Christianity Is Naturally Antifragile

00:00

Christianity Is Naturally Antifragile

October 8, 2023

Being a Christian means being antifragile. God has built antifragility into his word, church, and people. We have a sure and steady anchor for the hope we cling to by faith.

Key Texts:

* Hebrews 6:16-20

* Ephesian 2:20

* 2 Timothy 2:19

* Psalm 18:2

* Malachi 3:6

Will's Art: ⁠⁠⁠Reflectedworks.com⁠⁠ USE PROMO CODE: FORTHEKING AT CHECKOUT FOR 10% OFF

To see what I'm reading click ⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠ To keep up with my blog click ⁠here⁠

Social Media:⁠⁠⁠⁠

For Gab page click ⁠⁠here⁠⁠

For Twitter click ⁠⁠here⁠⁠

To stack SATS at Fountain.fm page click ⁠⁠here⁠⁠

For YouTube click ⁠⁠here⁠⁠

Support:

To Donate Crypto click ⁠⁠here⁠⁠

For some Kingly Clothing click ⁠⁠here⁠⁠

Contact:

Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠fortheking.substack.com

ChristianPodcastCommunity.org page click here

Email: forthekingpodcast@gmail.com

Transcript

Hello, For The King listeners. I am not your host, Rocky Ramsey. My name is Will Drzimsky, a brother in Christ and friend of Raku's, whom he has generously invited onto the show in order to verbally showcase my artwork to you in 50 seconds.

As an artist, I strive to accurately reflect the glory of God and everything that I paint, and through that process I hope to flood as much of the earth as possible with paintings which accurately proclaim the undeniable fact that Jesus is Lord and the creation which he made commands us to worship him. So if you would like to join with me in distributing clean, refreshing artwork showcasing the creativity of the God who made us, I would be overjoyed to have your help. I run my own website called Reflected Works, where I showcase the artwork I've done in the past, sell original paintings and prints, and take requests for unique commissions.

Once again, that's ReflectedWorks.com, all one word, and I'm looking forward to helping you further the kingdom of God right now here on this earth by putting some of your free wall space to productive use. Thank you very much for your kind attention, and now enjoy the show. I apologize for this God of the Bible.

Hello, friends. Welcome to the For the King podcast. I am your host, Rocky Ramsey, and I am joined with Bryce as always on these Sunday series episodes.

Bryce, how you doing? Doing all right? Good. I am doing good. How about you? Good.

Yeah, I'm doing well. Big update on my life for all of you listening. I am now a proud father.

No. Yeah, you got to respond. And by now being a father, you've been a father for nine months.

I've been a father for nine months, and now my daughter is outside of the womb where I get to hold her. But yeah, I've been a dad for, you know, yeah, you're right. So yeah, that's been a huge update in my life.

So that's why I haven't been as faithful to upload as I should. It's been a second podcast. So yeah, rejoice with me.

I'm now diving into fatherhood and what that means. So I'm super excited. And she is extremely cute.

I love my daughter. She's awesome. But everything went well with my wife.

So super thankful for that. Okay, so Bryce, what are we talking about today? So we're going to be looking at the idea of fragility. So this podcast is going to talk mainly about how Christianity is a naturally anti-fragile religion.

And we're going to dive into a little bit of what makes Christianity anti-fragile. What makes it lasting and enduring? What's some unique things that God has built into the way he's told us to worship him as his people here? On earth. So our text that's going to establish the anti-fragility of Christianity is Hebrew 6 16 through 20.

So let's hear the word of the Lord. So why that text specifically, we see a few things about the character of God. He does not swear by anybody higher than himself because God is the creator.

He is where the buck stops in terms of authority. So God swears on himself and God does not lie. And he can't lie.

He cannot change. And because of that, because of that, this hope that he has set before us, the promises he's given us of salvation and to win glory for himself on earth by winning the nations to himself, we have a sure and steady anchor of the soul. And Christ himself is the one that's running before us that we're running after to be like Christ.

And this is this is the crux why Christianity is anti-fragile. We're going to unpack that a little bit more in some of the implications of Christianity. Bryce, do you have any initial thoughts on that text before we get going? Yeah.

And another fundamental presupposition going into this is we also believe in the God who speaks. So we don't even we don't even live in a world that is that succumbs to the whims of creation. The world is always under the law and the word of God.

Yeah. Well, that makes the religion of Christianity, which is the establishment of the true word of God naturally, again, anti-fragile. So all other religions of necessity are fragile because they already have built their religions upon sinking sand, which is fundamentally a law.

Exactly. But as we've seen in this text, God swears upon himself and even establishing the new covenant promises, promises of redemption. So Christianity, therefore, is the only religion that is of necessity and type of adra.

That's good. Yeah. So it all hinges on God's word and his truth and the promises he gives us.

We can trust those and he's accomplished them in real time here on earth through his son. OK, so thanks for that, Bryce. So let's define some terms real quick.

What does it need to be fragile? Let's unpack that term a little bit. Easily broken, damaged, destroyed, delicate, flimsy, not lasting. Withers away easily.

I mean, these are all different words that captures what it means when something's fragile. OK, and there's there's not a lot of things that you want to build your life on that are fragile. Nobody would nobody would want to say, oh, yeah, my religion is fragile.

You know, no, no Muslim, no Jew, no atheist is going to say, ah, you know, atheism shaky. I'm not sure. No, everybody wants to everybody wants to think that they're solid.

You know, everybody, everybody wants to be anti fragile. So what does it mean to be anti fragile? You know, the antithesis of being being fragile. So difficult to break, difficult to damage, difficult to destroy, resilient, firm.

Rolls with the punches can't be knocked down or if if knocked down, gets back up and is not wounded. You know, these are all pictures of what it means to be anti fragile. So why is Christianity that rather than being fragile, easily broken, damaged and destroyed? Why is Christianity anti fragile, difficult to break, damaged and destroyed? Before we get into some of the specific principles I want to draw out of what God has revealed in his word about how we worship him.

I just think it is spectacular when we look at the like church history, right? How anti fragile God's people have been even when we're persecuted. That is when we thrive. That is when we blow up and expand and increase because God blesses those seeds that are planted through a martyr's blood.

Right. So that we see the early church, everybody trying as hard as they can to snuff out Christianity and it's anti. It's an anti fragile religion.

So it cannot be snuffed out because it speaks of true things about the world, kind of what you were getting at earlier, Bryce. So when we look at church history, I think it's a great testament of the anti fragility. That's more of just an observation, not exactly an argument, but to some extent it is.

God is preserved as people throughout history, even in the midst of persecution. So many ideas of religions have came and gone. Christianity remains steadfast.

Yeah. I mean, that's just basic common sense. Like even, you know, I got a philosophy degree and constantly you would hear people spouting off the most ridiculous things.

Like, for example, I had this one man who told me that he doesn't believe that he doesn't believe things exist that he cannot see. So we're, you know, I was talking to him in a warehouse and he was telling me that only what he perceives is that. And I said, so you don't think that anything's behind you is real? He said, no.

So I told him to turn around and he turned around and I smacked him in the back of the head. And I said, was that real? So it's the simplest common sense that really, that really shuts people up. And I think it's a great testimony of God's faithfulness that he has preserved his church as what is real as the reality.

You see religions come and go, you know, you see the church of Scientology, it blows up and then, you know, you hear all these abuse stories and then you hear all the wickedness of the governing authorities and then you hear of its destruction. You see this with every single major religious group. And be sure you do see this of false Christian groups.

Don't hear it's wrong. That is one of the great testimonies of the Christian religion is that God has established its reality and its truth. You know, the first opposes of the church, Jesus says to the Pharisees that they have stumbled over the rock of offense and what happens to them, they get shattered.

Jesus, the cornerstone, the anti-fragile cornerstone shatters the fragile pharisaical system. Exactly. Yeah.

Amen. Yeah. Who still worships Baal? You know, who worships any of the Greek gods? You know, they're like these religions come and go because they're based on man's wisdom, which is fleeting.

That's good, Bryce. So let's start getting into I got four principles here I want to unpack. This will be a shorter episode.

So we'll just walk through in a timely manner here. So first point, why is Christianity anti-fragile? Because it is a mystery revealed of the immutable God. It's kind of like what we were reading in Hebrew six that God doesn't swear anything but himself because he's the one rock and short foundation that never changes.

And he does not lie. He doesn't change a couple other texts. Bryce, you have brought up how Christ is the short foundation.

He is the cornerstone that the church is being built up with you that Ephesians two twenty. We can look in the board up here. Second Timothy two nineteen.

God's firm foundation stands bearing the seal. The Lord knows who are his and let everyone who names the names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity. So God is you know, God is anti-fragile because he's the sure and say foundation.

He's the firm foundation that stands. But then because he names his that are his own his elect, we are also anti-fragile as his people. So that is why Christianity is anti-fragile because we have an anti-fragile God.

Psalm eighteen two. Bryce, feel free to hop in. I'm just going to go through these texts real quick.

The Lord is in that psalm, he is our rock, our fortress, our deliverer in Psalm eighteen two. I mean, that's echoed throughout the rest of the Psalms. But God is a rock and a refuge for us.

Again, that idea of a rock is very hard to break a rock. Pretty much impossible for a human apart from having some tools. If you just have your bare knuckles, you're not doing that.

You need something greater than the rock. And so what's being to know there is how immutable God is. And he's our fortress.

And then now I got three six is the classic text for God not changing. So Christianity is a mystery revealed about the immutable God. And because he cares about his own, which are his people that he's one for himself in the new covenant through Christ.

Now we are by virtue of him being immutable. We are also sure, persevere to the end. And something that we're going to keep seeing over and over as Rocky goes through these points is we have a derived anti-fragility.

The reason we're anti-fragile, like Rocky's saying, is because of the mystery revealed and the God who is anti-fragile himself. So when it says one of the qualifications for a deacon is that they hold the mystery of the faith. Yeah.

Well, if they if they become apostate, they lose that anti-fragility and they will become fragile. So the church, we have seen fragility within the church, particularly in the American church. And the question we have to ask is why it's because of apostasy apostasy is losing the footing that you have.

It's having your feet firmly planted in midair. Yeah. Affirm you planted on God's word.

Then you receive the derived anti-fragility from God. Exactly. That should be the main goal of the church is to be standing upon that authority.

And we should therefore trust that when we stand on the anti-fragile God who says homosexuality is sinful, who says that there are distinctions between men and women and that this affects the way they live out their lives. Yeah. When it says that men are mankind is full of sin and madness and they need Christ in order to be saved.

When you stand upon that foundation, even though the world hates it, you can be sure that you're standing on, you're in the ark. You're not going to be swept away by the flood. So it's always derived.

Yeah. I mean, that common quip of when apostasy does happen is you've stumbled. You're not very anti-fragile if you're on the ground in a weak position, you can't defend yourself.

So don't stumble, Christian. Press on and God will persevere you by faith. Second point here, why is Christianity anti-fragile? Because it's based on metaphysical truths, immutable, unchangeable truths.

And again, these come from the mind of God. So metaphysical things are not subject to change like physical things are. The laws of physics describe change.

Those don't apply here. Christianity is based on metaphysical laws of the way we are to worship God. Okay.

And then metaphysical truths are always true no matter where you were at. So the Christian can go into any society in any context among any people group, any ethnicity, and have the same truth that stand upon the same rock no matter where you're at on the face of the planet. Okay.

Because metaphysical truths are true no matter where you go. Oh, I'm talking to an Eastern mystic Buddhist, right? Destroy his philosophy, destroy his view of the world and stand upon the rock of Christ. Destroy the strongholds that come up against the knowledge of God.

Okay. Just because you have a different philosophical system you're working in doesn't mean their system is correct. You undermine it and destroy it presuppositional.

So these metaphysical truths are true anywhere, anywhere at all times. And that's what makes Christianity anti-fragile because it dominates wherever it's at because it's the only religion that makes sense of the world. Because we actually have the truth from the true God who made the world.

That's why it makes sense of the world. That always does. You can categorize everything in the world through all the truth that God has delivered to you saying, in his word.

Right. So we shouldn't like shrivel back when we have people opposing our worldview. Why? Because ours matches up with the reality.

Yeah, exactly. Right. Like it is very interesting that the secular worldview that says that you're able to just perform whatever sexual action you want.

Yeah, it's really funny when a homosexual pops up with AIDS. Yeah. You know, it is not conducive for the world that we live in.

Exactly. In the created order and you'll do well. Exactly.

With God's rule. Yeah. I mean, there's there's hints all over creation.

If the worldview you're propagating, if you end up with AIDS and you die, it's probably because you're, you know, you're doing something that, you know, is not in line with God's creation like you're saying, right? So there's hints embedded in creation. It won't lead you to Christ, you know, in a sense it will. It'll point you where you need a Savior, but you need to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ just because you have these hints for you.

And creation, that's not enough to save you. OK, third point here, why Christian, why is Christianity anti fragile? Because it is decentralized and not reliant on one man or one institution. So what makes institutions fragile is they rely on one man, right? So that's why our founding fathers, there's a president.

Yeah, he's the head of the executive branch, but they they decentralized the heck out of the government, which is why the federal government is this massive beast that has its tangles and webs over everything because the founding fathers knew if you if you successfully decentralized an institution. It is it is it is extremely difficult to undo it. That's why the world wide web is such a force for good and evil.

It's a it's a force to be reckoned with. There's so much information on the web, the government can't control it. So there's good stuff where all of these conspiracy theories are coming to light because the world wide web enables that because it's this huge mass of information.

But then you also get, you know, mass amounts of pornography and things like that. Right. So the church doesn't have any any issues like that in terms of its decentralized structure.

God has given us through the local church, through the plurality of elders and all the congregants that each in in the congregation have heads of the families that do the decentralized head of the father. All the kids have their responsibility to honor their mother, the father, the wife, the husband, the husband cares and loves for the wife and teaches the kids. You have all these different duties and responsibilities in this decentralized model of what the church is with the families with the state.

It's pretty beautiful. And that's what makes Christianity so stinking hard to once it gets in your society like China is going through this right now. Once it's there, you cannot stop it.

It's like a virus. You cannot stop the church, especially an underground church. It's going to be very, very difficult to snuff that out.

You literally can't do it. So there's no one pastor that the church lives to for leadership. Papa, no Pope.

That's what's wrong with the Pope. Right. They all look to the Pope for his ex-cathedra of rulings on the word of God.

And that's why the Catholic Church is not going to last, folks. It will not last because it relies too much on one man and especially his interpretation on scripture and the way he leads the institution. And there is no one institution itself.

The church is this metaphysical reality, the church, capital C church, but there's all these lower lower case C churches all throughout the earth that make Christianity so hard to deal with for a civil government that's gone tyrannical. So the community of the faith of the saints is amazing. It's absolutely stunning to look at how it works, how God, he just lets it go.

And then through his spirit, he enables his people to do everything they need to do in that system. So it's really spectacular to see. Any thoughts there, Bryce? Yeah, I mean, no, I just think that's absolutely killer.

And that's why Jesus says the gates of hell will not pervade against the church. Yep. And that's why if you're a Christian that doesn't go to church, I mean, you're dying.

That's where you're safe. It's the pillar and buttress of truth. You need to go and be with your brothers and sisters.

Okay, last point here as we wrap up, the fourth point that I thought of. There's more we could do, but I just wanted a brief survey of the anti-fragility of Christianity. So why is it anti-fragile? Because of God's purpose.

His purpose is unchangeable. So back to Hebrews 6, 16 through 20. That promise and that hope that he gave, that oath, because God, it's impossible for him to lie, which means that he's going to confirm the oath, the promise that he made to his people.

It's going to happen. So because God's purpose is unchangeable and immutable, he will win the nations to himself. He will come to saints to do that.

It cannot be altered. It's as good as done. So if God says something, it's like I said, it's as good as done.

So trust in his promises as a Christian. That is some of your greatest consolation and comfort is God's promises and the things that he affirmatively says in his word that he will do. And that's also what makes Christianity anti-fragile because we believe and trust in those and we know God cannot change.

And again, it gets back to that whole cycle we're talking about. Our anti-fragility is a derivative one. We lean on the promises of God.

His sure and steady anchor is what makes us anti-fragile. Okay, any last thoughts, Bryce? I mean, other than we just have a bright future ahead of us. We do.

We do. There's definitely a lot of bumps, you know. The only testing of something that's anti-fragile is it being rubbed up against something else.

Good point. You shouldn't be surprised when things try to prove the church to be fragile. But we need to be facing these things head on, being strong and courageous, trusting upon the strong arm of God.

And being able to say to Baal, there are the people who worship Baal, is your God just taking a leak? Is he sleeping? That's the sort of attitude that we should have. One of conquest and colonization rather than fragility and just a feminine Christianity. Amen.

All right. Well, thanks for listening, guys, and for bearing with us. We hope that was encouraging and helpful and remind you of how great of a God we serve.

And what he's given us, what he's equipped us with as a saint. So if you want to check out some more of what I'm doing, go to fortheking.substack.com. I moved my blog over to there. So if you want to keep up with what I'm writing, go there to that sub-stack.

And that's also going to be my landing page for the podcast. That's where I'm going to house all my information. I'm going to get rid of my WordPress website.

So I'm going to sunset that soon. So don't expect that to be going much longer. And also update on the podcast.

I did join the Christian podcast community headed up by Andrew Rappaport. So go to christianpodcastcommunity.org and you can see my podcast on there now. There's some other good podcasts there if you're looking for more stuff to listen to.

So thanks, Andrew, for getting me on there and excited to be a part of the community. I think that's all I got for you guys. The King of the Age is a moral and visible, the only God, the honor and glory forever and ever.

Amen. Solely, Deo, glory.