The Unwritten Rules of Sunday School | Faith, Fun & Following Jesus

What are the rules of Sunday School that everybody knows—but nobody actually wrote down?

On this episode of The Steve Marston Show, Steve debuts a brand-new Friday feature: The Unwritten Rules. First up: the 7 Unwritten Rules of Sunday School—from the person who says, “I know we’re out of time, but…” to the unexpected calling of the church’s newest Donut Ministry Director. And, of course, there’s the most sacred rule of all: that’s MY seat.

But there’s plenty of substance along with the fun.

Steve reflects on an observation from Brant Hansen about discipleship and why the good news of Jesus isn’t only about what happens after we die. Following Christ changes the way we live right here and right now—how we forgive, love our enemies, find peace and purpose, and participate in God’s Kingdom today.

Then Adam Holz from Plugged In joins Steve for the weekly look at entertainment and pop culture, including new movies, Marvel, Wolverine, family entertainment, and the questions surrounding the upcoming Chronicles of Narnia adaptation.

Plus, Steve shares updates from the Christian world, including Anne Wilson’s “My Jesus” story heading to the big screen, the latest from Ben Sasse, and a look at Awake Houston and its call for Christians to take the Great Commission seriously.

And because it’s Friday, there’s a dad joke too.

FULL TRANSCRIPTION

00:01

He's just a regular guy with a cool job that God loves for some reason. Welcome to The Steve Marston Show, a daily journey in learning how to live more like Jesus, conversations with those that God is working through, and dad jokes. It's the most unique show you'll hear today. Now, here's Steve. Okay, welcome in. The Steve Marston Show is underway. I am so thankful that you are here.

00:28

For the next hour, we're going to be talking about Jesus stuff. More importantly, and more to the point, we're going to be talking about things that are going to help you and I be more like Christ. And we're going to have some fun along the way. That's kind of the whole point of this program. And we're so grateful that those of you are listening in our radio audience are here, especially those of you in Little Rock listening on 99.5. The word ditto goes to you.

00:57

in South Central Texas listening on AM 630, the word out of San Antonio. Every single day you make us a priority to be a part of your day, 3 PM, Monday through Friday, and we are eternally grateful for that. Also want to say a big welcome to those of you that are here on your own schedule, listening on the podcast or listening through the website or listening through the YouTube page. Grateful, grateful, grateful for you being here too.

01:26

Now we're going to be trying a new segment coming up here in a little bit. In fact, in our next segment, we're going to try it out. And if you're new to the program, let me just tell you how we debut segments. What we do here on this program is we kind of do the old method of throw it against the wall and see if it'll stick. We'll debut the segment and if it works, if we get a positive feeling about it, if we think it really flowed well and went well, you'll hear it again next week.

01:55

and then the week after. However, if it doesn't go well and it just kind of flops and falls short,

02:04

Do you remember the old Men in Black movie with, what was it, Will Smith, right? You know, had the little gimmick thing and he would push the button and it would blind you and you would never remember what had just happened. It's kind of the same thing happens with our features that don't go well. They just disappear into the ether and they'll be never heard from again. It's kind of like the witness protection program. So see how it's going to turn out. We'll do that coming up here in a minute. Adam Holtz.

02:32

We'll also join us, Adamiswithpluggedin.com, which is a ministry of focus on the family. We'll be talking about all the new movies that are out, as well as some streaming TV shows and some different things that are going on. And we're just thankful that he gets to join us every week because I'm telling you, Plugged In is an amazing website and really helps you and I to be good stewards of how we spend our entertainment dollars. I mean, they don't tell us what to go to see. They just give us all the information and we can...

03:02

make a decision for ourselves. So let's get started today with someone that I just find fascinating and I just think is brilliant. His name is Brant Hanson. Brant made his bones as a radio show host. In fact, he's still on the air as a Christian music radio DJ all across the country. And he's one of those guys that looks at life and is able to

03:30

bring the gospel to it in a unique way that I just honestly am in awe of a lot of times. The things that he sees and the correlations that he makes are just off the charts. And I look at it, I think, why am I not that smart? Why couldn't I see that? Because most of the time, Brandt's opinions and his observations, again, are just phenomenal. And I...

04:00

follow his career. He's an author now and I just like I say think of the world of Brent and he was interviewed by this Wrapped Interviews. Now today's the first time I ever heard of Wrapped Interviews but he's the subject of the latest one and he posted it online and I found one of the questions to be really intriguing and then his answer to be even more so.

04:30

The question was, tell us about your toil. How are you investing your professional time right now? What's your current obsession and why should it be ours? That's some pretty deep things. That's more than a service level interview for sure. So Brandt starts talking about a manuscript that he's writing. I mentioned he's an author and he's got some amazing books that are out. And in the answer, he says this, the good news according to Jesus isn't

04:59

about going to heaven when we die, it's the availability of His kingdom. It's now open for business. We don't have to wait. It's not about checking off a list of correct beliefs. It's actually trusting Him and doing what He tells us to do. And what we find, and what do we find when we actually do the stuff Jesus said to do? Life is better. Seriously. Yes, there's a cost to being a disciple.

05:29

But do know what's more costly? Not being a disciple. His way is more restful, lighter, easier. He said so. Now, I just think that is so brilliant, and that statement is something that I took decades as a believer to finally get a hold of and grasp. And maybe on a subconscious level, one of the main reasons why I like to do this program the way we do it.

05:58

about discipleship. Because listen, as a tradition that I grew up in as a Southern Baptist, I think we focus so much on people being saved, people coming to know Christ and having eternal life. And that's the way it's presented. Now, is there anything wrong with that? Certainly not. Is it the message that the world needs? Absolutely it is. So I'm not banging on that, but what I'm saying is I think

06:27

my lifespan has been over the last, I guess I've been in church 40 years or so now, 40 maybe five years, as I've seen it progress, it's always about salvation equals heaven. And that's true. There's not a sentence that's not true about that or any kind of part of that that isn't absolutely 100 % true.

06:56

But it sells the gospel so short because Jesus didn't come just to bring us eternal life. Because I mean, just think about it. If He did, then we would all go to heaven as soon as we got saved. Wouldn't that make sense? If that was all there was for us here and now, why wouldn't He just take us on up? Because we had answered the question, what are we going to do with Jesus? We've trusted in Him.

07:25

to take our sins away, so let's go, let's go to heaven and get this eternity started, right? But that's not the entire message of the gospel. And Brandt just knocked it out of the park with that answer. And I think we so often don't make that a priority. When we're talking to people and we're sharing our faith or we're just living out our faith, it's not all about the future.

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It's about the here and now as well. And when we don't take advantage of that and we don't make it known that Jesus can offer peace and purpose and a joy and a total life satisfaction and contentment, then we sell Him and the gospel incredibly short. It's not just about what's going to happen in the sweet by and by.

08:26

it's about right here, right now. Because Jesus' message is counter-cultural. I mean, it is... you want to talk about radical? You know, that was the buzzword when I was a kid in the 80s and 90s. You know, we want to live radical for Jesus. I don't know if they still say that or not, but let me tell you, living radical for Jesus, you know what that means? That means forgiving people when they've wronged you. That means praying for people.

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who have despitefully used you. That means loving your enemies. That is completely and totally 180 degrees the opposite of what this world says. And we can't do that on our own. Jesus has to be living through us for those things to be accomplished. And He says that is available. That's the great news of the gospel. So yeah,

09:22

Let's not sell it short. Let's not just focus on everything eternity-wise, that Jesus provides salvation for us so that we can spend eternity with Him and the Father. But let's keep in mind that the here and the now is where God's kingdom is available. And not only is it available, He's inviting us to take part in it.

09:52

Welcome back, the Steve Marston Show continues. Discipleship has never been more fun.

10:00

It's great to have you here and we want to debut a new segment. Now, I mentioned this at the top of the program where the way we do that around here is we throw things against the wall and see if they stick. If they do, you'll hear it again next week. If not, it'll be like it never happened. So let's find out together, shall we, how this is going to go. Let me give you the little backstory on why we're doing this. On Fridays,

10:29

We like to have fun. We call it a fun Friday. That's not to say we don't have fun Monday through Thursday, because we try to. We try to bring a lightheartedness to following Jesus because, look, yes, times can be hard in life, and there are seasons where it's just absolutely a fist fight just to kind of get through the day. I get it. I understand that. But that's not all the time.

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most of the time following Jesus is fun and is something that is something that I think most people would love to have that don't have it in the outside world. So we try to bring that element here and then on Fridays, like I say, we try to increase it a little bit by some of the things we do. So here's what we're to do. Inspired by all kinds of people, we're coming up with this list. Now I don't want to...

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to sound like a ripoff of something of a Christian satire website like Babylon Bee as much as I love the Bee. I don't want it to sound like a David Letterman Top 10 ripoff, but I do think there's a little niche for us to be able to do something here. At least I hope so. So here's what we're going to start today. Are you ready? It's the unwritten rules list. Okay, so as a part of the church bubble, there are a lot

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of things that you better know on the front end. But they're not written down anywhere, but yet you should know it. And most everybody already does. But especially for those new people, we got to make sure that they know all about the unwritten rule. So every week, if this goes well, we'll bring unwritten rules of, and we'll fill in the blank.

12:30

See where we're going with this? Okay, so we're going to start this week with unwritten rules of Sunday school. Now don't know if your church still participates in Sunday school. Ours does. I mean, I'm a Sunday school teacher myself. So I think you're going to find a lot of yes and amens in this list of unwritten rules for Sunday school. Here we go. Let's start with number seven.

12:58

Number seven unwritten rule of Sunday school is the person who says, know we're out of time, but does not know you're out of time. In fact, that sentence means you're about to be there for probably another 15 minutes. Can I get an amen? All right. Number six, if the teacher says, we don't have time to get into that, someone will immediately get into that. Can I get an amen? Number five,

13:29

on the list of unwritten rules of Sunday school. Never ask a question you aren't prepared to have answered incorrectly with tremendous confidence. This one is 100 % true. If the teacher were to say, well, what do you think Paul meant there? Just get ready, buckle up, baby. Number four on the list of unwritten rules of Sunday school.

13:57

Every class has one person who has been studying this very issue. And it doesn't matter if the passage you're teaching on is in Leviticus, Revelation, feeding the 5,000, doesn't matter. This brother or sister is going to have some research and they're going to want to spend about 25 minutes talking about all the things that they've come up with. Number three, does anyone have any prayer requests?

14:26

If class is supposed to end at 1045, you have to be really careful as to when you bring this question up because you know there's going to be a brother or sister there who has a cousin's neighbor who is having gallbladder surgery and all of that is going to entail. So you better adjust your time accordingly. Number two on this week's unwritten rules of Sunday school.

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If you bring donuts to class, congratulations. You are now the donut ministry director. There's been no vote. There's been no committee meeting. God has simply called you through your pastry purchase. Can I get an amen somebody? I like that one too. That one's got the alliteration at the end. You can never go wrong with alliteration at the end, right? All right, and now we have made it to the number one

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unwritten rule of Sunday school. Your seat belongs to you. Now normally there aren't any assigned seats in the traditional sense at a Sunday school. However, there have been people sitting in those same chairs for decades and that is their seat and their favorite song is I shall not be moved. There you have it.

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That is the unwritten rules of Sunday School. What do we think? We like that segment? Yeah, I think it's got potential. I think it's got some legs. We'll bring it back next week. We will. Okay, real quick, let me tell you about our PDF that we've got available at our website. I don't think I talk enough about this because it really is something that can help you out. If you have opened the Bible before and just feel kind of overwhelmed and not sure,

16:22

that you're going to be able to understand it and not sure that you're going to be able to get the most out of your time in God's Word, I think this PDF can help. It's five tips for Bible study, and they're just basic strategies for you to take and put into place as you are studying the Word. And it really helps you, I think, grow in your faith because, devotional books and workbooks, they have their place, and I'm not trying to...

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bang on them, I'm not, because I have certainly done my share of both. But when you get to a point in your Christian walk where you really want to dive deep into God's Word and be able to have the confidence that you know you're handling it correctly, knowing that your dealings and your interpretations are right, this can really help you. Again, it's absolutely free. All you have to do is go to Steve Marston's show.

17:20

and there at the top of the page is free PDF. You just click on that and it's a digital download. So it comes to you immediately. You just fill out the little form and I really do think it will help you as you progress in your walk with Christ. Again, it's called Five Tips for Bible Study and you can get it right now at SteveMarshtonShow.com. Stay with us. Adam Holt from PluggedIn.com, a ministry of focus on the family, is coming up next.

17:52

We're back here on the Steve Marston Show, where faith and fun are both taken seriously. And on Fridays, we like to welcome in Adam Holtz. He is with PluggedIn.com, which is a ministry of focus on the family. And it's one of the best websites, I think, on the internet. You just go there and you can get information and reviews about everything you can think of entertainment and technology-wise, from movies to streaming shows to...

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music to video games and we're gonna be talking about a little bit of all of those with Adam. So first of all, welcome back man. It's good to have you always. Steve, always good to be on. Thanks for having me. All right, so let's get started. There's several things that are out now, some big name things, but to me the one that's the most intriguing is Heart of the Beast. It's a brand new Brad Pitt movie that comes out I guess today, or I guess it came out earlier this week, is that right?

18:48

Yeah, I mean, it came out last night. Typically, you know, they say Friday release date, but almost everything is in theaters Thursday on Thursdays these days. Yeah. Brad Pitt plays a former, former special forces guy named James. And he has had an army dog named Odin, a German shepherd who now has steel teeth. He kind of looks like Wolverine or that he should be on the X-Men or something.

19:16

And we'll actually get to Wolverine a little bit later. And they have had a hard life and they have had brushes with death and tons of violence. And Brad's character is looking forward to a much quieter, more peaceful, idyllic existence in the Alaskan wilderness. if that was actually going to happen, they wouldn't have made a movie. wouldn't you know it? The guy is...

19:45

flying to his great reward almost and has a heart attack and crashes. And then it's just a straight up survival movie with pretty much everything in Alaska that could kill you coming for these guys from wolves to bears to mooses. Oh my, you know, right. Right. And Brad and, James and his dog and their, their fight to survive. There are some surprising twists here.

20:12

What's not surprising is the level of violence that is there is exactly what you'd expect very solidly PG-13. There's a little bit of language, but I think if you like this kind of movie and if you like Brad Pitt, it's a pretty well done movie with apart from some plot twists that are a little bit unexpected is pretty much exactly what you'd expect. Obviously, this is not a movie for young kids, but I think for teens on up.

20:41

It's a pretty great adventure survival movie. It sounds really interesting. And I like to think that with Brad Pitt in it, those plot twists and the story itself is going to have some meat on the bones. And so I'm looking forward to it optimistically. I really am. It's funny that you say meat on the bones because I will say one of the winds inducing scenes, he breaks a bone and it's sticking out and he has to fix that.

21:10

So there is in fact meat on the bone, but he wants to put it back so that he can't see the meat anymore. Well, there you go. There you go. Something else that's hitting theaters again is Avengers Endgame, which of course was out several years ago and was thought to be, at least again, I have such a hard time keeping up with all the Marvel stuff. I think it was supposed to be like the end of everything and they were going to come back and make the beginning.

21:37

Anyway, it's back at theaters now because they have the next Marvel movie coming up around Christmas time. basically everything that Marvel has done since 2019, since this came out, has been a failure. mean, none of it has lived up to the Marvel movies that came out before then. So they have gone back and said, okay, how can we tie this new movie back to the last one that was very, very successful?

22:07

And we have Avengers end game and that will make way for Avengers doomsday. What's different here is apparently they're calling this Avengers end game on core. And apparently there's some new post trailer stuff that is going to tie into what's coming. So, you know, marketers hard at work, making sure that the FOMO gets the best of everybody. And we all have to go see this movie again, just so that we're up to speed.

22:36

on what's happening. Yeah, exactly. I have to be, you know, work to not have a little bit of a cynical response. But as Marvel movies go, it's a great movie. There's a lot of violence and some profanity here. As always, we commend our full review to people's attention. There aren't too many surprises with Marvel movies these days. So it's about what you would expect, I think, content wise.

23:03

It's also been seven years since it came out, which makes me feel really old. So you might want to revisit that review as well at pluggedin.com. Yeah. And here's the thing about these end credit things with the Marvel movies. It was a unique little hook twist thing to stay. But usually it was like, know, the first, you know, don't know, directed by, starring in, blah, blah, blah. Boom. Here's the scene. I waited.

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for that after the new Spider-Man, the latest one, I don't know, 20 minutes for the little credit, the little scene at the end. And it was like, this is ridiculous. They've been making you sit through literally every single credit before they show it to you. Yeah, that's exactly right. And I mean, it's straight up marketing. You know, especially with big pop culture events.

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people don't want to be left outside and they're playing to that psychological truth that you don't want to be the guy who doesn't know what the score is if you're, you know, don't have to hand in your geek card. Exactly. for the post credit scene. So, yeah. Adam Holtz is our guest here on the Steve Marston show. We're talking about movies, but they're also

24:22

Things at pluggedin.com like we mentioned earlier, they've got reviews on streaming shows and DVDs as well as books and music, but they also cover video games and there's a new Wolverine video game that's out. You mentioned it just kind of in passing just a second ago. Tell us about that. So Wolverine obviously also goes by Logan, is one of the most beloved of the X-Men. He's a guy who...

24:51

He's kind of turned into a super soldier. His mutant power is healing ability. And because of that, he was chosen for the Weapon X program and had his skeleton laced with adamantium, which is a nearly unbreakable, you know, metal. And, they gave him claws, hence the name Wolverine. And he's been a fan favorite, you know, since he arrived on the scene in, I think, 1975.

25:21

an issue, Hulk one 81, if you really need to know, this is a video game that has him paired up with a guy who came along later named mr. Sinister. So it kind of plays with the X-Men timeline a little bit. And he is at least initially, he seems to be on the team with the bad guys. But of course we know he probably won't stay there. I think the thing people need to know about this is, cool. Wolverine game.

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And families might give it a pass too. This is an M rated game and it has a lot of harsh language. And I mean, harsh language if you catch my drift. And so I think, you know, if you find little Timmy or Johnny playing their Wolverine game and all of a sudden, you know, we got S bombs falling. It's like, wait, what, what's going on here? And so

26:19

I think it's a reminder that we live in this weird world where there's a of a continuum of expectations of what you're going to get. And sometimes they'll take a character like Wolverine and all of a sudden he's doing and saying very R rated things and it shouldn't be a huge surprise. mean, obviously Deadpool versus Wolverine a couple of years ago was extraordinarily R rated. And it's gone there before, but

26:48

Again, I think sometimes we're still caught by surprise when that happens with our beloved comic book characters So that's probably the biggest thing that you want to be aware of with this one. Yeah I mean, it's just disappointing you would think something as traditional as Wolverine, know to be able to be a video game that you know Kids can't play really because of all the language. Yeah, you know, I just that just I yeah, I don't like that either

27:13

Adam is here with us from Plugged In. Now let's talk about Forgotten Island too, because I know that's something that's gotten a little bit of a buzz as well. It has. I would say in the last, I don't even know where to start, 10 to 15 years, maybe with some of the Despicable Me movies, Universal and Dreamworks have done some really great movies and have kind of taken over the crown from Pixar as the go-to people.

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for movies that have these creative premises that are really good. And it's fallen a little bit in the last 24 hours, but as of yesterday, the first 41 reviews, Forgotten Island was at 100 % on Rotten Tomatoes. I think it's down to 96 % now, but this is a movie that mainstream critics are raving about. It is about two Filipino girls who grow up together in Manila. Their names are Joe and Rasa.

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Um, and they are thick as thieves as the saying goes, although I don't actually know where that thing came from because it doesn't make any sense to me, but I digress. They are besties, best friends and every sense of that word. And, um, race and decides that she's going to go to Caltech for college. they're, know, in that graduation time, Joe is devastated, but wouldn't you know it, they find a magic talisman and they get

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sucked into another dimension, this mystical world of the forgotten island. And Joe's grandmother has often talked to her about this. It's kind of based in Filipino folklore or mythology. so Joe knows what it is, and she knows that this is a place where you lose your memories. You forget who you are, you forget who other people are, and they have such a cherished friendship that they are desperately trying to get out of

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the Forgotten Island realm before they lose track of everything. So it's creative. The friendship part of the story is terrific. If it feels like there's a big but that is about to show up, there is. That but here is that there's a lot of spirituality that's really dark here, some demonic-ish characters, a vampire character, and the spirituality is

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paired with some pretty intense and scary scenes, the kind that if you take your, you know, sensitive six-year-old, uh, might make him end up in bed with mom and dad for the next month because he's having nightmares. Wow. Wow. And so I think more so than most kids movies we've seen recently, um, we were kind of caught off guard by that. That really kind of surprised us how intense this movie is. And as a parent,

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You don't expect that. That's not what you're looking for. So as always, we commend our full review at pluggedin.com to everyone's attention to learn more. But, but this is one that even though everybody's raving about it, man, there is definitely room for some caution for young or sensitive viewers. Well, we'll take that into consideration. And speaking of pluggedin.com, you guys also have not only the reviews of all the different forms of media,

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But you also have some blogs that are up there. And one of them that I noticed the title, it's very interesting to me. It's Nervous About Netflix Narnia. Now, I talked about this the other day about how the lady has kind of reimagined C.S. Lewis's classic, I guess they're starting with Magician's Nephew, which was a prequel. they're going to have Meryl Streep is going to be the voice of Aslan and on and on and on.

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I'll just, I'll give you my thoughts on it upfront. know there's a lot of people who are, you know, winging out over it. I'm willing to wait just to see how it goes because according to the lady, and I can't think of her name right now off top of head, who's re-imagining everything. She's a big CS Lewis fan and this is kind of her tribute kind of in her own little spin to it. So I'm willing to give it a chance. What about you?

31:34

Yeah, you know, I think that that's right. I think that you can look at this a couple of different ways. I completely understand those who, who respond by saying, wait, are we, are we making a woke Chronicles of Narnia? You know, are we going to gender swap things? Are we going to be introducing, you know, contemporary sexual identity politics?

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into it. And if you take Greta Gerwig, who is the director at her word, she just likes Meryl Streep's voice and felt like it's a very weighty, heavy, heavy in a good way, you appropriate voice, you know, just like I think Liam Neeson did the last one and, you know, just this rich melodic voice. So. And here I agree with that. I think Meryl Streep is amazing. She's one of the best actors in the history of movies.

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So I mean, yes, it's a little different, it's a little odd, but again, I'm cautiously optimistic. Yeah, and it seems like she really does adore the source material and it will become a question of how big a deal is this? Like when we had Odyssey come out earlier this year, there was a huge controversy over

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you know, Helen being played by the Pito, the young Lapina, the ongoing, that's hard for me to say, forgive me. Um, you know, who's black and, and there was a big stir about it. Um, if you saw the movie, she's got about two minutes of screen time in the, you know, four or five or six hours it takes to get to the end of that movie, which frankly that betrays my response to it. It was a long thing, right? And so

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sometimes we think we know what the story is before something comes out. But we have to see how it's, how it's portrayed. But again, having said all that, I think the fact that you have a woman that is voicing the Christ character here, you know, Aslan is, is obviously symbolic for Jesus. There are going to be a lot of people who don't have any tolerance for that. So I think, I think just from a,

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a financial standpoint, you would think after 10 or 15 years of these sorts of cultural controversies about race swapping and gender swapping, somebody would ask the question, is it worth it to alienate a big part of your core audience potentially? And obviously she thinks it is. She did the Barbie movie, was, you know, pun intended, a roaring success. And we'll have to see.

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But I understand why people are upset and like you, I think we can just kind of wait and see how, how it actually plays out and whether if you didn't know it was a woman's voice, would you even notice it? Adam, that's so well said. We got to leave it right there just because of time constraints. man, check out everything at pluggedin.com. Adam will talk to you soon. Okay. All right. Sounds great. Thanks Steve.

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Thanks for being a part of today's show. It's the Steve Marston show and we are back. Faith and fun, both taken seriously here on this program. Always, every day. Let's get to some stories that you may have missed. There is an update with Ben Sasse. Now, I don't know if you know that name or not, but Ben Sasse at one time was a representative, I think from the state of Nebraska in the United States Congress.

35:24

He was also the president of the University of Florida, and he had made some national headlines about being a Christian conservative in Washington, D.C. Then, I think it was January, when he released his now famous press release about having an aggressive form of cancer. The press release started by saying, I'm going to die. And then it went on from there to explain

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what diagnosis he had gotten and how he was truly leaning on his faith to get him through it, knowing that the best is yet to come. So since that time, he has been on the rounds. You've probably seen him on talk shows as well as podcasts. He even has his own podcast, which he calls Not Dead Yet, which again, I just love the fact that he has such a sense of humor about

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impending time on earth being over. Well, he gave a statement recently about his health. Let's dive into it a little bit here. He talked about Tim Keller, and you'll remember Tim Keller was a famous pastor up in New York City, very mild-mannered, soft-spoken, but a guy who was just an amazing Bible teacher. And Ben Sasse said, I knew him relatively well, and we talked a handful of times.

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while Tim was dying, ironically of pancreatic cancer. And he said one of the weird lines Tim would use, he said, I hate this, but I would never want to go back to the prayer life I had before pancreatic cancer. Ben Sasse said, I thought that sounded pretty weird at the time, but as mine has advanced, I can't help but agree with him. Then he went on to provide another little bit update here. He said he's got good news, bad news, and next steps.

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The good news is he had a big liver surgery last week that successfully cleared out a bunch of cancer. He said that was pretty great because nine months ago, he was told he had only about four months to live and that surgery wasn't even an option. He said the bad was the tests on the tumors show that they were more advanced than they had thought, meaning always mutating tumors have developed some resistance to the tricks of their former treatment protocol.

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He said, that's a bummer, but that's life, and it was eventually expected. And he said, the next step is he's still grateful to God for all this extra time, both with his family and time to fight. So just keep him in your prayers because Ben Sasse is at such a public platform and him dying in public the way he's doing it with questions, with disappointments, with anger, with hurt.

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all of the emotions, but yet he's still pointing people to his relationship with God. That's just amazing. And here's the thing, he's going to be known more for the way he passed away than anything he ever did while he was alive. So, so thankful for his testimony and his living it out. And Lord willing, he'll be around for a little longer and be able to continue to fight the good fight. again,

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continued prayers for him. Anne Wilson. Anne Wilson is the Christian contemporary music artist who had the song My Jesus. If you're a big fan of CCM music, you'll remember how amazing that song was and how it just kind of hit out of nowhere. It was her debut single. And here's the thing. It's now being turned into a movie. Yeah. From Lionsgate and Kingdom Story Company.

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They're bringing the award-winning Ann Wilson story to the big screen inspired by her song, My Jesus. Production is scheduled to begin in October with Eliza Kate Barlow playing Ann Wilson. The film will tell the story behind Wilson's rise to fame and her and the personal circumstances that eventually led to that breakout song. According to that press release, the film will follow Wilson from her life as a teenager through the tragedy that

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changed the direction of her life and eventually led her to share her voice with the world. The song that made Wilson the first female solo artist since Christian Airplay launched in 2003 to reach number one with a debut single. And then here's from the press release, Anne's story is the ultimate wish fulfillment story. A regular girl finds a once in a lifetime opportunity to share her gift with the world, but what sets her story apart

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is that her true gift is a testament to the power of faith, family, friendship, and devotion that came from Aaron Westerman, the president of Lion's Gate Motion Picture Group. Westerman also said, her journey isn't just evocative and emotional, it's always showing how trusting in that her faith changed her life in every single way. So yeah, look for that coming up. Again, they're just in pre-production with it right now.

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So no release date for that movie, My Jesus, has been announced yet. But how cool is that? mean, Anne Wilson was literally like 18 years old when she started writing that song, and then it became a huge hit on radio when she was 21. Can you imagine? And one more, this is an event we talked about a lot several weeks ago, and that was Awake Houston. Chris Tomlin and Dr. Michael Yousef and...

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It went off without a hitch apparently in September 19th at the Smart Financial Center there outside of Houston in Sugarland, Texas. Tomlin performed for like an hour and Michael Youssef's keynote message was, will we wake up in time? Will we get serious about the Great Commission? Will we boldly and fearlessly take the gospel to our non-Christian neighbors? Will we finally become obedient to the Word of God?

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and the gospel of Jesus Christ and go across the street and across the world was some of the questions Yusef asked the crowd. He said this is not a time for retreat, it's not a time for capitulation, this is a time, not a time for hiding in the church pews, this is not a time for crawling into our Christian ghettos, this is not a time to be silent, this is a time to prove our love for the one who gave everything for love's sake.

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Again from dr. Michael Youssef, and then he concluded by saying a revival has to happen within the Christian believers Christian believers cannot experience a revival unless they repent and stop rationalizing or Baptizing sin into the church. It's good stuff there and again We hope that kind of fans of flames and sparks some revival and maybe some more of these type meetings around the

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the country because Dr. Yusef is totally right in that it's going to take us as the body of Christ repenting and turning from our ways back to Him to see revival happen.

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Here at the Steve Marston Show, we're serious about faith, but we love a good dad joke too. Today's dad joke comes to us from the home office in McRae, Arkansas. Why did the coffee file a police report? Why did the coffee file a police report? Because it got mugged.

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Welcome back to Steve Marston Show rolling on.

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Again, can't thank you enough for letting us be a part of your routine. And we've talked about this a lot, but I think it bears repeating. When we hit 250 subscribers on our YouTube channel, we're going to celebrate by giving someone a John MacArthur study Bible in genuine leather, kind of its calfskin is what it is. And it is just a beautiful volume. It's, of course, the full Bible and it has John MacArthur study notes in it from Genesis through Revelation.

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just a beautiful, beautiful piece and we would love to get it into your hands. And like I say, we're to do so once we hit 250 subscribers. And I know that on the surface that sounds just so small, but we're growing. We're starting over and we're getting to the point where the show is really better than it ever has been. And we're appreciative that you're here on the ground floor and we want to celebrate the little milestones. So if you haven't already, subscribe at YouTube.

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youtube.com slash Steve Marston show take you right there. Faith Between Your Ears is the Bible verse that we have been working on all week. We start on a Monday with the verse and then every day through the week we try to get it in between our ears because I'm just convinced that this is how we learn God's Word and not only learning God's Word but how we are able to grow in our faith.

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I don't think that there's any other way that will help us go a layer two, three deeper in our walk with Jesus than knowing His word. I mean, when you just think about what Jesus did to fight off Satan in the wilderness, He quoted scripture. Could have done a million things, but He quoted scripture, leaving us an example to follow. So our verse this week has been Isaiah 53 verse 5, and I'm going to try to do it from memory myself.

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pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities, the chastisement that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed." Yeah, we did pretty good. I got it. So what about you? How have you done with it? It's okay if you haven't got it completely memorized, but keep working. Don't stop. Because listen, you're never too old to memorize God's Word. You can do it.

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Don't let those voices in your head tell you otherwise. All it takes is just you making up your mind that you want to learn God's Word. And it's something that we can do together. And we'll have another of Faith Between Your Ears verse coming up on Monday here on the Steve Marston Show. And as we get ready to close, we always like to leave you with a little bit of a call to action. Your next step. Well...

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I think your next step ought to be when it comes to the remake of the Chronicles of Narnia, the Magician's Nephew with Meryl Streep being Aslan. Give it a chance. Don't go into it with a negative attitude. Don't think it's some kind of woke communist thing that's being forced upon us. Now, it may very well be that, but don't go into it with that attitude. OK, there you go. Back Monday on the radio at three o'clock, I'll be hanging out.

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at SteveMarsdenShow.com. then, adios.

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Faith in the Real World

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Your Story Matters: The Power of a Christian Testimony