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September 10, 2020 2:00 am
Hosts Dave and Ann Wilson are joined by pastor and author Scott Sauls as they continue their discussion on the value of gentle answers in human interactions, especially in the midst of a cultural environment dominated by "us against them" thinking. Fear often drives our most passionate, opinionated answers, but we must remain humble and kind no matter who we interact with.
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You may have had the experience of having conversations with members of your family or your extended family and you don't see eye to eye on what's going on in our world. Saul says Jesus had a group of disciples who didn't have compatible worldviews when it came to society and the government. This disciples group is a group of people that included Matthew the tax collector. The big government guy and Simon the zealot, the small or no government guy is he a libertarian and and you know, a Marxist think you know Jesus said to that group that included those two. By this the world that you get along in ways that nobody can you love. This is family life today.
Our hosts are Dave and Wilson on Bob Lapine find us online@familylifetoday.com what are we supposed to do when we have friends, family members, loved ones and we don't see eye to eye on things that are pretty important how we get along with each other how we communicate and talk more about that today was Some Stay with Us and Welcome to Family Life to. Thanks for Joining Us Here Posted Anything on Social Media Where You've Gone Probably Shouldn't Posted That Call about How Very Recent. Has That Happened Recently.
Last Week I Posted This Simple Little Comment about a Controversial Topic in the World. I'm Going to Get into It. Just a Simple Little Thing Didn't Really Take a Stand. Just Let's Put This out There.
I Think I Need to Say Something, You Know, so I Didn't Write a Blog or Was It When You Couple Words First Response Less Than a Minute Woman from My Church. Well Guess I Have To Find a New Church. Wow, That Was Her Response to Mike on the Goodness She Has No Idea What I Even Think about This Topic. I Didn't Say Anything Right and Then I Posted It.
I Tried Dave Had to Recover from It. I'm Glad It's You That Social Media Is One of Those Environments Where the First Thing That Pops into Our Mind, Which Is Most Often a Reflexive, Impulsive, Not Well Thought through Response to Our Environment That Would Be Me Back after That Bob My to My Three Sons.
The Dead from Now on. Text Us First before If Anything out There and It's Pretty Wise.
I Did See Somebody on Social Media Say I Have Friends Who I Run All My Tweets by or on My Facebook Post by before I Post Them and It Is Saved Me A Lot Of Pain and A Lot Of Embarrassment from Things That I Just Thought This Is What I Feel like Saying, but I Probably Shouldn't Say That in This Moment Were Talking about How Important Our Communication Is Because It Reflects Not Only What's in Our Heart, but It Affects Our Relationships and How We Communicate Love to One Another and We Got a Friend Scott Smalls Who Is Joining Us Again for This Conversation.
Scott Welcome Back to Be with You All.
Scott Is Teaching Pastor at Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashville Tennessee. He's an Author.
He Is a Blogger. He Is One of Those Guys That We Look to for Wisdom and I Look to A Lot for Wisdom and Correct Any Just Looks Wise to Call Ahead It's about to See You Finally Got It.
I Did Think You Know What Me and Steve or Doug about You Know Should We Post This and We Should Take This on My First One We Did That in Our Homes. Patient I Say This to Mom. We Have Had Friends Sister and I Used To Had This Little Accountability That She Would Call Me Think This Is Going to Say to My Husband Tonight I Would Be like Know What Ever You Do, Do Not Say so We Would Practice It.
Kind of like What We Talked about Earlier.
Scott Said You Look in the near That Conversation near First and I Think That's Really a Wise Thing to Do. Having Communication Accountability Buddies.
Yeah, You Can Go to before Hand so They Don't Have To Clean up the Mess, but They Can Help You Prevent the Mess Scots Just Written a Book Called a Gentle Answer. Our Secret Weapon in an Age of Us against Them, and 2020 Feels like It's Been Us against Them on Steroids. We Just Had Conflict after Conflict, Culturally At Least, Men, and Those Cultural Conflicts Filter Their Way into Family Relationships into Church Relationships, Your Pastor, but You're Also a Husband and a Dad Arguing Naturally Gentle Answering Person Is a Part of Your Personality to Return a Gentle Answer. It Really Depends on the Context. I Think in Most Relationships and Interactions. That's Probably Part of the Picture.
Yeah, I Think That When I When I Get into Discussions and Especially Disagreements with People I Really Care about Then, and I Know They Really Care about Me. I Can Let My Guard down More and It Can Get More Heated and I Say More Apologies up at It That Way. II Say More Apologies to People That I Know Better and and and and Living Life Closer to That I Do with Strangers or People That Are Just Acquaintances I Have Found That Where I Stumble in This Area Are in Areas Where I Am Most Passionate, or in Areas Where I Am Most Fearful Because If I'm Really Fired up about Something or If I'm Really Anxious or Afraid about Something That's When I Will Be Less Prudent with My Speech Yeah I Think That's Really Wise to Recognize the Association between Passion and Fear Is A Lot Of Times the Things We Get Most Passionate and Heated up about It Might Come across As Assertiveness Maybe Is Overconfidence When in Fact on the inside Were Afraid That Something That Matters to Us Is Being Threatened and Maybe a Family Discussion. You Could Go a Number of Different Directions. The Less You Say You Know Your Spouses Pushing Back on, You May Be Our Greatest Fear Is Being Misunderstood. Maybe Our Greatest Fear Is the Likely Silence. That's Gonna Probably Follow. This Conversation May Be Our Greatest Fear Is Not Being on the Same Page Maybe a Bit Greatest Fear Is Not Being Perceived As Being Right or Not Winning It like We Have All Kinds of Different Fears. Some of Them to Be Borne out Pride.
Some of Them Can Be Born Out Of a Very Precious Place. You Know, and so We Got, Analyze Okay What Am I Afraid of, and What I Stand to Lose My Fears Were Realized Is That Thing Important or Is It Is That Thing Really Just a Product of an Inflated Ego on My Part so That's a Great Question to Ask It Even Why Am I Afraid Think It Only Starts with Fear That We Know Because I Think Many Times, At Least in Our Marriage. It Starts with Anger. If Anger Is a Secondary Emotion Then That the First Primary Emotion Would Be Fear.
So I Would Respond to Dave and Anger in the Family Situation We Been a Fight Finally Beat Angry.
He Wouldn't Say That I'm Fearful.
No, but I Was Fearful That I Wouldn't Be Seen, Which the Video Footage Actually Relive Those Caught on Video. I Hear Here's One As a Parent That I Think We've All Prior Experience, Our Child, Especially Teenager or Older Starting to Say Things or Act in Ways It Seems like You're Walking Away from the Faith That We've Tried to Ground Them in Their Whole Life. Often a Parent Will Respond Angry Because Were Fearful and so It's Not Gentle Answer. It's like What You Thinking There's Not How Do I Respond Because the Posture of a Parent in That Moment Is Critical to Draw Them into a Conversation Right so the HS Model for Us. What Would Be a Tone Would Be Words How Do We Respond As a Dad or Her Husband in That Situation I Think Is Really Smart Parents like You Just Did to Recognize the Difference between a Teenager and Toddler or an Eight-year-old, Because the Younger They Are, the More Directives. Parents Need to Be Because Their Hazard to Themselves Right There.
They Can Really Get Hurt If If Were Not Directives and Those the Years to Where There There A Lot More Receptive Just Developmentally to This Is What We Believe This Is Why We Believe That This Is Who We Are As a Family and Then They Start to Develop into Those Years Where They Start to Have Opinions and You Yell at What the Most Threatening Thing a Parent Is Their Child's First Opinion and in Questions and Doubts Doubts about Things That Are Just Dear That Are Everything to Us As Parents, Especially, Have Faith in What What Can Backfire with Teenagers Is When We Try to Parent.
You Know, a 17-year-old As If They Were Still Eight Where Were Offering Directive Guidance, Rather Than Persuasive Guidance, Which Oftentimes Involves More Listening and Speaking to Get to the Bottom of What's behind the Question and Where They're Coming from and What's in Their Heart.
What's Informing Their Questions and Their Doubts You're Old Enough to Have Adult Children Who Are Forming Their Own Opinions and Thinking Things through Differently Then Maybe You've Thought Them through Here. You Are a Pastor Who Is Known for What You Think and You're Supposed to Be Influencing Other People to Think More Biblically and When Your Own Kids Start to Post on Social Media Things That Don't Reflect Well on You How How Do You Handle That. You Know I Am. I Think in A Lot Of Ways.
One of Those Those Dads Who Hit the Jackpot.
I Don't Think I Can Remember a Single Time Were Either One of My Kids Is As Embarrassed Me Publicly and Then I Got Plenty Material If They Do That and Got Plenty Material. I'm Serious like I I Respect My Daughters for That A Lot.
And One of Them Is in Her Early 20s He Owes 18 and so Even Is like a Real-Time Example Happened Recently Where Where Our Oldest Daughter Wanted to Put Her Name on Something like a Public Sort of Document That Several People Are Signing and the Question Was to Put You in a Bad Place Dad Because What I Want to Sign You Know She's a Real Advocate for Certain Vulnerable Populations and Often Times That Kind of Advocacy Can Be Wrongly Interpreted As Being Partisan, You Know, in One Direction or Another and She's Not. She's Is Actually a Biblical Person Wanting to Defendant and Advocate for People Who Are Not Getting a Fair Defense of Advocacy and so Surreal Just Person. She's like As It Is to Get You Shot up by You Know Certain People Does Not You.
I Pastor a Church and in My Audience. You Know, from Writing in and Speaking Is Pretty Mixed Politically and As You All Know If You Got a Mixed Political Audience, You Will Get Shot out from the Polar Extremes on Both Ends. But You Know I Said to Her. This Has Nothing to Do with Me like Your Your Your Own Person. Gaza Working You in a Unique Way.
You Get a Unique Voice.
You Do What Your Conscience Leads You to Do and I Can Handle. My Question Is Can You Handle It If People Criticize Me for Something You Do and Start to Use What You Signed against Me. So I Sold Her, You Know I Can Handle It and You Should Follow Your Conscience the Part of That Is the Climate That She's Created of Being Somebody's Very Careful Not to Beresford Publicly When She Has A Lot Of Material You Know and so I Mean She's Becoming More More Peer and Less and Less of like a Child You Know to Us with Janice As Parents. I Think We Have To Recognize We Raised Our Kids to Be Adults, Not Just to Parent Everything They Heard from Us but to Think on Their Own When They Do That It's Going on. Make Us Uncomfortable, but This Is Really What We Want What We Want Them to Think Right Would like Him to Think Everything We Think That's Not Realistic. We Didn't Think Everything Our Parents Thought and I Lend Conversation for Me When It's Our Kids Got Older. I Love Discovering Who They Were, What They Thought What They Believed and I Didn't Always Believe and Agree with Their Stance on Certain Positions.
One of Our Son Got Married and His Wife Was Sitting in on These Conversations, and She Started Getting up Pacing around the House.
We Would Dialogue about Controversy All Subjects. It Was One of My Favorite Things to Do Because It Was Out Of Love. It Was Just Dialoguing Hearing His Heart.
Hearing My Heart.
It Wouldn't Get Hot, but It Would Get Pretty Intense and Passionate. We Both Really Cared about Each Other Is a Great Conversation Once He Finally Said I Can't Do This Anymore since Anything Somebody Makes It Sound like I'm Just so Bothered by the Whole Thing in Our Center Sometime but She Never Had Those Conversations Where She Wouldn't Even Talk to Her Parents about Her Fees Because They Be Controversy, yet It Talk about That Scott, in the Context of a Gentle Answer Because Different Personalities and Different Temperaments Are Going to Express Their Gentle Answers Differently and We Can Now Be the Gentlest Police Coming along Thing You Weren't Gentle Enough to Know You Said That in the Context May Been Perfectly Appropriate.
Yeah. So If If Were All Created in the Image of God in Christ Is God. Four of Us Are Agreed on Both of Those Things Christ Has Three What Theologians Call Offices Profit Is Priest in His King Will We Try to Act like the King in Any Contested Conversation Is Not Going to Go and We Have Two People Trying to Act like the King It It's Really a Real Train Wreck and so Are Two Remaining Alternatives Are to Let Jesus Alone Be the King and We Need to Ask Ourselves Is This Moment a Prophet Moment There Is a Priest Moment the Prophet Is the One Who Speaks Truth. The Priest Is the One Who Communicates Tenderness and Gentleness, and Humble in Heart, You Know That Part of Christ and That Aspect of Christ and and Sometimes It's Combined and so Yes Okay Do I Major in Profit and Minor Increase in the Situation Are a Major Increase in Minor Profit. It Just Depends on the Situation Is, but the Two Have To Go Together Because As Soon As You Separate Profit from Preceptor for All Profit and No Priest Would Become Kind of Bully Again We Give It When I Can Persuade Anybody except People in Our Own Echo Chamber and How Boring Is That If Were All Priests, Then Important Truths Might Be Taken off the Table That Need to Be Part of the Conversation. I Think You're Right in There to Help Us Figure out in Our Conversations with One Another How We Can Be Prophetically Gentle. I I Was Come Back to John 114. Jesus Reveals the Father Full of Grace and Truth Full of Prophet and Priest. We've Got to Figure out If We Naturally Tend to Be Truth. People How Can We Amp up the Grace and If We Naturally Tend to Be Grace People. How Can We Amp up the Truth so That We Can Be Full of Both Not Try to Minimize One for the Sake of the Other. We Want to Speak the Truth in Love Right We Do. Posture Is Body Language, Tone Is so Important, I Think about the Woman Caught in Adultery. Jesus As Jesus Does Give Us a Perfect Example about How to Handle with a Situation Where He Got Sexual Immorality Right Woman Was Caught in the Act of Adultery.
First, How How Curious That There Was No Man Who Was Brought out in Public. Caught in the Act of Adultery. Even Though It Takes to Get Caught so There's an Injustice It's Already Revealed by the Absence of a Man Being Dragged into the Public so All These You Know Service Condemning Religious Men Who Wanted to Execute This Woman Have Left, Because Jesus Said, Hey, You Know, Whoever Has No Sin to Be the First to Cast a Stone at Her. And of Course They All Left and Jesus Is the Only Man Remaining Who Is Also the Only Man in That Conversation or Any Conversation Who Was Qualified to Cast a Stone and He Chose Not to Instead He Said, I Do Not Condemn You Now Go Live Your Life of Sin Priest. I Don't Condemn You Profit. Live Your Life of Sin. The Order Is Incredibly Important of Those Two Sentences If You Reverse That Order and Say Later Life of Sin and I Don't Condemn You Will Be on the Other Side of That You Have Transitioned Away from Christianity into Moralism and Is a Christian. It's Not Christian to Lead with Get Your Act Together That Will Have the Acceptance Conversation. It's Precisely the Opposite, Where Christ Loves People before They Change. He Creates Belonging for Them before They Believe, and before They Obey and for Some, He Creates Belonging for Them Knowing That They Never Will Obey Think about the 10 Lepers That Healed and Only One of Them Came Back and Said Thank You and Is like Where the Other Nine, He Knew What the Answer to That Was the Question Was More for the One Who Came Back That It Was for His Curiosity, so We'll Do That Well Naturally but Supernaturally We We Have the Resources to Be Able to Them and Again Part of the Construct Logs and Specs Conversation. We Have All the Resources That Free Us to Be Humble and to Address How We Contribute to Jesus Give Us Every Resource You're Forgiven Your Loved. There's Nothing That You Know about the Worst Part of Yourself That I Didn't Know before You and That I Don't Know, Better Than You, You're Exposed You're Not Rejected Your Known and Your Love and so Get over Yourself. Stop Feel like You Have To Be Right about Everything and Realize That Whoever It Is You're Trying to Confront, Persuade, Swing over to Your Side Realize That for Every Criticism You Offer Them Their Heart Needs 10 Praises Just like Yours Does. Just like Yours Does. And Just like You.
Every Dysfunction or or Misbehavior That You See in This Other Person in This Other Group Just Never Forget This Closing Line from the Movie Wonder the Book Wonder Every Person You Meet Is Fighting a Hard Battle. There's Always a Battle beneath Our Expressions of Sin and Dysfunction Offense and so Empathy and Compassion in Israel.
Christ, like Things, but It Does Stick a Supernatural Intrusion into Our Hearts for First Become Those Kinds of People You Know You Said There's a Verse That A Lot Of Preachers Never Preach. I've I've Don't Only That A Few Times and It's Interesting Why and I Am Sort of.
The Emphasis Is Put Matthew Five Where Jesus Says. Therefore, If Your Offering Your Gift at the Altar and There Remember That Your Brother or Sister Has Something against You, Leave Your Gift There in Front of the Altar First Go and Be Reconciled to Them and Then Bring and Offer Your Gift and I That I Joke Because Pastors They'd Rather Have the Gift That People Leave and Go Reconcile Relationships, but It Does Highlight What Your Book Is All about Relationships and Reconciliation Are More Important to the Heart of God.
This Is Critical Stuff Are Talking about Let's Almost All the Apostle Paul Wrote about When It Came to Human Relationships. He's Always Trying to Bring Jews and Gentiles Together. The Church Is Supposed to Be a Place Where People Who Cannot Even Get along with Each Other out in the World Become Friends and Then Become His Family to Each Other. That's the Sign That We Belong to Christ. According to Christ Himself. Lord I Pray That There Will Be One This Disciples Group Is a Group of People That Included Matthew the Tax Collector. The Big Government Guy and Simon the Zealot, the Small or No Government Guy See a Libertarian and You Know a Marxist Female Striking. There Is No Record of a Single Political Debate between Those Two and the Gospel. Do You Think Because All the Gospels Talk about How the Disciples Bickered with One Another, Not One on Record Three Years Together. They Lived Together They Died Together.
Matthew Is the One and Only Gospel Writer Who Who Acknowledge the Fact That Matthew's Tax Collector, and Simon Was out.
Jesus Said to That Group That Included Those Two.
By This the World's Can Know You Belong to Me That You Get along in Ways That Nobody Can out There. I Also Think I Mean If You Find This Is Family. Just Think, If I May Not Respond with the General Answer Can Be Very Easy for Me As a Husband As a Dad Is a Sibling to Sit and Wait. When She's in a Come to Me in and Asked for Forgiveness Say She's Sorry When My Son or Daughter. And No, I Should Go and Say I'm Sorry and with the General Answer.
Invite a Conversation That Is on Me. That's Right, I I Have To Do That. The Model Who I'm Following Jesus and That Can Bring Harmony to My Home If I Really Mean.
I'm Sorry to Follow with How Can I Do Right by You and Invite the Hard Response That Instead of the Easy Okay for You.
Which Reminds Me of Luke 627 but I Say to You Who Hear, Love Your Enemies Did Good to Those Who Hate You Glass Those Who Curse You and Pray for Those Who Abuse You Plow If We Would Live That out, Our Homes Would Look Different in That Country with Different and Scott What You're Giving Us with Your Book a Gentle Answer Is Coaching Manual. It's a Way to Think Differently about Our Communication Think Biblically about Our Communication and Represent Jesus Well in Conversations with Friends, Family Members, Coworkers, and There May Be No More Important Time for Us to Be Doing That, We'd Love to Send to Our Listeners. A Copy of Scott's Book, Which Again Is Called a Gentle Answer. Our Secret Weapon in an Age of Us against Them If You Can Help Support the Ministry of Family Life with the Donation This Week. Scott's Book Is Our Gift to You to Say Thank You for Partnering with Us in Helping to Provide Practical Biblical Help and Hope for Husbands and Wives, Moms and Dads All around the World.
Family Life Today Is Reaching Hundreds of Thousands of People Every Day on Radio to Our Podcast Using Amazon Alexa All the Different Channels That Are Available to Us Were Seeking to Effectively Develop Godly Marriages and Families Because We Believe Godly Marriages and Families Can Change the World One Home at a Time. So Again If You Can Help Advance the Ministry of Family Life Today Would Love to Send You Scott's Book As a Thank You Gift for Your Donation Go to Family Life to.com to Donate or Call One 800 FL Today. Scott's Book Again Is Called a Gentle Answer.
Our Secret Weapon in an Age of Us against Them. Ask for Your Copy of the Book When You Make a Donation Either Online or by Calling One 800 FL Today, Not Tomorrow. We Want to Talk about Anger Because Honestly, Some of Us Are Feeling Angry, Frustrated, No Anger, Angry Is the Right Word Were Feeling Angry When We See Things Going on in Our World and We Want to Think Rightly about That and Act Rightly about so Scouts Can Be Heard Coaches on That Tomorrow. I Hope You Can Be with Us As Well. Think Our Engineer Today. Keith Lynch along with Our Entire Broadcast Production Team On Behalf Of Our Hosts Dave and Ann Wilson. I'm Bopping See You Back Next Time for Another Edition of Family Life Today.
Family Life Today Is a Production of Family Life of Little Rock, Arkansas. A Crew Ministry Help for Today Hope for Tomorrow