The Immature Christian: Stalled Growth, Solid Food, and the Path to Maturity

Is being an emotional Christian the same thing as being an immature Christian? Sounds like the same thing — but it’s not. In this episode, David, Phil, and Jon break down what spiritual immaturity actually looks like according to scripture, and why stalled growth is a bigger problem than most believers want to admit.

They park the conversation in Hebrews 5:12-14, where the writer calls out believers who should’ve been teachers by now but still need someone to hand them the basics again. Ouch. From there, the guys dig into Ephesians 4 for a practical picture of what a maturing New Testament believer actually looks like — and what habits need to go.

Phil puts it plainly: immaturity isn’t just about where you are, it’s about whether you’re still moving. Everyone starts on milk. The problem is when you stop there. The prescription? Get back in the word. Practice it. Let your discernment get sharpened by actually doing what the word says — not just hearing it.

As a bonus, a live listener named Bowar dropped some heavy theological questions in the chat — including whether Christianity is a religion of peace and why Jesus experienced hunger, thirst, and suffering if he was God. The guys handled every one of them straight from scripture. No dodging, no fluff — just the word.

Grab your coffee, open your Bible, and pull up a seat. Growth doesn’t happen by accident.

📖 Hebrews 5:12-14 | Ephesians 4:25-32 | Isaiah 53 | Philippians 2 | Romans 8 | 2 Peter 3:18

gotbrew@biblebros.net

Transcript

Immature Versus Emotional Faith

David McIntyre 0:00

There's an immature Christian, and there's an emotional Christian. Both are not the same. And tonight we're going to make a distinction between the two and start helping those of you who are on the path to immaturity to grow up. Up next on Bible Bros and Brew. Yes, I came in strong, so you don't have to. We're so glad that you joined us tonight. You know, we're getting ready to get into a good topic. We've been talking about the emotional Christian for the last several weeks. And we decided we wanted to have an offshoot of that conversation and talk about the immature Christian. And now you might look at that and say, well, aren't they the same? Well, indeed, they are not the same. And there is a difference, and we're going to get into that tonight as we work our way through and begin to unwrap this package called immaturity. You know, all immaturity isn't bad. Because the reality is everybody has to grow. So we've got to decide, we've got to help differentiate between what's regular growth and then what's stalled or delayed growth. Because it's really that stalled and delayed growth that we want to tackle, because usually that means something's not right somewhere. And in order for you to continue to grow, you've got to get that piece right. Remember, the Bible tells us we're supposed to go from glory to glory. And we can't do that as immature Christians. Before we go there, though, let's first get into the cup and find out what's in the cup. We're going to take a look at what everybody's drinking and what beverage is helping them to be a more conversational individual as we have this conversation tonight. As usual, I'll start with John. John, what's in the cup?

Jon Dzyuba 2:43

You know, I uh what I originally wanted to do was a salted caramel drink, but I forgot that that's something I literally drank last week. So I had to switch it up last minute. Um, I had to pull out uh it's a white chocolate raspberry blend, but it's it's a K cup, but it's the donut shop. I don't know if you've seen those donut shop K cups. I always have one on me to to show you guys what it looks like, but it says iced on it. I'm assuming it means it's supposed to be made as an iced coffee. Um, I don't feel like doing it as an iced coffee, and it's absolutely delicious right now as a hot coffee. Amen. But no, it's been it's doing me a lot of favors right now, so I'm not even mad. I'm not even mad, but yeah, it's pretty good so far. We'll see what happens.

David McIntyre 3:33

Nice, nice. I'm almost 100% sure the iced coffee has to be an American thing. Yes, I couldn't see them doing that in Europe anywhere or in other parts of the world where they drink coffee that's so us.

Phillip Rich 3:50

Yeah.

David McIntyre 3:52

Philip, what's the look up?

Phillip Rich 3:54

Man, well, I've got a new uh a new issue from Peregrine. Um, this is what they call their Costa Rica finca corralar. Dude had to roll the R's to really get that thing going. Finca Coralar.

David McIntyre 4:14

But uh every roll of the R you've made me want to have a sip.

Phillip Rich 4:20

But this is now this the tasting notes are very interesting. It says Rainbow Sherbet or Sherbet, um chocolate syrup, and then dates, like you know, you know, the fruit dates. Um, but here it is. It's uh a new one they had just come out with on the on the website, man. You know, anytime they pop out something new, I'm hitting the order button. I'm sorry that I've lacked self-control in that area, but um, but I can say this that this is a fantastic coffee, as always with Peregrine, dude. As always. So um enjoying it, man. Um, I I don't again, once, once again, as far as the the tasting notes go, I don't know that I taste everything they're saying, but I taste goodness and love and peace and joy, and that's what's important, man, in this cup. So uh cheers to Peregrine and cheers to anyone else who uh shares the love of coffee with us. Nice. How about you, David? What you got going on, man?

David McIntyre 5:23

So tonight I'm drinking a coffee that I didn't ask for. My wife gave it to me and said, Do you want to try this? And I said, sure. And it is, and I wouldn't normally try this kind of stuff because of who it is and what it's about.

SPEAKER_03 5:41

Okay, it is iHop.

David McIntyre 5:46

Oh my goodness, buttery syrup. Okay, it does taste like buttery syrup.

SPEAKER_03 5:56

Okay, okay.

David McIntyre 5:57

Um, I have to give it that credit. It also tastes like coffee. Um so those two things are mixing together in a fun way.

Phillip Rich 6:08

But is it conversational, David? That's the question, dude.

David McIntyre 6:12

Right. Let's look. Look, look. Conversation tonight. The conversation starts with the quality of the man. You know, and being a quality man, the conversation is going to be delectable tonight. Yes. That being said, the coffee's doing its best to support that conversationalism. So far, it's uh three on a scale of one through ten. But nonetheless, so um, I'm not mad at it. I just chose something different. Yeah.

Jon Dzyuba 6:56

Sounds like it's mad at you.

David McIntyre 7:01

This coffee wants me to like it, trust me. Oh man, it's trying too hard. Before we get out of what's in the cup, um hello to the chat. So glad that you guys have joined us. I see um forgive me if I pronounce it incorrectly, but looks like bewar misery. Ms. Ms. Yep.

Jon Dzyuba 7:23

Mzeri.

David McIntyre 7:24

So I gave it my best shot. I'm not sure what your question there is, though. So if you can expound on that, maybe we'll come back to it here in just a moment.

Jon Dzyuba 7:34

I don't know unless it's pe please, your religion, please. I don't know.

Emotions Versus The Word

Is Christianity A Religion Of Peace

David McIntyre 7:42

No, it clearly says peace there, so I'll leave that alone. Um yes. So if you can expound on your question, we'll be more than happy to consider looking at that here in just a little bit. But tonight we're gonna start digging into well, let me say that's what's in the cup. And now we're gonna start digging into um a little bit more um of what's going on in our in our world today. And and you know, I said earlier, we've been having this conversation about the emotional Christian. And I think if there's one way to kind of best describe the emotional Christian, is that the emotional Christian is somebody who is led by their emotions rather than are letting the word of God lead them. And so when your emotions are in charge, all kinds of stuff happens. All kinds of things break loose, you respond and react differently when your emotions are leading you, when you're emotionally charged, you're making different kinds of decisions than when you let the word lead the way, even when your emotions are uh, even when your emotions are highly charged. And so we began, and honestly, this was uh Philip who said, you know, I want to talk about the immature Christian, and it makes sense to talk about that now because there's a difference between the immature Christian and the emotional Christian. It's very easy to think that they are the same, but they're not. And I I could give you one example, and it's simply to say that emotional Christianity has everything to do with what leads you. Immaturity is about where you are in your growth, right? So when we talk about growth, we mean um we mean where you are at as you're growing up in Christ. Now let me let's let's just be clear here for a moment. Um if you're newly born again, recently born again, born again in the last year or whatever, immaturity in one sense is not necessarily a bad word. It's not a cuss word, it doesn't necessarily uh mean a negative, it's an indicator of where you are at a certain point. We were talking earlier, and we used the example of the growth charts that you would get go to and stand in front of at the doctor's office, where the doctor is charting your growth. When you were a little baby, they pulled out the little ruler and stretched your little feet out, and from head to toe, you were 34 inches. Then your next visit, you were 37 inches, and then the next visit you were 45 inches. It indicated that you were growing, and it said that you were in this percentile. In other words, they had connected enough, collected enough data about babies that said, based upon where your growth is right now and your height, you are within this percentage of children in that range. Now, if you would go to the doctor's office and all of a sudden you stopped growing at the age of four, they would begin to think that something was not right, and they would begin to investigate to find out what was going on. So when we are uh immature in Christ, for some of us that means we're just not there yet. We're growing, we're maturing. We're partaking of the milk of the word, we begin to think of the meat of the word, and we begin to grow and grow and grow, and we move up through the percentiles and grow more and more mature. But what we want to talk about during this immaturity piece is those who find ways to stop growing. Because if you find your growth stalled, we need to identify what it could be that is stalling your growth because we're meant to grow. We're meant to go from glory to glory to glory, we're not meant to go from glory and be like, uh oh, he's not glorying anymore. We're all supposed to grow. So we've got to investigate and find out what it is that's hindering our growth. So if you're a baby Christian or a newborn Christian, we're not necessarily per se talking about you when we talk about immaturity. We recognize that you're still partaking of the meat. Now you're still gonna get something out of this because the same prescription for your continued growth is going to be the prescription for getting off of immaturity and going back to growth and maturity in your life. So that's kind of an intro to what we're going to be talking about. Philip, what do you want to add on to that or mix into that and thoughts?

Phillip Rich 12:49

Yeah. Um, well, first of all, and I don't mean to kind of jump around a little bit here, but um the uh Bawar Mizri in the chat, he he posted a more thorough question. I figure we'd go ahead and address it since um he took the time to do that. Um his first one was, I mean, Christian is peace religion. That was one of the, you know, he was basically asking, is Christianity a religion of peace? Um, and then he posted this as a follow-up and says, it's uh Luke 19, but as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slaughter them before me. Uh, is that peace? Uh that particular parable doesn't sound like peace, but if you think about um what Jesus said, you know, he is the prince of peace as one of the titles of Jesus in the uh Old Testament. It called him, I think it's in Isaiah 9, it called him the it was prophesied about Jesus that he is the Prince of Peace. And then in uh first in Romans 7, Paul plainly says, God has called us to peace. Uh, I think it's actually 1 Corinthians 7, where that's found. And then Jesus himself in John 14 said, Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you, not as the world gives, I give to you. Uh, and then there's uh Ephesians 2 that says Jesus is our peace. Uh Ephesians 2 or 3, one of those, it's in there. Um and so there's all kinds of witnesses throughout the old, from the Isaiah 9 prophecy to the New Testament, several places where it talked about how Jesus uh it brings peace. But here's the thing the main peace that we're talking about is the peace between sinful men and God. Talk about not peace in terms of an absence of conflict. Uh, sometimes that you can have peace in the middle of completely turbulent and crazy things. You can still be at peace. But the main peace that we're referring to, and I think that the Bible's referring to, is the peace between sinful men and a holy God. And the way that God established that peace was through the sacrifice of Jesus, was through what he did in his work of redemption, as we say. He died on the cross for everyone's sins. Because when you're in a sinful state, basically what it means is you're living in a way, thinking in a way that is in opposition to God's ways. That's the basic, if you want to call it, definition of sin. Sin is doing and thinking in ways that are against God's prescribed way to live. And we know that he's given us the prescribed way to live. He gave the Israelites a primer when he gave them the Ten Commandments. That was just a little bit of a honestly, like a like a sample of God's standard for holiness and righteousness. Um and so when he did that, he gave the Ten Commandments and said, Here, here's if you want to know a little bit about me, uh, here's some starters for you. Uh, don't have any other gods before me. Don't kill people, that's not great. Uh, things like that. He gave a whole list of things not to do. Don't commit adultery on your on your wife. And so we already start noticing the big gap between the way we live and the way God has prescribed for humans to live. And and we always say this like, if you've ever lied in your life, which I have, you know, sadly, uh, if you've ever done something wrong, you ever said something wrong, you ever uh uh hurt somebody or offended somebody, whatever the case is, in some way or another you've committed a sin of some kind, you've gone against God's standard. And the truth of the matter is there's no way possible to go through this life without doing something that violates God's standards. And this should be a clue to us that we are literally incapable of keeping his commandments 1000% to the T without breaking any of them. And then we have the issue with the book of James where he said, if you've broken one commandment, you've broken them all. So we find ourselves in that predicament because once you have been basically exposed as a lawbreaker, which all of us eventually will be if you've lived any length of time on the earth, now all of a sudden you're not at peace with God anymore. So that's why you need Jesus to be what 1 Timothy calls the mediator between God and men. He's the only one that can stand in that gap between God's holiness and our sinfulness and bridge that gap and say, you know what, God doesn't accept you because you do everything right or because you avoid doing everything wrong. He now accepts you because you have accepted his son, who did do everything right, who did not sin, and who paid the price for your sins. So um it's interesting. You know, we we can um all the religions out there, every religion except Christianity, look it up for yourself. Every religion out there has some version of hey, if you just do good and be a moral person, you're gonna be all right. Christianity is the only one that says, nah, you by nature you are hostile to God. By nature, your your your the standard God has is a standard that would reject you. That sounds pretty harsh, but it's true. So I that automatically like puts my antenna up like, huh, something's different about uh Christianity, something's different about this thing with Jesus. And what we find out is the whole point is not for you to go around trying to be the perfect rule keeper. The point is for you to trust in Jesus and in what he did for you, so that through that, that gap can be bridged between you and God and you can come into relationship with him. So, and and and to get back to the Luke 19 thing, uh, just really quickly about bring my enemies before me and slay them, that was a parable. That wasn't God talking about doing that to anybody, that was actually just a parable Jesus was sharing. Um, but I I know there's you know, there's a lot more we could get into. I and time constraints would keep us from going completely deep into the waters with this stuff. But uh, but I just wanted to share that. It is something that, you know, there there's I I don't think the number one thing we should be worried about or even concerned about, to be honest with you, is whether or not Christianity is a religion of peace, quote unquote. Uh we should be more concerned with how we stand before God and what we got and how we stand in his sight. And the only way to fix that standing is to receive Jesus as Lord and Savior, because He is that He perfectly exemplified that standard to where we don't have to be uh in that same uh under that same burden to do so. So hopefully that helps. I know there's always going to be more questions, even after saying all this, I'm sure there'll be more questions, but um that's my thoughts. That's my two cents. David or John, any thoughts from you guys?

Jon Dzyuba 20:03

That's pretty spot on. Um I I I don't want to drone on this, but I do agree that kind of to go full circle here. I think that to combat immaturity, and I'm sure we'll go over this later on too. I think that it really relies on you diving into the word. Um, like just as you mentioned, like four, five, four or five different times where it says that Jesus is peace. Um, it takes practice to to keep diving into the word and reading and and instilling it onto you, onto yourself. Um so that when you do have questions, you know where to look. Uh, questions like these, you're I mean you're you're listing off some crazy questions, and I think that that would make some for some great conversation. I think that we would love to to dive deeper into that. Honestly, I'd I'd love to dedicate episodes on each and every single topic that you're hitting right now. Um I think that I think that it's vital to to ask the questions and to be curious about it and to and to look for the answers in the word. I think that's like that's kind of like the one and only way around looking for looking for answers to these questions. Um I don't want to drone on too much about it because I I'm like so tempted to just dive into these theological conversations. But definitely it sparks ideas for future episodes. Um about maybe I'm maybe I'm thinking of a different episode talking about the the the theology behind Jesus becoming or God becoming human through a virgin birth and living on earth as a human, but being fully God and fully man and And what that means, you know, biologically and theologically as well. Yeah. But again, there's only one way to find out.

Hebrews 5 And Dull Hearing

Phillip Rich 22:09

You just dive into the word. That's it. That's it. The word is the foundation for everything. Good stuff, John. But um, but on to what you were uh actually originally asking me, David. Um, I wanted to go to Hebrews 5 and for us to kind of I guess make that the launch pad for what we're talking about, because I think that it's a very, very important thing. Uh Hebrews chapter 5, and down in verse 12. If we could go down there, John. Um yeah, okay, verse 11, I think it is. He says, About this, we have much to say, and it's hard to explain since you've become dull of hearing. So the writer of Hebrews is like, I got a lot more to say about these topics, but man, I'm not even sure you can actually receive what I'm saying right now. Uh, in verse 12, for though by this time you ought to be teachers, now he's talking to believers. This this letter was written to believers. By this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food. That's probably was a hard thing to hear. Um, in verse 13. Now, one thing I wanted to point out too from verse 12, he says, you need someone to teach you again. So this is something that they have had already been taught at one time or another.

Jon Dzyuba 23:45

Yeah.

Phillip Rich 23:45

And that's probably a frustrating thing when you're a teacher and you're teaching people, and you know that you taught them X, Y, and Z, and they come back the next day and it's like they have amnesia. You know, um, it's just not catching on for whatever reason. And so in verse 13, he says, You for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness. Unskilled. Now, one translation that I read uh for that word unskilled, it meant inexperienced in terms of not having put something to the test. Uh, I think that yeah, if you can pull that up, um the strongs there where it says unskilled. Yeah, inexperienced it is in that one. If you click on that, oh not what I want.

Jon Dzyuba 24:37

When do they start doing that? Dude, don't even get me started.

Phillip Rich 24:40

I know iperos, uh inexperienced, ignorant, and let's go down a little bit further, John. Uh the exhaustive, yep, there it is. And under the helps word study, it says uh meaning not and para tested or trial. So you know how in the Greek they always have the words that uh start with an A, that A typically means not or a negative. Like even in English we do that, like apathetic means not having uh emotion or amorphous means not having a shape. You know, there's all kinds of words like that in the in the English. Uh same in the Greek, aperos means not having been tested, not having been put to the trial. Uh, and it says here in classical Greek, aperos refers to people lacking adequate skill or knowledge, and hence they fail due to their lack of familiarity and practice. He's saying you guys need milk again because you've lacked the practice of the word, you're you've lacked you, it's like you're not even familiar with it, is what he's saying. That's heavy.

Jon Dzyuba 25:56

It's almost like if you've ever gone to work out or go to the gym and you've got yourself a consistent workout going, and then you stop. I've been there before. Um get it, you cannot go back to the gym a week later, two weeks later, however long, and pick up the same weights and run the same exercises the same way you did the last time before you stopped. You'd have to start slow again because your body got comfortable without doing as much exercise. And it's the same, same concept here. Um, that's good. That's good.

Phillip Rich 26:35

Yeah, that's good, man. Um, so a lack of familiarity and a lack of practice. In other words, you have not, this is what he was telling them, you have not ever put the word personally to the test. You may have heard it, you may know it. Well, he obviously they had heard it because he said, I'm teaching you again, but they've not come to that place of actually practicing what the word says. And so that's why he gets to um verse 13. Everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness since he is a child, but solid food is for the mature. There's our word, David and John. For the mature, those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. So there's something about practicing the word and being a doer of the word, as James 1 talks about, that trains your powers of discernment. It gives you the ability to start understanding what's good versus what's not good, um, even beyond what you can read. You know, because we all know that the Bible, even though it has plenty of uh very definite and straight things that it says about what's good and what's not good, there's also a lot of gray areas that we or things we would call gray areas that maybe the Bible doesn't cover. Like, for instance, should you watch R-rated movies, that's always a big one, or should you drink wine, you know, and that kind of stuff. Um, all these kind of things people have have been confused about. But the Bible's saying here that if you are a practicer of the word and begin to train yourself to do the word over and over again, after a while, your powers of discernment get sharpened to where now you can kind of distinguish if you should pursue that thing or not, or if you should go down these types of paths or not. Um, and the Holy Spirit, he will definitely be a witness to you as to what you should be doing and what you shouldn't. Um but of course the written word is always our first guide, but then the Holy Spirit helps refine that even further as you get further along in your maturity. I know that's said a lot now. Uh, anybody else want to chime in?

Jon Dzyuba 28:46

Uh I'm gonna leave that to Mr. David. Yeah. I think you're muted again. I'm sorry.

David McIntyre 28:54

Sorry about that. No, I think that's good. Let's um let's using what Phil just read, let's define what immaturity is. And the way that the Bible frames it is that immaturity is being untrained, underdeveloped, or being untrained or underdeveloped in spiritual discernment and discipline. Being untrained, being untrained or underdeveloped in spiritual discernment and discipline, and that Hebrews 5, 13, and 14 kind of makes that plain and explains why that is, and so um having that understanding helps us to see why when we said that being an emotional Christian versus being an immature Christian, it's not the same thing. Uh, but you can I think it's probably best to say you can be immature and emotional, um, and you can be emotional as well as immature. Those things are possible. But the real the reality is is typically if you're immature, you just hadn't gotten to a certain spot yet in your life. Because there's some characteristics that are the same. You know, when you're being led by your emotions, you know, that can happen because you're immature and it can happen because you're emotional. But then when it gets down to you're unable to discern what's happening around you, that is an issue of maturity. That is not an emotional issue. You know, you may not be able to discern around you because you're so deep in your emotions, it doesn't mean you lack the maturity, it means that you are being emotionally driven in your faith, and therefore that hinders you from seeing things as you should. So we want to make sure that we have a clear distinction between those things, and then let's just walk this out, and then I think you'll see that when you work on both things together, one actually takes care of the other. Growing and being more mature actually should help you to push out emotionalism from your life. So, where you guys want to go next, we've kind of laid a good groundwork here. Um, do we want to just leave it right here for right now and then pick up next week, or do you want to add a little bit more to it?

Jon Dzyuba 31:40

Uh oh, I think Uncle Fool, you are also muted.

Phillip Rich 31:44

Look at us, man. We just we're on point side. Um, I'd like to go to Ephesians 4 because I think it'd be good to just kind of show like uh an example of what the Bible talks about when it's referring to maturity uh as a believer. And Ephesians 4 is a good place. Um, there's other ones as well, but uh this was the one that stands out to me. If we can go down, let's see here. Ephesians 4, I think it's around like maybe 20 something is uh the blah blah blah blah blah blah. Hold on, hell okay, keep going down there, John, a little bit further. Ah, there we go. Yeah, verse 25 is where it kind of starts. It says, Therefore, now here's if you want to like get a good picture of at least some basics to start with, as far as what a New Testament believer should look like, what we should act like, how we should respond to things. Here's a good place to start. And there's so much of this in the New Testament, especially in Paul's letters. Now, I mean, not to throw shade at Peter and James and John, because they they they have great stuff too. But um, but Paul has so many different times in his letters, and you can read it whether it's in Romans, Ephesians, Colossians. What he typically does, it's almost like a pattern. He'll start the letter with a doctrinal uh bent. Like he'll he'll get into a whole bunch of doctrinal statements and stuff like that. And then there's always a point in the letter where he's like, okay, now that we know this, how do we act as believers? You know, it happens over and over again. Like in Romans, it's like from chapter one to chapter 11. Then Romans 12, he starts talking about, hey, present your body as a living sacrifice. Then he goes into all that stuff. Ephesians is the same way, and and like from chapter one on into chapter, the end of chapter, well, actually midway through four here, uh, is more doctrinal based. And then he gets to the point of, okay, now let's talk about what we as believers should be doing uh to live out our faith. And here's what he says in verse 25. Therefore, having put away falsehood. So the first thing is stop lying. That's a good one. Um, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. He's like, if I'm lying again, if I'm lying to you, I'm basically lying to myself in some kind of a way. We're members of each other. Uh, verse 26 be angry and do not sin. Now, there's other ways, other translations that read a little differently, but basically saying it's not a sin to get angry, but it is a sin to act out of anger in a way that's harming other people and things like that. Be angry, but don't sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger. Man, if you're a married person, you understand that scripture very, very intimately. Um, don't let the sun go down your anger, man. Try to resolve stuff if you can, praise God. Um, and then he says in verse 27, give no opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal. So if there's people out there with a little bit of a klepto problem, uh, he's telling us, don't do that. Yeah, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. And check this out let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up. Now, this is a hard one for a lot of people. I can say I've had plenty of times where I had corrupting talk. Um, but only such as good, such as is good for building up as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear, and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. He's like, I love how that verse is tied to verse 29. So, in other, in other words, it's like the way that you talk a lot of times can lead to the Holy Spirit being grieved if you're saying a bunch of foolishness out of your mouth. Um, and then he says in verse 31, let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. As a as a mature believer, you shouldn't be holding resentment and malice towards people. That's not great. Uh verse 32, be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you. Now, these are just some things that he's giving us that show kind of the life of a New Testament believer that's operating in maturity. Here are some of the things that you should you should be putting away. Here's some things that you should be regularly doing as habits in your life. And I think this is just a good section that shows that, man. So um it isn't the complete picture, shall we say, but it's a a pretty big chunk of what uh a New Testament believer should look like who's operating in spiritual maturity.

SPEAKER_03 36:50

Yeah, that's pretty good.

Phillip Rich 36:53

David, any thoughts?

Stalled Growth And Deconstruction

David McIntyre 36:58

Actually, no. I knew it was coming to me and I had nothing. No, it's it's because I think it's good, and I think we gotta dig into that set of verses a little bit more for the benefit of you guys who are watching. Um, you know, it's really just uh, you know, we did a we did a series a little while ago, actually. I look back at it when we started, so we kind of started this podcast back in 2021. And it was the most on again, off again thing you've ever seen until about 2023, where we kind of got a little more serious about it and had less on again, off again, and then uh really we've been on it since 2025. Yeah, but um we did a series back in the day called Grow Up. Oh yeah, and it was it was it was similar in nature, but it was it it mixed more into it, but it was really about just this whole concept that we as believers, if we're not careful, we can find ourselves stuck in trying to figure out why we are where we are, and then what that can lead to is you get stuck in your growth, you don't deal with why you're stuck in your growth, you become emotional about it and start letting your emotions lead in you, and then you become an emotional Christian about it, and then the next thing you know, you're deconstructing your faith, and then you've gone off into all these other things and areas, you know. The same time you're not doing what you need to do to grow your faith and mature, you're spending time reading a bunch of other stuff. I think I shared several weeks ago the young lady who got mad at her church and said she was quitting her church and all that good stuff, and that she was also mad about the purity movement. And so, and she said it took her leaving her church to realize that uh there was more out there in the pure than than what the purity movement offered. And I told Phil that just means she went out hoeing. That's that's all it meant. You know, we we what she wrote sounded deep and spiritual, but what it really meant was I'm not pure anymore, I'm out here hoeing in these streets. Oh my god, and so when you when you're out here and now the streets are telling you what maturity looks like, you now begin to believe that because you're doing what the streets say, what other people say, following other stuff outside of God, and they're telling you you're growing, you're doing good, girl. If you sleep with a few more men, you're gonna really have an understanding of this, and you're gonna be a great partner for your husband in the future, and it's all just lies. Oh boy, she thinks she's growing because she walked away from real maturity. Wow, and we all kind of I think we'd be lying if we said none of us have ever run into places where we stopped growing.

Phillip Rich 40:28

For sure.

Jesus As God And As Man

David McIntyre 40:29

I know I have, Philip has, I imagine John has as well. We've all come to places where it seems like we've just gone stagnant, that there's just the you know, the river's dry, and we need to find another hole to water at, right? We actually see that biblically, where places that were once uh flourishing with water went dry, and God sent his prophets, he sent others into the place where there was new water. Um and so I think we're at a point in some of you, in some of your lives, where you gotta find a new water flow, you've got to find a new place where you can once again be able to drink of God's good waters and plant yourself. Remember, Psalms 1 says that we shall be like trees planted by the rivers of water, our leaves shall not wither and fade, and whatsoever we do shall prosper. And so we want to be like those trees planted by the rivers of water, not by dry land. And so we've got to really do a good job at making sure that we maintain our spiritual growth so that we can mature and become all that we're supposed to. And and I'll just I'll just take it this way. Back in the beginning, though, Philip kind of went left. Well, he went right, I don't want to say left, he went right and answered that question. But if you listen to the quality of the answer, you see that comes from a place of maturity. It comes a place of having spent time in God's word, understanding biblical concepts and so forth, and that leading to being able to give a good answer for a question that somebody has. And one of the signs of a mature Christian is that you know the Bible tells us we're always supposed to be ready in season and out of season to give an account for our faith. Yeah, and you can only do that through maturity, yeah. Yeah, that's all I got on it, Philip. I I think I am um I'm ready. I want to dig into this now. I just know that our time is at that point where we can't really dig dig like a wanna dig dig.

Phillip Rich 42:52

I know, and and it's so wild because I'm looking at the chat, and Bawar Maziri is uh like he's hitting some good questions, and I'm like, dude, man, you you caught us at an hour into this thing, and we I'd love to get more into it, but it's it's um we're kind of closing in. And I if I could just quickly address uh a couple of the things that he put in there because these are very, very common questions that we've heard.

David McIntyre 43:17

Yeah, just got me on one of them too.

Phillip Rich 43:20

So it's the you know, hunger and thirst, and he he lists the scriptural examples, fatigue and sleep, uh, saying that you know Jesus did experience hunger, he experienced thirst and fatigue and sleep. Uh, is that a God? And then he talked about the crucifixion where Jesus was spat upon, killed, and mocked uh as a God mocked, you know. Um, again, and and this is one of those things where we have to understand the mission of Jesus when he was on this earth. His mission was not to display uh to be a fully divine God who's you know got special effects and you know, earth. Wind and fire playing in the background and all this stuff like that. He came to the earth as a man. On purpose. On purpose, he came to the earth as a man. In Romans 8, it says he took upon himself the likeness of sinful flesh. Read it in Romans 8. It's in the first like four or five verses. He took upon himself the likeness of sinful flesh. And that means he took upon himself, he assumed the form of a human being who looked just like everybody else. I know that there's some paintings that show Jesus walking around with a halo over his head. That's not reality. The Bible never documents any notion that Jesus had an actual halo over his head. That was some Renaissance era stuff that they just came up with. But besides that, in Philippians 2, it says that he humbled himself and became like a man, uh, and even humbled himself to the point of dying on a cross. He did this because he was, he was, his mission and his purpose was to live the sinless life as a man so that he could pay the price for us who could never live a sinless life.

David McIntyre 45:16

Right.

Phillip Rich 45:16

That was the purpose of him coming in that form. So when he experienced hunger, he experienced thirst, he experienced all the other things you mentioned, the fatigue and so forth, uh, in Hebrews 4, I think it's verse 15 and 16, he said that Jesus did those things. He he he knows what it's like to be touched with the feeling of our infirmities because he experienced all of it just like we did, yet he did not sin. So we're we're getting to, you know, if you look at him in terms of would a God do this, would a God do that, that's not the point of what his mission was when he was on this planet. The the thing you should be looking at was look what a man can do. Look what a man did. That's the point of it, is to show how he's established the example for us to follow as men who can live under the influence of the Holy Spirit, and that can only come after you become born again.

David McIntyre 46:12

Um I add one other thing too, please do. And then Jesus took it to another level and he said this to men greater works will you do. And he wasn't talking about men being made God at that point or moving to their eternal form. He was saying, as men, greater works than I did, you'll do. I think that one of the problems here is that you have a misunderstanding of who Jesus was and why he came. Because if you better understood who he was and why he came, then you would not question the next part, which is why he was mocked and spit upon, because you say, Well, God spit upon you. Would a God do that? Well, here, let's take it to where we are right now. To this day, there are people who do not believe in Muhammad. They have burned the book. Um, even people who once did, you know, come back, or those who have refuted uh the Quran have refuted that book, they've spit on it, they've burned it, they've destroyed it. But I bet you wouldn't say that Muhammad is any less true. People didn't believe that Jesus was who he said he was. And when you don't believe somebody is who they say they are, you're willing to do all kinds of stupid stuff. And if you also would just take note of the scripture that it wasn't just the everyday people who were spitting and pulling out Jesus' hair and hitting him, it was the religious leaders. They had it in for Jesus, they didn't want Jesus. First of all, they were mad because he was stealing their crowds.

Phillip Rich 48:02

Yeah.

David McIntyre 48:02

So they had a lot of problems with Jesus, and so when they got the opportunity, they took advantage to not only accuse him, but to bruise and beat him to show that they had authority that he didn't, because they said something similar to you. If thou be the son of God, come down and remove your have call down uh angels and remove yourself from the cross. That's no different than why would you let men spit on you? You could call down angels if you were God, but he came for something greater than to remove himself from the cross, he came to save mankind like you. And so you have to come to a place where you begin to wonder and realize did Christ do what he did for just to prove that he was God, or did he do it to save a man like me in 2026 on a podcast so that I might become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus? Because if he did it for you, then you have no other option but to fall on your knees and accept Jesus as the Lord and Christ of your life. But if he was just a man who got spit on, then you haven't lost anything. But I suggest that the reason why you're here asking is because you're curious and you believe he's more than just a man.

Phillip Rich 49:31

Amen. Amen. Amen to that. And I'll say this too. Um, why was he beat? Why was he spit upon? Why was he mocked? It's right there in Isaiah 53. He was wounded for our transgressions. You know, transgression means you've you've you've gone astray and done something wrong, basically. He was bruised for our iniquities, iniquity meaning sin. He he took those those physical punishments for us. The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes, meaning the stripes when they lashed him on the back with the whip, with his stripes we are healed. So he was taking the punishment of our sins upon himself. That's the whole message of the gospel there. Um, if nothing else, I mean that's 1 Corinthians 15 in a nutshell as well. He said Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, he was buried and he was raised a third day according to the scriptures. Um, that's the gospel in a nutshell, man. And what it boils down to is you and I, as human beings, we cannot possibly pay for all the sins that we've committed. We can't pay and we can't earn our way into heaven or in in God's presence or in his sight in any kind of a way. It's just simply not gonna happen. We need supernatural assistance. That's where Jesus comes into the picture. He became that bridge between God and us. And he did it by taking the punishment that belonged to us, that we rightfully deserved. But he took it upon himself so that we could be spared that punishment. And so, of course, when that happens, you accept him as your Lord and your savior, that means everything you've done wrong, wiped out, gone. His blood takes care of that.

David McIntyre 51:20

And became sin and we who knew no righteousness would be made.

Phillip Rich 51:28

No righteousness. There you go. Praise God. Man, again, I we could spend a series of episodes on this type of thing, man. I I know we I appreciate uh appreciate you for stopping by um and and sharing the questions. I know it's probably a lot more that you have that we can't possibly answer in one podcast, but um, but but we do appreciate you, Boar, for uh stopping by and we're gonna pray for you, man. I know you may not want that or whatever, we'll find out, but we're gonna pray for you.

Jon Dzyuba 51:59

Uh I do I do want to add that like although this isn't the debative kind of podcast, um, and I don't think that's the nature of what we are trying to do here. Um I do encourage you come back next week. We're not, you know, we we're not closing any doors towards you just because of this conversation. I want to encourage you to please, you know, keep just keep an ear open, you know. Um I do I do think that a lot of these questions do have answers, and I know you have a lot to say about, you know, or a lot to ask about our you know our Jesus Christ and creation and and the nature of God. Um man, I just want to encourage you to just our doors are wide open, so please ask as many questions. We won't be able to answer everything tonight or the next night. Um, but I I do believe that this engagement and this conversation uh drives for drives us toward better understanding, uh, at least with each other. And then of course, you know, when we root it all in the word, we we get to understand God a little bit better. And then on top of that, you know, his ways are higher than ours. And so we we also have to keep in the back of my mind that we will not have every question answered, even as human beings, and there are certain things that we probably will never know until we get to meet God uh in heaven. Um so, dude, I love it. I'm personally a little excited because I just I'd love to be able to have these conversations.

Phillip Rich 53:37

Amen.

Keep The Questions Coming

Jon Dzyuba 53:38

Amen. That being said, um, I do want to say if you want to contact us, we're here on YouTube, we're here on TikTok, we're here on Rumble, Instagram, uh X. Fill in the blank, we're there. Um just look up Bible Bros and Brew. Uh listen to our podcast. We come out with these episodes every week, every Wednesday night. We record, and every Monday morning we have a fresh episode, or the previous previously live recorded episode will be coming out that following Monday. Uh, so dude, I know you're watching this now. I know you're gonna want to come back next week. I go for everybody.

Like Subscribe And Closing Prayer

Phillip Rich 54:21

Yeah. And this is our email address up there on the screen if you have any questions, suggestions, anything like that you want to um ask or even topics you'd like to see us cover. Uh all we have is the word of God. That's it, man. We're not we're not flashy, we're not, you know, uh gonna bring a lot of spectacular stuff, fireworks, and this and that. We're just gonna bring the scriptures and we try to do the best we can to rightly, as as the scripture says, rightly divide the word, which means we try to find more than one scriptural reference for something when we're giving people different information. We try to make sure that's balanced in the context of the scriptures. Um, because man, if there's one thing that can mess up a whole podcast, it's cherry picking. So we try to avoid we try to avoid that. We want to make sure that you know we're we're being thorough and sharing scriptures in context and that type of thing. Um we and we have nothing to hide, man, nothing to be afraid of or intimidated by when it comes to this stuff because the word says what it says. End of story. So um, and plus we didn't make it up, we didn't make up any of these scriptures. So um, anyway, uh I think that's it, David. I know we we're just talking now, but um, any thoughts, final thoughts as we wrap up?

David McIntyre 55:47

Hey, don't forget to like and subscribe for this podcast. We're so glad that you've joined us. Uh, have a peaceful, loving evening. Lord, let the Lord be the light of your life and just lead you forward. And then I pray he reveal himself to all of those who have lived a perfect life up until now.

Phillip Rich 56:07

Amen.

SPEAKER_03 56:15

I gotta go before I get trouble.