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LinkedIn is pretty great at a lot of things, like helping you tap into the latest trends
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and insights in your field.
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We cannot stop your co-worker from tapping her pencil.
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LinkedIn can help you find new jobs that align with your career goals.
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We cannot help you find the source of that weird smell in the office fridge.
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And while we can't stop your co-workers from bringing their hobbies into the office, LinkedIn
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can help you bring your career to the next level.
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LinkedIn is the network that works for you.
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This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast.
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I'm your host Kyle Thompson, let's get into it.
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I do not nullify the grace of God for righteousness where through the law, then Christ died for
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no purpose.
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That is Galatians 2, 21.
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That might be my favorite thing that the Apostle Paul ever wrote, but we'll get more into that
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later.
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I just want to wish everybody listening to this a very, very happy new year.
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And I'm going to make this as quick as I possibly can because I got a new year's gift
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for you.
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Now everyone does Christmas presents, but I'm doing a new year's gift.
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All right.
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I'm going to be different.
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A new show in the podcast rotation, okay?
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So in the new year, at least initially, we'll kind of see how it goes and things that we
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add or take away, we're going to release an interview every Tuesday and then we're going
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to do a solo episode with quick hitters every Thursday.
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And then this new type of episode on the same podcast feed here every Sunday.
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So as you follow this show for any length of time, we used to do one episode a week,
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then we expanded to two.
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And then for the last, you know, nine months or so, we've done two interviews and a solo
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episode every week, some weeks, three interviews, some weeks, four interviews, just all over
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the place.
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But the new thing that we're going to put out there for you guys on the same podcast feed
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every Sunday is going to be something called the forging table.
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Okay.
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So ultimately the mission of Undaunted Life, you guys have heard me say this a lot is equipping
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men to push back darkness with content that forges spiritual, mental and physical resilience.
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So the forging table is going to be a group of regular guys that are forging spiritual
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resilience by digging into God's word.
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And we are going to basically welcome all of you along on that journey with us.
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So this is exactly what it's going to look like.
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And again, this is going to be every Sunday.
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We're going to drop an episode where we dig into one chapter of the Bible.
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Okay.
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So we're essentially going to go chapter by chapter through different books of the Bible.
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So let me flow on who the we is.
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So I'm going to be in every single one of these episodes, but then also there are going
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to be three other guys with me at the forging table.
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These are basically insiders supporters of what we're doing here with Undaunted Life.
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Good, good friends of mine.
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And here's the unique thing about all of us.
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None of us are theologians.
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None of us went to Bible college.
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We don't have masters in divinity.
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We're not professional pastors.
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We don't work at a church in any particular capacity.
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We're just normal dudes.
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Okay.
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Just normal dudes around the table.
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And I've kind of got a group of, you know, five, six, seven different guys that we're
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going to bring in at different different times as we're working through certain books of
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the Bible.
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So I guess the question that this begs is why are we doing this?
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So the first thing is I'll be very, very selfish with the first one.
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I want to study the Bible more because as I talked to you about last year in 2022, I
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read 54 books in 11 months.
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That is a lot of reading, but I didn't do nearly as much reading or study of the Bible.
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And so I want to kind of like shift down a little bit with the interviews.
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So we're still going to do a lot.
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You know, if we do one per week, that's going to be 52 interviews next week, next year minimum,
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right?
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So it's still a lot of interviews.
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But if I were there were weeks last year, guys, right, did four interviews in like three
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days, right?
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And all those had a book that had to be read or a documentary that had to be watched or
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something like that.
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That's a lot of stuff that you need to take in.
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So I'm going to be a little bit more picky with the interviews that I do and not, you
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know, accepting nearly as many things from publishers or publicists or things like that,
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because I want to spend more time digging in to what we're going to be talking about on
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the forging table that week, which is going to be that particular chapter of the Bible.
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But also we want to model how regular guys should study, talk about, and wrestle with
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the Holy Bible, because we've gotten to this point again, I talk about this all the time
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on the show that we're Christians because of where we were born.
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So I was more in Oklahoma.
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I'm a Christian, right?
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Or, you know, we've got a stack of Bibles on the bookshelf, but we don't read them.
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We have four or five, you know, downloaded Bible apps on our phone, but we don't ever
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open them.
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Right?
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It's just not something that's a normal part of our life because we get to this point
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where it's like, well, I can't just read the Bible.
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You're supposed to study it.
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And I don't understand ancient Greek or or Hebrew and I don't speak, you know, Galilean
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Aramaic.
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So like I couldn't possibly read the Bible and understand what it means.
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All the while we're ignoring that the Holy Spirit's going to help reveal to us and understand
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what we're getting from this scripture.
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But the other part of it is, is because a lot of us lean on the understandings of other
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people that did go to Bible college, that are theologians that do have these enormous
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podcasts and they supposedly read the Bible all the time.
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But it's regular guys, like you and I, regular guys just sitting down, digging into the Word
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of God.
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And one of the things that I'm going to do to help me with this is I'm going to try to
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stop saying the Bible says because it's not the Bible.
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It's the Word of God to be more specific and more precise.
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It's the Word of God.
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So I'm going to start saying things like I suppose with the Bible says it's like God
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says through his Word or God says through his scripture, dot, dot, dot, dot, okay.
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So we want to be able to help model that for you guys.
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But also we want to push you guys to create your own forging tables.
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So this is an area that we're going to be moving into some things that we want to do
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to, to kind of push more content and again, all you guys that do donations to us, all
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of that, that money that we could have to kind of push into creating of content and providing
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of stuff around you guys creating your own forging tables.
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Because y'all are probably not going to record them, right?
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But the way that I explained it to the guys that are doing this, because none of the guys
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that are doing this with me have ever done podcasts before.
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Like, I think one or two of them have been done, you know, a smattering of random podcasts
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here or there, but this isn't what they do for a living.
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They don't, they don't produce content in the, the Christian conservative space, but I just
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kept telling the guys like, look, it's weird when a microphone is in front of your face
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and you have headphones on and you can hear yourself and it's kind of weird.
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But what we're doing is we're doing a dude's Bible study.
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That's what we're doing.
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That's why we're here.
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I just so happened to put a microphone in front of your face and I hit record before
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we started talking.
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Okay.
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But we want to push you guys to do the same.
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So every time we do an episode of the forging table, if there's somebody that's new to the
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fold, the four of us that are there at the forging table, I'm going to have them all
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answer the same set of questions in like two minutes or less to kind of give you an idea
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of who they are and here are the three questions.
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When and how did you become, did you come to faith in Christ?
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The second is, how do you like to study the Bible?
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And the third is, how does your brain work?
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And so I'm going to go and answer those questions because I didn't answer it whenever I was
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with those guys.
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So I'll go and answer them for me.
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So when and how did I come to faith in Christ?
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So as a 10th grader at first Baptist West in law in Oklahoma, I went to the Sunday night
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service because I was a Sunday morning, Sunday night and a Wednesday night kid, none of my
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family went.
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This was just me solo.
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Either hit your ride or walk to church or I was able to start driving myself.
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But basically, there was a Hellfire and brimstone guest speaker that came and spoke guest preacher
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on a Sunday night.
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He's talking about volcanoes and he's talking about, you know, how you better be right with
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God or you're going to be, you know, in the lake of fire and all these different things.
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He's like, whoa, that sounds terrible.
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And you know, whenever they did the invitation and, you know, said, Hey, stand up.
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If you want to accept Christ, I stood up.
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So, or as Calvinist would say, I was meant to stand up.
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It wasn't actually me.
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I just kind of stood up by my body, couldn't control.
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Anyway, we won't argue about that now because we argue about that a lot at the forging table.
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But that's how I came to faith in Christ in terms of how I like to study the Bible.
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So the routine I've kind of gotten into is I will read, I'll read the scripture straight
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through without any commentary.
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I try to read it without my commentary, Bibles or any of those types of things.
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I just try to read it through initially just in its own words and or I will listen to someone
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else read it.
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I really, really, really like Johnny Cash reading the New Testament of the Bible.
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There are other Bible apps with people that are, you know, professionals that do a great
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job at that.
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You know, James Earl Jones has reading the Bible as well.
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And so I'll listen to it.
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Then I'll start digging in scripture by scripture.
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So I'll read like a section, maybe three or four scriptures in a row and then I'll start
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looking at commentaries and piecing things together to try to get an understanding all
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the while trying to understand what is the context of this particular letter from Paul
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or this particular thing that was written down as these people followed around Jesus because
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that's going to help you.
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So that's how I like to study the Bible.
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I start with just the words that I try to like hear the words.
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It's almost like, you know, hearing those scripture via osmosis and then you get into
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everything else with the commentaries.
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And then in terms of how my brain works, it's not going to be shocked anyone that's listening
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to the show for any length of time.
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I'm very, very quick.
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I'm a quick processor like, okay, got to, got to, got to move on, right?
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So specifically you will see that there are guys at the forging table that are not like
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that.
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And I pick them like that for a reason.
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There are guys that are like, they like to marinate.
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They like to really think about what they're going to say before they say, whereas like,
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I'm just running it.
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You know, my mouth is way, you know, 10 miles ahead of my brain sometimes.
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I just want to get it out there to you.
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But I'm very, very quick, quick processor and I like to coalesce things into a narrative.
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So if I read, like I've told you, if I read a 500 page book, I should be able to break
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down why that book is important to you and could be important to your family and your
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walk with Christ in two or three minutes, like I'm just going to bring in the high points.
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But some of the other guys that are at the forging table, like they're bringing in context.
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You know, we have guys that have only been Christians for a couple of years.
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We have guys that have been, you know, basically cradled to where they are now Christians,
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but everybody's brain works a little differently.
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Also, if you're listening to this right now, the first official episode of the forging
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table is now live for your consumption, because I think I spaced these things out like 15
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or 20 minutes apart.
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So by the time you're done listening to this, you will see that first one out there.
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Now, before you listen to it, I would highly, highly, highly suggest that you read Galatians
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one, okay, because that is the first book of the Bible that we'll be tackling.
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So for the next six weeks, we're going to be looking at Paul's letter to the church in
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Galatia.
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I would highly, highly suggest you do that.
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And guys, we're not just going to do Paul's letters.
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We've kind of got two books of the Bible picked out here initially that are kind of soft
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ish places to land for a lot of people.
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We've got some big ideas for where we're going to take it after that.
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But for the next, I guess, quarter of the year or so, we've already got everything kind
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of mapped out.
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We're very, very excited for you guys to check it out and be sure to send us your feedback,
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okay?
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So you'll see all the time, if you have any feedback or anything you'd like to hear,
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info at undaunted.life is an email to shoot it right to me or send me a DM on Instagram.
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I don't really check Facebook, the messages and all that crap.
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It's all over the place.
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I don't really understand what's going on over there.
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So send it to us through Instagram or via email.
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But guys, I just can't tell you how excited I am about this.
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There was a while there where I was like, okay, let's just do a few of these and send
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it out there.
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And then, you know, let everybody just kind of figure out if they like it.
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But I feel like it's a good enough idea.
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And everyone I've pitched it to and told them about like people that you would know prominent
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pastors and celebrities and things like that to just regular, you know, people that I see
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on the every day, every day or every week basis, they're like, yeah, yeah, I would totally
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listen to something like that because for a second there, I was like, does anyone really
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want to listen to me and my friends talk about the Bible?
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And then there was a resounding yes from the marketplace.
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So I'm just so unbelievably excited to get that to you.
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But guys, before we let you go, I am going to do a quick resilience boost again.
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As I told you about at the top at undaunted life, our mission is equipping men to push
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back darkness with content that forges, spiritual, mental and physical resilience.
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So the big thing, the donation page, that's the only thing I've got for you today because
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I want you all to make sure to go to the very next episode, episode four, eight.
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That is the forging table Galatians one.
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But again, we can't pull off stuff like building out a studio, doing all the other things we're
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looking to do with the forging table.
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If we don't have donors, again, we get a little bit from advertisements, but the overwhelming
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majority of how we're able to operate as an organization is because a donors like you
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to guys that gave all those end of year gifts to the people that are donating 10, 50, $100,
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$500 on a monthly basis.
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It's guys like you that are literally allowing us to do things like the forging table.
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So I really appreciate everyone that's hopped on board, but the link will be there for everybody
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else as well.
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Thank you guys for listening to this episode.
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Wherever you're listening to this, please subscribe, rate and leave us a positive five
12:03
star review.
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If you want to come speak live at your event or on your podcast, you shoot me an email
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to info@andontin.life, that's I N F O at and on to not life, follow us on Instagram
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and like us on Facebook and check out our website for everything else, including how
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to donate to keep more content like this coming your way.
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Just go to www.andontin.life.
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And as always, we want to thank the band August Burns read for allowing us to use their music
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for our content.
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The music on this podcast is our song cutting the tides, which is off their 10th anniversary
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re recording of their album leveler.
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The links are in the description.
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I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
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Remember, keep pushing back darkness, keep forging spiritual, mental and physical resilience.
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Keep seeking the lion of Judah.
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Thank you.