had a worse run, especially in 2024.

The Chicago, anybody step up, you cannot compete with Chicago sports in 2024. Strew, Justin, you root for at least one of those teams. Hey, Nebraska made a bowl game.

Anything is possible. We're going bowling in December, so. Who are you playing? Boston College.

Boston College? Yeah, I should add one more since Nebraska came up. I won't listen with my grievance, but two games this year. We had to listen to Colt McCoy, dude.

Colored comment today. It's as foam. So Paulini says, like, is he going to talk the whole game? Another grievance.

Was he the one in an adopt an endobicon Sue game? And Domin can sue you through. Oh, wow. That was that was the last great moment in Nebraska football, probably.

Until now. Yeah. Next year, he won until baby Mahomes showed up.

All right. Well, thank you for the mini grievances. We are coming up to a hard stop, at least for.

And welcome back to those who just fast forward. Yeah. Go back.

If you want edifying book recommendations. I'm sure reform heritage books really appreciated the ad spot. That's going to air right in the middle of the grievances.

Because there's no person I've heard complain less in life than Joe Biki. That guy is positive about everything. I mean, that seriously.

So, all right. Life and books and everything. Give us a book.

I did a year in list. We've talked about books before. But before we wrap this up, Colin Justin, what's a great book from 2024? Don't have to be published in 2024, or you are excited to read in 2025.

Give us your book, Colin. I'm going to stay on brand with this one. Jonathan Heights, the anxious generation.

Rarely will you find a book that is that influential for your family, but also politics that not only just state level politics, bands on smartphones and schools, Virginia, Arkansas, places like that. But also at the federal level, the current age restrictions on social media. That is deeply scholarly.

I mean, height will go toe to toe with anybody on his research, but also popular. Anybody in your church could read it and implement it there. So, Jonathan, height, the anxious generation.

Published to John. H-A-I-D-T. H-A-I-D-T.

There's my book. Well done. Justin? I'm going to cheat, and I'll go quickly.

I mentioned two books devotionally that we're really, I haven't read them all the way through successively, but Kevin Deung's Daily Doctrine, and Christopher Ash's Four Volumes Psalm commentary. Just the two sort of books that you could have on your nightstand. You don't need to read them successively all the way through, but any place you dip, you're going to get out of light.

You're going to get instructed. So, just really happy at Crossway. We were able to publish both of those.

And the two books that have recently received Obie Tyler Todd's The Beatchers, America's Most Influential Family. Hoping to have him on for 2025, L.B. Great. Yep.

So, Mark Knoll wrote the forward for it. It looks like just, you know, he, there are not a lot of pastor historians. Kevin's one.

And Obie is another one who's doing just really good research and good writing. And so, looking forward to reading that book. And then also got Walter Strickland Road to two volume with IBP Swing Low, A History of Black Christianity in the United States is one volume, and then a bigger volume, companion volume, and anthology of Black Christianity in the United States.

And so, that's an area where I certainly could do a lot more work in terms of my own knowledge of the importance of African Americans and American Christianity. And so, look forward to learning from those books. Probably not the type that I'll read all the way through, but again, dipping in and being edified, being instructed.

So, I think I cheated, and those are four books, too. I'm reading, too, I haven't yet read. I'll be real quick also.

One book I reread this year in teaching a Sunday school lecture on John Calvin are the letters of John Calvin. Banner of Truth did a new edition of it, which a few years ago. And I was holding up the book in class.

I said, this is one of my favorite books of all, and then I looked on the back. Oh, I had done a blurb. That's it.

This is one of the favorite books. I just, I love it. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Yes. As a pastor, a tour de force, warmly recommended. So, that book, you can look at letters of John Calvin.

And then the books that I mentioned in my top ten list, but I put in the honorable mentions just because they weren't published in 2024. So, one, just to go back to Samuel James, Digital Liturgies. It's really helpful.

We had, I signed it my pass from ministry class, and people had to write a reflection paper and so many students were saying, I wasn't sure what to think. And I thought maybe just tell me to not use my phone as much. But they really had their eyes opened.

I've had my kids read it, or at least read parts of it. Second, so we read that as a church staff. We also read it as a church staff this year.

Our first fiction book that we've ever read as a church staff. We read till we have faces, which I had read years ago, C.S. Lewis. Some say his greatest work of fiction, it really is worth reading.

And I got much more out of it 20 years later reading it slowly with other Christians to talk about. Really good and just amazed again. I mean, there's a reason people read Lewis.

He has interesting things to say, and he was an amazing writer. And then the book I put that I've loved more than anything in this past year, perhaps, is shout out to Jason Halopolis, who recommended Pastoral Theology by Thomas Murphy. I was glad to learn just in the last couple of weeks that Log College Press, which is associated now with Greenville Seminary, is going to publish this.

It came out in 1877, so it hasn't been in print in a long time. You can still get this Google print on demand from Amazon. But it is as good as a pastoral ministry book as I've read.

And anytime I have a book that I'm feeling challenged, inspired, convicted, it's amazing when you write about eternal things, when you write about biblical things, how relevant. Now, it helps he's a very straightforward writer. And it's kind of Lloyd Jones, ask, I said, and that he has lots of opinions, which makes for really interesting reading.

And you can agree with three fourths of them and not with all of them. But he has this section I was just reading where he is railing on, he calls a sensational preaching. And he said, pastors are you, entitling sermons with names like spiders, limpers, the greatest liar in town.

He says, it is difficult to find language strong enough to condemn this wicked and foolish practice. If you thought that that was a little too mockish back in the 19th century, wait till you see what people do today. So it's just been very edifying for me, pastoral theology by Thomas Murphy, who was a Presbyterian pastor, north side of Philadelphia in the 19th century.

Lots more we could talk about Merry Christmas to all of our listeners, grateful for Justin and Colin for their friendship over these many years. And we've run out of time to talk about other holiday traditions and treats, but most of all hope you have a wonderful Christmas Eve service to go to, sing the familiar songs, hear the familiar story and marvel again at the miracle and the majesty that is the incarnation. So thank you friends, thank you listeners, have a great Christmas, a great new year.

Until next time, glorify God and enjoy him forever. And why don't you read a good book?