In today’s episode of Family Talk, Pastor Paul Blair brings a compelling message about cultural engagement and faithfulness. Dive into his fascinating journey from the fields of the NFL to the sacred halls of ministry, where he challenges Christians to live out their faith boldly and consistently in every aspect of life. Pastor Blair reveals how the early church’s understanding of faith as shown in the Hebraic mindset remains relevant for believers today, encouraging us to see life as a single, undivided commitment to God.
Welcome everyone to Family Talk. It’s a ministry of the James Dobson Family Institute supported by listeners just like you. I’m Dr. James Dobson and I’m thrilled that you’ve joined us.
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Well, hello and welcome to Family Talk. I’m Roger Marsh, delighted to be with you today. You know, in these challenging times, Christians face a profound calling to be salt and light in our culture. But this raises an essential question that many of us struggle with. How do we effectively stand for biblical truth in today’s rapidly changing world? Well, our guest today here on Family Talk has walked an extraordinary and unique path to answer this question. From the roaring crowds and intense competition of the NFL gridiron with the Chicago Bears to the sacred calling of shepherding his congregation at Fairview Baptist Church in Oklahoma, his journey is nothing short of remarkable. He is Pastor Paul Blair, and he now leads Reclaiming America for Christ and is the visionary founder of the Liberty Pastors Network. His powerful message today here on Family Talk brings fresh biblical insights on how to stand firm in our faith while engaging our culture with both truth and grace. Before we dive into Pastor Blair’s compelling message, I have some exciting news to share with you. This message, of course, is part of our 2024 Best of Broadcast Collection, a six-CD set or digital download that features all of the most popular programs that we’ve aired here on the radio in 2024. Now, this December presents an extraordinary opportunity for you to double your impact. Through a special matching grant, every gift to Family Talk between now and December 31st will be matched dollar for dollar. But as Christmas is drawing closer, you know the days are drawing shorter as well, so your generosity will have twice the power to help families thrive and to strengthen the biblical foundations for our society for just a few days more. To double the impact of your year-end giving and to receive your copy of the six-CD collection called the 2024 Best of Broadcast Collection, go to drjamesdobson.org and give a gift through our secure website. That’s drjamesdobson.org. Or call us at 877-732-6825. And now let’s dive into this powerful message from Pastor Paul Blair, a message on cultural engagement and biblical faithfulness recorded right here in beautiful Colorado Springs.
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Well, good morning, everyone. It is a honor to be here. Dr. Dobson, Shirley, thank you so much for the invitation. If I can get the slides up here, I’ll introduce you to myself. Now, for those of you, a little football trivia, how many of you recognize the guy that’s in the picture there with me? How many of you knew that Jimmy Johnson began his head coaching career at Oklahoma State University back in 1979? So J.J. is actually who recruited me to play college football. And, of course, he went on to, rumor has it, had a little bit of success at the University of Miami Hurricane. And then, I don’t know, some team called the Dallas Cowboys. I don’t know. I try to keep up with them. But then I was drafted by the Chicago Bears, the defending world champion Chicago Bears, and had the privilege, as Bob said, of playing with some Hall of Famers and some legends, you know, Dick Butkus would travel with us in our games because he was working for WGN. Gail Sayers would come by just to say hi to the guys and be around Hallis Hall. So that was really a privilege to be a part of that family. And then at the age of 37, I was called into ministry. And understand, my father was a bivocational pastor, so I loved pastors. I walked an aisle and trusted Christ when I was six years old. I loved pastors, but having been a pastor’s son, I saw what the work entailed. and I never wanted to be a pastor. As a matter of fact, most days now, I still don’t want to be a pastor. That explains why I’m so bold in the pulpit. I’ve been trying to get fired for 23 years, but they refused to do so. But I’m a retired NFL football player. I had my own business in Oklahoma City, and I was serving as a volunteer youth pastor in our youth ministry in our church at the time when God called me clearly. And at the age of 37, my wife and I Well, my wife gave me great counsel because, you know, I didn’t want to be a pastor. She didn’t want to be a pastor’s wife. So we agreed on that deal. But she said, if God is calling, that’s where we need to be because the safest place to be is in God’s will. And of course, having my background, I’ve had an unusual opportunity to be around the country and participate in a number of different events, even got to teach about biblical economics that the pilgrims brought with them to the new world and biblical civil government on Glenn Beck’s show with his chalkboard. And those of you that know him know he is very selfishly greedy over his chalkboard So I count that a privilege, as Bob said, detoured with throat cancer back in 2019. And that was not a pleasant journey, as many of you know, but I am now considered a cancer survivor. And a good friend of mine came to work on our staff there five years ago. And we worked together with Liberty Church of Edmond and now a satellite branch in Liberty, Orlando. But Bob mentioned, I’ve got some good news. It tracks right what you’ve been hearing the last couple of days, but we are trying to respond to it. as we have done. In fact, next week in Hershey, Pennsylvania, a week from today, we begin our last Liberty Pastors training camp of the year. We bring 100 pastors at a time together with their wives into a luxury hotel, and we hold them hostage there for three days. We want them to have great fellowship, get to meet one another and love each other, and have a second honeymoon. Because, you know, most pastors only pastor churches that run around 75 to 100 people. So most of them can’t afford to come to a place like the Broadmoor or something like that. So we reward them. We want to be a blessing to them. But in return, they give us 20 hours of their time for continuing education. And we teach them to think biblically in areas of their life that seminary taught them not to think biblically. So we begin our camps with this question. And I’ll start my remarks this Sunday morning with you with the same question. What part of your life is Jesus, not the Lord over? The answer is obvious, ladies and gentlemen. He’s supposed to be the Lord of all of our lives. Therefore, there should be nothing off limits in our preaching and disciple-making at church. Jesus is not just the Lord of Sunday morning. Jesus is the Lord of our families as Dr. Dobson and Shirley know. He’s the Lord of education. He’s the Lord of our work habits. He’s the Lord of our work ethics, all of you business owners. He’s the Lord of our sex lives. He’s the Lord of how we handle money in the realm of economics. He is the Lord of our politics. Jesus is Lord of all. So why is it that we compartmentalize our lives? Why do we believe that there are subjects that can’t be talked about in church? Well, I’m going to explain that to you this morning. And let me just say this, your pastor has been trained to think this way. This concept is a lie straight from the pit of hell that the church has bought hook, line, and sinker. Now, let me explain. There’s no question that early on the church at Pentecost was 100% Jewish. They had a Jewish worldview with a great knowledge of the Old Testament. As a matter of fact, ironically, Andy Stanley, the only Bible that the New Testament church had for about two decades was what we call the Old Testament. The Old Testament is the Bible that Jesus would have used to teach the disciples and those on the road to Emmaus how it all spoke about him. That’s the Bible that the Apostle Paul would have been debating over in Jewish synagogues throughout Asia and Europe. The Tanakh was the only Bible for the New Testament church for about two decades. As a matter of fact, the question of the early church was not about baptism or the work of the Holy Spirit. The question among the early church was about circumcision. Christianity was treated as just another sect of Judaism by the Romans. At the time of Jesus, there were 24 sects, S-E-C-T-S, or I would say denominations among Judaism. You’re familiar with many of them. There were the Pharisees, there were the Sadducees, there were the Essenes, there were the Herodians, and now you had this new group called the Nazarenes. all gathering together under the umbrella of the temple in Jerusalem. Christianity was Jewish to its very core. In fact, the question was not whether a Jew could become a Christian. It was whether a Gentile could become a Christian. But as the church grew into Asia and Europe, And after the destruction of Jerusalem, let me tell you, as the church grew exponentially through across Asia, after the destruction of the temple at Jerusalem, after the Hebrew apostles died off with John being the last living apostle, the Greek line of thought affected the thinking of the church. In fact, much of the New Testament addresses the error of Gnosticism as the apostles warned against this heresy in their many epistles. Now understand what this Greek line of thought was. The Greeks viewed the world in two compartments or two spheres. There was the spiritual world and there was the material world. the spiritual was good and could be redeemed, but the material world was inherently irredeemably wicked. Well, this led to the logical conclusion, but heresy in the early church that Christ could not have actually come in the flesh. How could he, which is holy, become a part of this irredeemable, unholy material world? So they had a number of theories. Some theorized that Jesus was actually A phantom spirit wasn’t really there. If he was walking along a seashore, he wouldn’t leave prints in the sand because he was just this phantom spirit. Others theorized that the spirit of the Messiah came upon this man, Jesus of Nazareth, at his baptism by John the Baptist in the Jordan River, and then departed the body of this man, Jesus of Nazareth. as he hung on the cross. But either way, they came to the conclusion that the word had not become flesh and given his life as a substitutionary sacrifice for us, that his blood had not been poured out for our atonement, that the resurrection did not, he wasn’t actually raised from the dead, declaring our justification. So this obviously, this Gnostic thought was heresy theologically. But it was also ungodly in practice. In fact, they were pushing the concept that you can sin all you want to in your body as long as your spirit was pure. That’s what John was addressing in 1 John and addressing that error head on. But again, this led to the concardinalization between the spiritual world and the material world. And we have adopted the same mindset in modern day America as we have compartmentalized Christianity. Much like a picnic plate. We keep our Christianity, if I could have the next slide, please. We keep our Christianity in its proper place, but we don’t dare let Christianity spill over and influence any other sphere of our lives. That obviously is our secular life and the spiritual realm doesn’t belong there. Christianity has become something that we do on Sunday morning, but we don’t let our church thing interfere with real life in the material world. We have our spiritual life where we place all of our sacred things that we can talk about in church. By the way, this box is getting smaller and smaller and smaller. Then we have reality, which is our physical life, which is reserved for secular thinking. And we can’t talk about those things in church. But the Hebraic mindset, ladies and gentlemen, was they understood that God created the material world and the spiritual world. Therefore, Rabbi Apostle Paul said, whatever you do, you are to do to the glory of God. Paul again said, glorify God in your body, i.e. the material world, and in your spirit, the spiritual world, as they both belong to God. So salvation and subsequent lordship was understood in the Hebrew mentality. You cannot separate them. Let me give you another example. I was sitting next to a wonderful gentleman, Craig, the other night. We were talking on our opening night. And he brought up the Shema. The Shema is the John 3, 16 of Judaism. Deuteronomy 6, 4. Shema Yisrael, hear, O Israel, Adonai Eloheinu, the Lord your God, Adonai Ikad, the Lord is one. Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one. This is the passage of scripture that they put on the masseuses that they hang on the doorpost. This is the passage of scripture that’s inside the Teflon when they put their prayer boxes on their foreheads and on their hands. This is the fundamental, it’s a rededication of life twice a day. It’s a pledge of allegiance done twice a day in the morning and evening. But understand in biblical Hebrew, there are only about 7,000 words. In modern day American English, we have about 100,000 words that we use. So when you’re studying the Bible and you go back and you look in the Hebrew, and whether you speak Hebrew or not, you all have Hebrew lexicons, so you can, with a little effort, do this. But you have to understand that the words there have a broader and deeper meaning than what we might first conclude reading it from an English or from a Western mind. So it’s important that we look at the passages in context. So this word Shema, to hear, hear O Israel, literally means when you look at the lexicon, Shema means to hear. But you know what the Hebrew word for obey is? Take a guess. Shema. Shema was understood among the Hebrews to hear is to obey. You have read it in your King James Bible, he that hath an ear to hear, let him hear. No, what it’s saying is that if you have an ear to hear, then do what I’m telling you to do. So there was no controversy between James and Paul from a Jewish theological perspective. although we have wasted volumes of ink debating this conflict that didn’t really exist. They were both addressing two sides of the same coin. The apostle Paul was emphasizing the fact that it is faith alone that produces our salvation. And James is emphasizing that true faith will produce works. So the natural result of one falling to his knees to call upon the resurrected Christ as his personal savior is to recognize that he is in fact the Lord of your life. In other words, to put it simply, the confession of our faith should match the expression of our faith. We should be consistent. Now don’t misunderstand a word that I’m saying. We are not saved because of a transformed life, but a transformed life is the natural result of one being saved. In fact, I put it like this. The new birth is a prayer of faith as a heart’s confession that’s based upon the revelation that Jesus is the Lord and that results in a transformation. Just as Thomas doubted, he said, I don’t believe it. I saw his dead body. There’s no way that guy’s alive. I’ll not believe unless he stands right here and I can put my fingers in the nail prints in his hands. A week later, he shows up, says, Thomas, go ahead. Thomas, when coming face to face with the resurrected Christ, hit his knees and cried out, my Lord and my God. That is a Jesus moment. The Apostle Paul on the road to Damascus going to persecute Christians came face to face with the resurrected Christ and permanently transformed his life. That is a Jesus moment. Now, I love this page I’m going to put up here because it doesn’t come from a Christian website. This actually comes from a Jewish website. But it analyzes the difference between the Greek thinking pistis, which means faith, and the Hebraic meaning faith. Imunah, which means faith, says this, Imunah is more than belief that certain statements about God are true. It is a belief in God, trust and reliance upon God, all of which call forth behavior consistent with that trust and reliance. So our expression of faith should be consistent with our confession of faith. Now, Consider as an example, if you happen to be a member of a church that’s not active, and your pastor says, oh, we shouldn’t talk about those things. That’s part of the secular world. Consider this list of charges, and it’s rather exhaustive. I may have missed a couple, but this is pretty exhaustive. You go through all of the books of prophecy in the Old Testament, and you compiled a list of charges of the things that God was upset with Israel and Judah over. I want you to think in your mind as I go down each of these point by point very quickly about whether you would consider this a spiritual issue or a secular issue. Whether this is something your pastor would talk about in church, or if you are a pastor, is this something that you would consider talking about in church? Okay, things that God was upset with. They were dishonest in business. Is that spiritual or secular? Yeah, it is. Actually, it’s both. So that’s a trick question. They ignored the sabbatical year of release. That’s an economic issue. That’s a personhood issue. They used unjust weights and measures. By the way, When we just simply inflate the amount of dollars in the money supply, that is an example of ungodly, unjust weights and measures. And not only are they stealing from us, but we are stealing from our children and our grandchildren simply by putting digits into a computer. There’s nothing about what the Federal Reserve or our government is doing right now with this deficit spending that is in accordance with biblical principles of civil government or economics. They removed landmarks. They didn’t recognize private property rights. Ticked God off. They bribed judges. Leaders fed off of the flocks rather than caring for them. They were disrespectful to their parents and elders. They didn’t care for their family. God had designed it where we were to take care of our children when they were young, and when we were old, our children were to take care of us. They lived for revelry and drunken parties. They murdered their children. Religion became big business. They were no longer ashamed of immorality, even celebrating homosexuality, and paraded and reveled in their debauchery. Things that common sense and God said were evil, they called good. Things that experienced common sense and God called good, they called good. they called evil. They were proud and arrogant. Their court system became corrupt. The government was corrupt. They denied and abandoned God. And when Jeremiah would come to the temple and face the people of Jerusalem and say, repent, they would point to the temple and say, what are you talking about? We’re God’s people. We go to church on Sundays. Ladies and gentlemen, God is not impressed with how pretty we look on Sunday mornings. God wants to see the reality of our love for him with our obedience. Remember what Jesus said? If you love me, keep my commandments. With our obedience and following him 168 hours out of the week. That’s 24-7. Now, it’s what James was emphasizing. Go ahead and talk about your faith here. Let me show you my faith. Now, here’s where our pastors have that come to Jesus moment. The Great Commission tells us to go into all the world and make disciples. Doesn’t say make church members. Doesn’t say make professors of faith. Doesn’t say make people repeat the sinner’s prayer. But that’s not what we’ve been called to do. We’ve been called to make disciples. And what do we do? How do we make a disciple? We teach that convert to observe all things whatsoever the Lord has commanded us. Now, folks, Ephesians says, We will often misappropriate, Christians often misappropriate verses that really weren’t intended for us. We have books of devotionals where God made a promise to David and we take it because it sounds good and it’s encouraging. We’ll put it in a little something and we’ll apply it to us. Sometimes that’s good. Sometimes it’s really not a correct or exegesis of scripture. But understand that Ephesians is clearly written to the New Testament church. So everything here is directly to us. And my responsibility as a pastor is, one, I’m supposed to be an evangelist. Boy, you better believe it. In fact, I have a little booklet if any of you want it. It’s a wonderful book. We’ve had great success with this in college campuses. Just 24 pages. It’s a heavy track, heavily influenced. In fact, Frank Turek did the editing for me. Frank Turek, Josh McDowell, but it’s called Not Blind Faith, Verifiable Evidence That God Exists and Rose From the Dead. We have found this to be a real plus. Hey, we are huge on evangelism. I required my church members about a month ago to write out their testimonies. I wanted a copy of it. Reason being is I wanted them to consider whether they actually had one. And if they didn’t, then we needed to talk. But evangelism, of course, what does it profit a man if he should gain the whole world but lose his own soul?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, you know, our faith isn’t just for Sunday mornings. It’s meant to be lived out every moment of every day. It should flow naturally into every aspect of our lives, from the business decisions we make to how we raise our families, the way we engage with our communities, and how we serve others. That is the powerful message we just heard today from Pastor Paul Blair here on Family Talk as he challenged us to live authentic Christian lives in an increasingly secular world. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Well, with every single day, we receive incredible testimonies about how Family Talk is transforming lives nationwide. We hear from moms who found hope and practical guidance while dealing with troubled teens. Or couples write to us to tell us how they’ve rediscovered God’s divine plan for their marriages. Well, fathers are sharing how they’ve embraced biblical leadership in their homes after years of struggling as well. And even young parents are writing and calling us, telling us how our broadcasts have given them confidence to raise their children with godly principles. Please know that your faithful financial support makes all these life-changing moments possible. And right now, your giving will have twice the impact. Thanks to some generous ministry partners who have stepped forward with an incredible matching grant opportunity, your donation will be matched dollar for dollar now through December 31st. This means a $50 gift becomes $100, $500 becomes $1,000, $10,000 becomes, well, you get the idea. Every gift, no matter the size, will go twice as far to bring biblical truth, practical wisdom, and lasting hope to families nationwide. So we boldly invite you to be part of this mission to help families grow closer to God and to each other. You can make a secure donation online when you go to drjamesdobson.org. That’s drjamesdobson.org. You can also call our dedicated customer service team at 877-732-6825. That’s 877-732-6825. And if you prefer, you can send your donation through the mail. Our ministry mailing address is Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk. P.O. Box 39000, Colorado Springs, Colorado. The zip code 80949. And while you’re on the line with us, whether you call or click or write, make sure you also ask about the brand new 2024 Best of Broadcast Collection. that captures the most powerful and transformative programs from the past year. Rabbi Jonathan Cahn, Victor and Eileen Marks, Dr. Dobson’s timeless wisdom on strengthening marriages and more. This carefully curated six CD set is also available as a digital download, and it’s our way of thanking you for your gift of any amount in support of the JDFI today. So have that gift doubled when you go to drjamesdobson.org or call 877-732-6825. Well, I’m Roger Marsh. Hope you’ve been encouraged by today’s program. Please join us again next time for part two of Pastor Paul Blair’s inspiring message about living out our faith in every area of life. That’s right here next time on Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk. This has been a presentation of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute.
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Saying no to our children can sometimes become an unfortunate habit in the home. With another Dr. Dobson Minute, here’s Dr. James Dobson. Every child needs to be acquainted with denial of his more extravagant wishes, and there’s a need for parents who have the courage to say no when circumstances warrant. But this responsibility of holding the line and turning down a child’s petitions can lead us to say no when we really ought to say yes. What’s behind the habit of saying no? Well, it’s like an umpire who immediately calls a runner out or safe at home plate. He knows that to waver is to invite an avalanche of protests. And because the kids ask for a thousand favors a day, we find it convenient to refuse them all. But this knee-jerk negativism is irritating for the child and unduly restrictive to him. Say yes to your child unless there is a very good reason for saying no. For more information, visit drdobsonminute.org.
