I went back and listen to the last few episodes of this podcast, and I noted something,

and I thought I should start today by speaking to, I guess, the tone of those last few

conversations.

I could see how it would feel to somebody listening to this, like I've maybe had out the big giant oversized clown hammer

of forceful argumentation of late,

the kind of clown hammer that has like the big long stick with two hands

and the head of the hammer is like the size of a watermelon.

And when you whack it on things,

it makes like bongy, honky sounds and stuff.

It might feel like I've been swinging

the clown hammer of forceful argumentation quite a bit here toward the end of Galatians, too,

on this issue of there being two proposed ways to have right standing before God, with one of those

ways being the way you get most things in life, that being human effort

and by doing stuff, and the other of those two ways being through no effort of your own,

but by receiving right standing with God as a gift from Christ paid for by Christ. And I just wanted to do a little bit of relational maintenance

here and say that if it has come off that way like I think that the first of those two options

is a losing proposition and does not work in any way and if it's come off like I'm saying that anybody

who would tell you that that first way of having right standing with God is wrong and that the

only right way to have right standing with God is by the gracious gift of Christ, if I have

come off that way really forcefully, then I have come off exactly how I meant to,

wielding bigly and loudly my clown hammer of forceful argumentation because I am 100% with

Paul on this issue. You who have hung out with me for a long time, you know that sometimes

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