Episode #71 Featuring Colby Maier! The FAITH Episode! The impact and importance of FAITH on health, Connecting the Bible with Science, The Power of Redemption and Change and so much more!

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That's Timeline.com backslash Dylan. I assure you, your cells will thank you. All right, everybody. Welcome back to the Dylan Jamele podcast. So I say every episode because it's a fact. I'm super excited for my guest and I'm very blessed because I get to speak to all sorts of different experts in so many different fields and most everybody that I have on is really doing God's work, trying to make a difference, trying to improve health, wellness, help people to get over bad information, misguided things. Everybody is working together to make a difference. But as I've said many times, because people ask me, Dylan, what's your secret? How do you do this? It's not a secret. It's a very simple. It's a one word answer and it's an answer that everybody could easily just have if they just listen and it's God. It's God's work. It's God's guidance. It's God's grace. So that is why today's guest. For me on a personal level and hopefully for everybody else is going to be the most impactful and one that I have looked the most forward to. I'm going to try to give him the proper introduction. I don't have enough words, but he's a pastor. He's a speaker. He is the founder of the Academy of the Bible, which is a global online discipleship platform. What he does is it brings together world-class instructors to help Christians grow in biblical literacy, spiritual formation and real world application of scripture. Now my man here does quite well. He has a following of over four million across his platforms and he's known for communicating biblical teaching and his ways are super relatable. You have to watch him to see and feel and resonate with what he's saying because it hit me in a very strong way. My wife found him, sent him to me immediately and I said, I'll get him. I will get him. Don't worry because she said you got to have him on your show, but he's helping everybody to really, truly understand God and live with purpose, which can be quite difficult today. So my friends, welcome Colby Meyer. Hey Dylan, thanks for having me brother and excited for today's conversation. Big fan of what you're doing and I love the podcast. I appreciate it man. And look, I know how busy you are. I know that you're doing God's work as am I. And so we have to come together and I appreciate you taking the time with me. I know that my channel is in health and fitness, but I will argue and I'm wondering your thoughts right as we get into this. You can't have a full attainable health without some spiritual health. It's just not there. If it's in my life, if it's not God's first, then I have been lacking and miserable. And so let's correlate spirituality to health and well-being in your view and in God's view. Yeah, I mean, this is something that I think a lot of people get wrong. The Bible actually teaches that the body and the soul are integrated. This is actually, it's rooted in ancient Judaism is this idea that the body is not separate from the soul and the soul is not separate from the body. That if you take care of one, you take care of the other. In fact, Paul in New Testament talks about how your body is a temple. And so if we're to understand the body is a temple, then what's inside is sacred. So if we are abusing our temples, if we aren't taking care of our bodies, if we're living overloaded, run down, exhausted lives, our soul, our spirit, our spiritual life is going to feel the effects in a big way. And I think the scripture teaches that very plainly. Yeah, and that's kind of where I was going because I do reference that back to Paul when he talks about our body being a temple and somebody's wrecking or damaging the temple. And a lot of people, they often misconstrue the words of the Bible. As you know, it's one of the things that has I used to frustrate me now. It's like they just need help. They just need educated. But I think that's one of the ones that often amongst the many that gets misunderstood. That can mean a lot of things. And would you not agree or what are your thoughts on that has to do with how we eat, how we rest, how we work out and train? These are things we're supposed to be doing. Correct? I mean, they wouldn't be there if they weren't intended to make us help. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that, you know, you know, part of the reason we started the Academy of the Bible was to help Christians see that the Bible doesn't just speak about, you know, your spiritual formation or doesn't just speak about, you know, in a very monolithic sense, how to be a better Christian or things like that. It speaks about how to be better in every area of our lives. So how to really be a better husband or wife or a parent, how to be a better worker or, you know, whatever it is. So it's helping people understand that the scripture teaches how to improve in all these different areas of our lives, because the scripture sees the person, the whole person, as very important, you know, one idea you mentioned rest. I mean, it's very easy to just at a glance of the Old Testament and the New Testament to see this idea of rest pop up time and time and time again. It's a motif that goes back to the Old Testament when the people of God or the people of Israel, the children of Israel were slaves in Egypt. God brought them out through the Exodus. And a part of his covenant with his people was the Sabbath day, which was one day of the week. You're going to take this day completely off. Right. And for many of us in the Western world, this is like something like we're not, we're not accustomed to, like many of us, we live overloaded, exhausted, depleted lives, and we work seven days a week, 24 hours a day, we just go, go, go. But it's amazing what actually happens when we just disconnect for one day entirely and just say, Hey, I'm not going to do work today. I'm going to lay this day aside and I'm going to offer as a Sabbath, a Sabbath rest. And I've noticed productivity increase in people who do this. They're their mental and cognitive capacity increases as they practice a weekly day off, a weekly day of rest. And so this is just one example of many that I feel like to your point, scripture speaks into the Bible speaks into how holistically we can live more full, abundant lives. Yeah, I agree. You know, I, now that you say that, and this is why I love these conversations is because these can really make you reflect immediately when somebody's talking scripture to you. I'm sure you felt that multitude of times. And I've spent so much time working on correcting and adding trust, adding humility, adding, you know, more works that I'm forgetting something so basic as resting and how important that is because I've focused so much on everything else. And I'm literally going seven days a week and my mom and my wife and everybody, you know, I go give God grace every day, pray, but I don't take the full day. Right. And it's just now that you say that the utter importance and the fact that that was stressed as an actual commandment probably means to take it serious. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And a lot of people think, I mean, that they think that the Sabbath commandment was something that was relegated to the Old Testament. But we see in the New Testament that Jesus and his disciples kept a weekly Sabbath. Yeah. They, you know, the early disciples of Jesus kept the Sabbath. They took a day off and they offered it as worship to God. And so if we're to understand that, you know, taking care of our bodies, it's actually a spiritual act of worship. When we abuse our bodies or we were living, you know, restless, anxious, depleted lives, I don't think that gives God honor. I don't think that gives God glory. True. That I believe that, you know, our spiritual act of worship is how we live every day. And that includes how we take care of the thing, this, this meat suit that he gave us. Well, and you know, I spend so much time teaching people the importance of rest, the importance of sleep and yada, yada, yada. And then do you know how it is, man? Sometimes the teachers, they don't do what they teach and it's, it's rough. So, okay, let's backtrack a little bit before we get further into this. You're not very old. You're very wise. You've got a ton of knowledge. I mean, I've watched so many things that you've talked about. I've talked to you off camera. When did you feel like you were called or compelled to go down this path? What was it? What was that moment? And then what has been your, you know, just a little bit of your journey into learning and understanding and comprehension of, of what God wants from you. Yeah. Yeah. No, I grew up with a, from the youngest age possible, a little bit about my story. I grew up with a basketball in my hands. So from the age of four, I was, uh, my mom enrolled me in little dribblers. And basketball was a huge part of my life. Uh, I played on the British Columbia provincial basketball team, which is the top, top 12 high school basketball players in the province of British Columbia, Canada, and, uh, played with some players that played in the NBA, Kelly, Lenick, Tristan Thompson, Corey Joseph, just some great athletes. I played against every day, brushed shoulders with, and so I was playing at a high level. It really took me to have a catastrophic injury for me to be able to like really reassess, you know, where was my identity rooted in? Like what was, what was my worth grounded in? Was it worth in my level of, uh, performance as an athlete, my level of production, uh, what I could do on the court, or was it rooted in something that was, uh, transcendent? Is it rooted in the fact that I'm a child of God? And so I really began to wrestle with this, this question. And it led me to faith at the age of 17 years old. Uh, I was a senior in high school. I remember I was so moved after, uh, watching, uh, the, the, the story of Joseph. And there's a, there's an animation called, uh, Joseph King of Dreams. A lot of people might know Prince of Egypt was a very popular animation. I remember watching this at age of 17 and I was so moved by that story. That summer I read the Bible from front to cover. And, um, I was so moved by the words that I was reading for the first time in my life, they really came alive to me and really spoke to me in a different way that they had never spoke previously. And that was a turning point for me. I read the Bible from front to cover. I was convinced that Jesus rose from the dead on the third day, which is, which is crazy to a lot of people, but I was convinced by that, by the argument's description, by the eyewitness accounts. And I gave my life to him and said, God, I want to, I want to serve you for the rest of my days, whatever you want from me, I'm going to do it. I'm totally sold out for you. And that eventually led me to study theology and university. Still got a basketball scholarship, which was awesome, but ended up studying at a university in Alberta, Canada, and study theology there. And so one thing led to the next and I, I, I was serving at a native reserve in Alberta as a pastor there and really got to work with a lot of people on the reserve and really got hands on ministry experience. And I was like, man, this is something that I want to do for the rest of my life. I want to teach the Bible. I want to teach it how it should apply in every area of our lives. And I really want people to be filled with the hope that is in the gospel. I love it. I don't think people realize how difficult the subject matter is in theology and the depths of what you have to get into because, you know, you just look at it on the surface, it's like, well, you're just studying the Bible. I know I've seen it. It's pretty difficult. Did you find it to be difficult or how, how was it for you? Oh man, it's, it's, it's crazy. Like you're absolutely right. A lot of people think it's kind of like, oh man, you just kind of, you know, you study that. I mean, we're talking about getting into the original languages. Like we're studying the Hebrew, the Greek text. We're studying the, the Septuagint, which is the Old Testament in Greek. We're studying the syntax of the languages. I mean, so it's very technical. Uh, and the beauty of the Bible is, in my opinion, you can get as deep and into the weeds as you want, but it's also the simplicity of the message as a whole. You know, Jesus talks about time and time again, unless you become like a little child and you have that trust, like dependency and humility. The message is simple that a child can understand. And at the same time, it's so deep and so intricate that even a scholar with a PhD level in, uh, in hermeneutics and biblical languages still wrestles to understand truly and fully. So it's something that's beautiful about the message, but it's simple on the surface and as beautiful on the surface as you want to make it out to be. So you, you go to college, you study theology, you get your degree. What is your path? What, what told you what to do next? Because I mean, some people, it's just become a priest, but you, you have totally done some different things that, you know, are not really commonplace for most. And you've really turned it into a huge platform. And so I'm curious as to why and how that kind of came to be because I, you never know what the journey like this. And I, you know this and I've seen this and this is, say my words carefully here. I don't want to curse too much, but it pisses me off when I see people that take advantage of churches and religion and prey on other people. And you see it so often, especially online and people with these mega churches and things, which I want your opinion on, but this path for you, how did you, how did you really get onto it? You know, the online world, I think for a lot of people changed during COVID, uh, during the pandemic and people who formerly weren't online stepped into that space because they didn't have any other option. No, they were kind of forced by compulsion. And, uh, my case was no different. I started as a church planter here in the city of Portland. Portland was pretty, pretty locked up Portland, Oregon. I mean, the restrictions here were pretty intense as in other places in the United States, but Portland in particular, we, I mean, we couldn't gather in groups of 20, 30 people was off limits. And so we had just started our, our church plan. I literally had my core team assembled of 30 people and we were going to launch large in the city of Portland and we were going to do this big grand opening. And gather all these people from the city. And when the pandemic hit, we couldn't do any of that. But we had to totally reevaluate how we were going to connect and how we were going to reach people in the city. And for me, we started to just look at, you know, gathering outside and doing, uh, you know, gatherings in the park and just trying to be able to serve the community and meet their needs. Even when we had a global pandemic. And part of that for me was, man, how can I continue to connect with people? Even when people are in their houses, even when they're in their homes, in their living rooms, you know, how do we connect to people? And for me, the natural adoption was, uh, was social media was TikTok at the time. TikTok was kind of just taking off in 2020, 2021, really gaining popularity. And I remember I, I, I decided, you know what, I'm going to, I'm going to go for it. I'm going to start teaching the Bible on TikTok. And, uh, I think it was like my, my third or my fourth video, I did a video about the second coming of Jesus, what the Bible teaches about his second return. And this thing just blew up. It went viral. I think it got, you know, four million views in the first few days. And it was my first piece of viral content of biblical teaching. And I said, you know what, I think there might be something, there might be something here and people were saying in the comments how, you know, this was, this was a sign for them that they had grown up Christian, but they had fallen away and they really believed in the teachings of the Bible, but it never had an opportunity to really connect with them in a different way. And I think that social media, when the pandemic opened up, really enabled a lot of people to number one question, you know, why were they here? What are we doing? And you know, a lot of people were suffering from mental health. You know, a lot of people were suffering from domestic abuse during the pandemic. There was a lot of craziness that happens to people when you're cooped up like that in a home for so long and you truly can't go out. So a lot of people were looking for answers. And I believe the Bible, just a natural presentation of the Bible in its most plainest form, I think is compelling and it's healing. And it allows people to really find hope even in dark seasons and dark places. And so that was kind of the birthplace of, of my social media platform. It really happened in 2021, uh, when the pandemic came around and we've, like you said, we've grown four million plus across all our platforms, you know, YouTube and Tik Tok and Instagram and Facebook. So it's been amazing to see how God has used social media, how he's used even something like the global pandemic to really advance the good news and the teaching of scripture. I agree. I always tell people, I used to tell people there's no handbook to life. And now I tell people all the answers to life are in the Bible because they are. And you get these, well, what about math and this and that? But that's not what the, that I'm talking about here. I'm just talking about how to live and to relate certain teachings and parables in different ways and multitudes because they have several meanings. If you dig in and understand, I'm curious for you, because for me, I read the entire New Testament cover to cover like six months, but I had a study Bible. Um, the Ignatius Catholic study Bible is what I used. And so I'll read and then I go straight down to the bottom and get the full breakdown and then I'll read again, go straight down to the bottom, you know, couple chapters, but it is difficult to understand. And I think the, I personally think the biggest problem is just a misunderstanding and misinterpretation of the words and the meanings of things and people taking it out of context. What's your thoughts on that? And what's your best recommendation on how to truly learn it properly? Is that like your Academy? Is that what is its main focus? What is your thinking and guidance on that? Yeah. Yeah. No, that's a great question. I think that today there is such a plethora of different interpretations. You know, we got how many different denominations today in the world, you know, we got Methodists, Anglicans, Baptists, Catholics. We got so many different divisions or factions of Christianity. And, you know, part of that is that we have, unfortunately, a lot of us have divided over what I call, uh, non-essentials. Now, these are secondary, intersury level doctrines. These are things that like they're significant, but they're not the most important things. And when we choose to divide ourselves and fragment the body, the church over these secondary and tertiary level issues, these non-essentials, what we're really doing is we're placing the things that aren't most important and we're placing them above the things that should unite us altogether, which is, you know, that Jesus lived the perfect life that he died of felon's death. And then the third day he rose by the power and spirit of God. He rose back from death and all who put their faith in him are saved. And so this is really the core teaching. You know, the Jesus truly was the Son of God. And then he came on our behalf to offer us a sacrifice for our sins. And that should unite us, that idea, that principle that God became flesh and he died in our place so that we might live. And that's really the core teaching of scripture. You know, it's what God is doing to flip an upside down world and flip it right side back up again, you know, take all the evil and injustice that we see and to turn it to rights again through his son and through ultimately those who choose to follow him and want to do his work on earth. You know, that is how God uses us, uses people like you to really make wrong things right. And he does that through his body. So yeah, yeah, I think that there's a lot of confusion out there, but most of it Dylan is just putting things that are not as important and placing them above the most important things. And I think if we, if we were really to reassess and really in humility say, you know, are these things the most important things? You know, I think we would probably come to the consensus that no, they're not. But so often we can get kind of caught in the weeds. And I call this a theology of the edges, meaning like we, we look for things that are distinct and different. In the Bible, and we, we capitalize on those things and say, look, look at this. Look at what it teaches here. But it's like, is that the main tenor of the scripture? Is that the main theme? Is that the main just? Is that the thing that we should be amplifying or focus and attention on? And the answer is probably not. So why should we divide over it? So I'm a big believer in there's close handed issues and then there's open handed issues and the open handed things we can talk about. We can have discussion on, you know, was Jesus the son of God? Like absolutely. I believe the Bible that is so core to the teaching of scripture that that's a non-negotiable for me. So there's things like that, that I think really cause confusion and division. I totally agree. I want to ask your thoughts on this. What, what do you think? Or when you are reading and teaching the Bible about the books that were excluded. So like Sir Rock's one of my favorite books to read, but in some denominations, it's excluded. I, I know the reasoning for some in order. I'm not, I'm not to argue or debate. I'm just your thoughts on this. And do you use those? And can you explain why some don't recognize those and some do? I mean, I'm Catholic, obviously I've mentioned that multitude of times, but I, I just like to learn, man, you know, it doesn't, for me, it's, I don't like to be one that's, oh, I'm this or that. Look, I'm a son of God. I just want to learn. That's just the way I was raised and how I believe. And, you know, I like the structure and everything. And I feel like that was at the beginning, but regardless, we're here for one reason and one reason only, right? And so I want to know though, your thoughts on that because I, I really find some of the readings in there to be enthralling and very informative and stuff that I, you know, like to fall back on. So you tell me. Yeah. No, that's a, that's a great question. And a lot of people ask about, you know, how can we trust the Bible today in the way that we've received it? You know, 2000 years later, how do we know that what we're reading is in fact the original, the original text or it wasn't distorted as it was passed down. And those are great questions, you know, the books that are in the Bible. How do we know that those are the ones that should genuinely be there and are authentic? And there are a few variations between the Catholic canon and the Protestant canon in its common form today. But if you look at it as a whole, it's, it's very similar and the message is, is, is the same. So once again, I always say, look at the big picture that the scripture is painting, you know, Genesis chapter one, two and three, you have the story of the creation and Eden lost called the Garden of Eden. Right. Adam and Eve, we all, we've heard the story before they, they fell, they ate of the tree and they fell in their disobedience and we've kind of inherited that, that nature, that fallen nature. So Eden is lost in the, in the first book of the Bible. But if you look at the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation, which literally means the revealing of, or some translations, it's the apocalypse of, what's interesting there is that the very final chapters, it's Eden restored. So literally everything that happened in Genesis, God has made right again and he's restored Eden, the Garden into its rightful state, which we then, as the church or as the people of God, those who have put faith in God, we, we inherit that Eden again. And so I like to see the Bible like as a narrative. And in terms of some of these, these smaller books or some of the distinctions between the, the Catholic canon, the Protestant canon, there was a early church, a heretic, his name was Marcian. And Marcian, actually, he, he was really moved by the Gnostic teachings during his day. Gnostic teachings were really everything that's physical and everything that's spiritual, everything that's physical is evil, everything that's spiritual is, is good. And so he was really moved by this. And he also couldn't find compatibility with the God of the Old Testament, with the God of the New Testament. So he, he basically said that the, the God of the Old Testament was evil because you know, the, the different things that he observed in the Old Testament and the God in the New Testament in Jesus, his holy is good. And he didn't see them as one and the same. He saw them as separate. And so what he did was he actually took, he created the very first canon of the New Testament and Marcian removed every single reference to the Old Testament God in the New Testament. So this is huge, right? Because, you know, as you know, a lot of the New Testament is referencing the Old Testament. Yeah. Talk about how Jesus was the fulfillment of all of these promises. And it quotes verbatim, many passages from the Old Testament. And this is what Marcian, he took every reference that Paul made to the Old Testament that mentioned Yahweh or mentioned God. He literally removed entire pericapies of the Old Testament in the New Testament. Entire quotations that Paul is making. Marcian removed them from his New Testament canon. Wow. So I didn't know that. Yes. Yes. So this was the very first New Testament canon that was ever formulated. And because of this, the church said that the body of Christ came together and they said, look, we got to do something about this because this guy is beginning to compile these letters, but he's beginning to redact them and edit them. And he's not being integral to their unification with the Old Testament. And so the church was then compelled to gather the bishops together from all the different churches, from all the different regions and say, this, what books do we recognize as authoritative? What books do we recognize as having the general consensus of the Christian community being authentically Pauline or authentically from Peter, etc., etc. And so the church was moved to actually formulate a canon based on the heresy of Marcian that had come just earlier. And that's how we got our New Testament canon and Old Testament canon. It was really the church coming together and saying, we agree collectively as a consensus that these books indeed belong. These books are indeed authoritative. And you know what? A lot of people will say, I mean, there's a, there's a counselor called the counsel of Nicaea. And a lot of people will say, well, didn't they add books? You know, didn't they remove some books and then add some others? And why did they remove these ones? And the truth of the matter is, is that there were already, there was already a general consensus in the early church, in the Christian community about which books were already seen as valid. And when the councils, when the early church council came together, all they did was simply validate the general consensus of the Christian community as to which books were already seen as genuine and as Pauline or as genuinely from Peter, et cetera. So there was never really a, you know, we're going to add this one and we're going to remove this one. There was always a general consensus that these in fact are the books that belong in scripture. Wow. Man, that's enlightening because that's some stuff I did not know at all. So thanks for explaining that and breaking it down. Tell me the premise of your academy. What's the goal? What does one obtain from that? Is this something where they get certified? How long is the course? Kind of get into, I'm very curious, because it can be very difficult to find proper teaching, good schooling without having to go to theology, which is not for everybody, as you know. Some people just want to learn straight Bible or straight understanding of how to live life. And it's difficult. It's hard to find and sift through because you don't know who's selling online courses and all this crap to just try to make a buck. So can you talk about what you do and what makes it different? My whole thing with kind of when I started to get a platform on social media was a lot of my following came through short form content. And I really wanted people to dive deeper into the word, not just 90 second videos here and there. Yeah. So I wanted to build something that was going to allow people to jump in deeper. And I have, I got a Master's of Arts in New Testament studies. I've always had a very deep passion to make the Bible accessible and relevant to people's everyday life. So not just like more technical, you know, like we've been talking about the canon and these things, but more like, how can I really apply these teachings, these principles in scripture to every domain, to every arena of my life? And that is a big passion of mine. That's a big, that's something that's so, so near and dear to me is because I believe that the Bible is one of the most relevant timely books in human history. And even in the 21st century, it's still time and time and time again, touches on everyday topics, everyday aspects of our lives. Like we talked about, you know, the body and the soul and stewardship of the body of the mind, all these different elements. So I, my passion was I wanted to, to curate some of the top instructors in the Christian faith from across the world, professors, theologians, Bible teachers, pastors, and I wanted to, to bring together these top voices to teach on topics that Christians are asking, topics that, you know, believers are wrestling with, you know, from, from financial struggles to, you know, entrepreneurship, to health and wellness, to emotional healing, to apologetics and defending the Christian faith and theology, every kind of different topic. I wanted to curate the best of the best and elevate their platform and their voice, where maybe they don't have the following that I have, or maybe they don't have, you know, some of these professors, they're, they're not privy to social media and they're not online as much. I want to be able to give their voices the platform so that people that, you know, come to, come to my platforms, they can be edified and they can be encouraged by these voices that I'm like, man, you got to hear this guy. This guy's incredible. He's an amazing teacher of the word. And I want to give you access to that. So that's really what the heartbeat is. It's, we really want to make the Bible accessible, relevant and applicable to every different aspect of people's everyday lives. And I think we've, you know, we've seen a lot of success so far in doing that. And people are, seem to be enjoying it. So I think we're going to keep, keep going. How long is the, the schooling or the course or what you're teaching? How long will somebody signs up? Do they get? So we got a catalog of different courses and every, every couple of months we released new courses. So people come and they get the full access to all of our courses from emotional healing, mental health, apologetics, new testament Christianity, early testament, you know, early, early Christianity. We talk about all these different subjects and they get access to all of the courses. So they can just go through the platform as they, as they would sign up and go on the platform, they can go at their own pace. They can go as fast as they want, as slow as they want. And then we also do lives with our instructors. So people who have questions, you know, because a lot of people do, you know, they take a course and they say, man, that was helpful, but I still got questions. So we actually do live events with our instructors so they can hop on, ask their questions to the instructors, get more information and also be formed in a community, I think is so important because everybody today, you know, they're trying to do their solo prener thing and do it on their do by themselves. I believe that a big teaching of scripture is finding a community that is supportive, that is journeying alongside of you and doing it together. And so that's kind of what we're trying to build. When you're looking at the Bible and let's do what's your favorite book or the you feel is the most impactful in the Old Testament and the New Testament. I, I always go back and I find Isaiah to be just compelling in the Old Testament. I mentioned syroch and wisdom are two, but I, Isaiah just, it looks into the future so well and makes that correlation. And I find it to be just intriguing. And I've always felt Romans to be just so super impactful in such a variety of ways and obviously the regular gospels, but I'm trying to get, you know, into, into the depths here a little bit more. And you could argue that there's, there's obviously brilliance throughout the whole thing and there's so many things that you read throughout. But if you had to pick one in each, you know, new and Old Testament, what would it be for you? For me, it's like I go right away to Exodus and to, in the Old Testament and to the book of Philippians in the New Testament. And the reason I like, I think Exodus is so critical is because basically without the Exodus, the entire Old Testament collapses on itself. Isaiah and the Psalms of David and so many other books in the Old Testament reference, mention the Exodus account. And so if you remove the Exodus account, every other book in the Bible really almost collapses on itself. And the Exodus, the Old Testament writers saw it as so pivotal, as so important to the story that God was writing through his people, that they had to, they had to go back to it time and time again. And that honestly was a source of hope, of inspiration for them to endure whatever exile or whatever, you know, their exiles or Babylonian exile or under their Roman overlords during the times of Jesus. And the people of God found hope in looking back at the story of the Exodus because if God moved back then, he's going to move again today. He's going to move again in our future. So it gave them hope to keep continuing forward, despite hardships and struggles. Well, why Philippians? I'm curious. I'm drawn in particular to the Book of Philippians because there's a particular chapter of Philippians that I'm drawn to. Philippians chapter two is probably one of the most touching passages of scripture that I've read to date. We call there, there's a section in the book of Philippians chapter two. It's called, we call it the Canosis. And it's just a fancy word for, it means self-empty. And when we read Philippians two, it's all about how Christ or Jesus, he didn't consider equality with God, something to be, to be grasped, meaning like he didn't, he didn't hold onto his divine privileges as the Son of God. But in fact, he relinquished a lot of those things or he didn't, he didn't cleave onto them and he became like one of us. Yeah. You know, if you think about it, if God becomes flesh, you know, he's bound by time and space and matter. You know, he's not outside of time and space, but God is putting himself in time and space. And so he's not omnipresent. He's not everywhere at once. He's, he's, he's in a community. He, he, Jesus laid down a lot of these divine privileges so that he could meet us at our level and ultimately we could communicate with God face to face. And, and for me, that's a beautiful thing that the God of scripture, the God of the Bible is the, the embodiment of that. The truest picture that the book of Hebrews says that when we see the Son, we really see the manifest glory, the manifest radiance of God, that when we see Jesus, we really see who God is and what God, and what God represents. And you have a God of love, a God of mercy, God of compassion, a God who meets us on our level and who walks with us. And that's just a beautiful motif that, you know, if, if people were to adopt this mindset and in fact, Philippians says, have this mindset, which was in Christ, have the same mindset in you, that, you know, Christ in humility took on our form and died the death that we deserve. And it says he became a servant. And I think that's very important today because I think we live in a world that's consumed by upward mobility. You know, how, how, how fast can I rise the corporate ladder? How, how quick can I ascend in my corporation? How can I get the promotion or the advance? And those things are all fine, but I think when we look at Christ and we look at Philippians two, we see the God who wasn't consumed by upward mobility, but the God who is obsessed and focused on downward mobility by becoming, leaving heaven and coming to earth and, and serving humanity and not only serving us, but dying for us. I mean, this is, this is crazy. If you think about it, every story of ancient Greek mythology is all about man becoming a God and Christianity is one of the very, very rare instances where it's the opposite. God leaves heaven and becomes a man. And I think that, that moves me on the deepest level. That makes perfect sense, man. I love it. I love it. When I was making probably the most money and braining in and I wasn't used to it. And I was buying everything under the sun. Cars I don't need buying the entire Gucci store out. Like I literally went in there because I'd never had that kind of money. And I went in there, I bought every piece of travel, so many clothes that I never even wore because I was scared to even wear them on paper. You would look at what I had and you would say, how he's got everything. He's got everything. And Colby, man, I every night I'd go to bed, beautiful wife, beautiful home, beautiful everything. And I'd just sit there and I wonder, why do I feel like shit? Why, why do I look around? Look at all this stuff. I thought I always wanted and I just don't feel good. Like constantly and it wasn't just at bed. It would be throughout the day. It would be and then there's this hunger for more to try to appease the fact that what you have isn't doing the trick. And it's, oh, I want to buy something new. So I feel good about it for 30 seconds and then never use it. And I remember the moment I was on vacation in Florida and I was sitting out on the deck in the patio and I was just sitting there. I was listening to some music and then I stopped and I was just looking and something just hit me. And I've been going to church since I was little, right? And my whole life and I would say prayers, but it was always me asking for stuff. You know, not to be rich or anything, but just the same routine, the same thing without any real substance to any conversation whatsoever. And when I sat there and something hit me when I was looking and I don't know exactly what, but everything changed my curiosity, my heart, everything opened up. And I feel like the last three years since that happened, I've been in training to prepare me for what I was supposed to be doing the whole time and never was ready for and that the preparation was there once I realized it and started to actually listen and understand that I am absolutely nothing special, nothing at all. I'm just like everybody else. I just had a gift that I was misusing and misutilizing and not giving to everybody else because I was so caught up in Dylan and not God and not what was meant to be and what was there for. And I'm telling you, brother, like at this point, everything that I thought I wanted just comes, even though I don't, I'm not chasing it. I'm not after it. I don't care because it's not really on my mind. Well, it's on my mind is this giving back to everybody. And I'm wondering if you ever went through anything like that and how fulfilling it was to, they finally go, Oh, I've been wrong about this the whole time. And if you haven't, do you find people a lot of the times like myself that once it clicks and it hits, the whole world opens up for them? You know, we often think that the thing that things are going to satisfy us is going to be the money, the, the, the, the fame, the success, the platform or whatever it is. And when we get there, like you said, Dylan, it's just like, it feels like an empty climb. It's like a place that we, we promise is fulfillment. It promises all of these things, but we get there and we realize, man, like, is this it? Cause I still, I still don't feel, uh, I still don't feel content. I don't feel like, you know, I feel like there's something more here that I'm missing. And I, I believe that this is, this is something that's innate in all of us, that we all have this, this wiring for something beyond the material world, that there's something that we are supposed to tap into, connect to that's transcendent, that's, that's otherworldly, like, you know, it's, it's, it's built into our DNA. I think that your experience, my experience, even when I was, you know, I had come to faith 22 years old, but I was still on that, that, that grind bus where it's like, man, we're trying to, you know, just continue to work and to study and to, to get these degrees and all these things that those are all great. But at the end of the day, if, if our priority is, is not on really, you know, doing these things for him and really connecting and saying, God, I want to, I want to do these things out of love for you and out of a passion for you and a desire to serve you and serve others that I think we're always going to get there and feel, and feel, figure out that, you know, it's not, it's not worth it. I believe that, you know, every good journey in life, I believe begins with putting God first and others first, you know, God first, other second. And when we, when we kind of isolate ourselves and we try to do the, the, the lone wolf solopreneur thing and we kind of alienate family, we try to, you know, even alienate our marriages at times and we isolate ourselves and try to get and climb up this, this, this ladder only to realize that, you know, true joy and peace and contentment, I believe is in serving others and improving the quality of their lives and doing that for God and seeing people around us as those who are created in his image and likeness. And so we want to, we want to serve them. We want to honor them. We want to elevate them, their lives and improve the quality of their lives. And, you know, I think you're doing just that Dylan. I think, you know, that is this platform you have and trying to help people through health and wellness and everything you talk about is a testimony to, to your faith. Cause I believe, you know, you truly want to see people's lives improved and the quality of their lives improve. And I just want to give you props to that, man. Cause I think, I think you're doing just that. Thank you, man. I, uh, once I figured it out, what it, what it was, like, what is it? What is my gift here? What is it that I'm supposed to be doing every day? I like, I'm like planning and scheming. How am I going to help? How am I going to, like, who am I going to go after today that can help me get this message across? But you know what's, I wouldn't say it's crazy. And now I'm just starting to expect it. And when I say I expect stuff, I don't get shocked by how amazing God is anymore. I just know, you know what, because it's not, you shouldn't be shocked by what's inevitable. And what you learn is just who he is. Now I'm more, I shouldn't say I expected, I sound more ready. I'm just prepared for, okay, I got you. I understand that's today's mission. Okay. Let's, let's go. You know, because before it'd be like, wow, wow, wow. Now it's, I think when you develop trust and I will, I want your thoughts on this, I think that there's two things. I was just leaving a voice note to somebody today about this and it was, you know, trust can be the hardest thing to actually obtain because when everything's great, God's great. But when everything's bad, you either distance yourself, you get angry, you start asking questions, you know, all of this. And that's very difficult to obtain that trust. But I, another thing is actually listening and listening to what he's trying to tell you. Oftentimes when I pray, I don't shut up because I'm telling them 500,000 things going on and whatever. But what I've found is sometimes the Holy Spirit will talk through me while I'm talking out. But other times when I'm just sitting and listening and, and, uh, now when I know something's wrong, you know, just the other day I, I backed out of a business thing that could have made me a lot of money. And I told Queenie, my wife, I said, this isn't right. Something's off here. This is not what I should be doing. I'm not doing it. I don't care. She's like, don't do it. Just get away from it. You, and whatever you need will come. But that's the thing is hearing and listening and then actually doing, cause you can hear stuff and talk yourself out of it. I did that a lot all the time. Oh no. And then every single time something bad happened, every time, and I think utilizing the good and the bad and realizing that the bad was giving you as a gift to prepare you for something good that was coming is, it's, I look, I don't want anything bad to happen. I mean, everybody knows my story. I went to prison, but if that had not happened to me, I wouldn't be talking to you. I wouldn't be doing any of that. You know, I don't recommend you go learn your lesson by going to prison. Don't get me wrong, but I needed it. I deserve what I got. And it, it, it helped me get to this path. And so I wonder if you have a hard time personally, and then with others convincing them or at least explaining to them that these things, if you look what came from them, I mean, there was a purpose and a reason for it. Yes. Absolutely. You know, one of the stories I mentioned, the Joseph story in the Old Testament, his story is, you know, pretty catastrophic. He was betrayed by his brothers. He was thrown into a pit, sold into slavery in Egypt by his brothers, served in Potter's first household as a slave in Egypt, was falsely accused by Potiphar's wife, thrown into a foreign prison in a foreign country and falsely accused. You know, just when Joseph's narrative, the narrative of Joseph, it seems it can't get any worse. God restores Joseph, not only to where he was before, but actually puts him in second in command of all of Egypt, only only second to Pharaoh himself. And Joseph later on, when his family is experiencing a famine, his family comes to the land of Egypt. They leave the land of Canaan, come to the land of Egypt. And Joseph is in a position of power to be able to provide food for his family. Otherwise his family would perish. And, you know, there's a whole other tad bit in the narrative, but ultimately Joseph and his brothers come to this reconciliation moment and his brothers are saying, you'll forgive us, forgive us. And Joseph says, what you intended for evil to harm me, God intended for good for the saving of many lives. Such a powerful, powerful idea that even, you know, Paul in the New Testament says, you know, for those who love him or who are in him, right? Um, those who love God, all things work together for good, right? Those who are called, those who are those who love him. And it's, there's an amazing, amazing thing that we see in the New Testament, the Old Testament, that God can take even the most evil, heinous things, the most catastrophic things, the things that we really think were failures or missteps, that God can take all those things and redeem them and not just redeem them, but use them to catapult us toward our God given destiny. And that has been the situation that has been the case in my own life. And I've seen that to be the case in countless other people's lives, where the worst thing that could possibly happen to them became the anchor to their story that would give inspiration to thousands of others. I just had this conversation and it was like, look, cause somebody was asking me on the podcast about, do you feel like people can actually change? And it's because people will act like you can. And I said, well, if you go back and look, when Jesus was picking people, they were normally ad, so to speak, the tax collectors, but Paul was like the worst of the worst of the worst. I mean, literally, I mean, you could argue a couple of people way back in the Old Testament, but I mean, he was whacking every Christian around. I mean, I mean, he was killing them. Yeah. He was killing Christians and that was his aim. Yeah. And wouldn't you argue me? He's one of the greatest people in the Bible or made the biggest impact. Yeah. Wrote 70% of the New Testament after. Yeah. So, you know, this thing about people can't be changed or I would argue they're not really changing. They're becoming what they were meant to be and they were actually lost. I mean, I go back and I don't even remember the person that I used to be. I don't dwell on it because I know that's not what you're supposed to do. I know I've repaid God, debts to people, society, whatever. And the last thing you're supposed to do is dwell on it, but I don't remember that person because it's not who I was or meant to be. And I think people sometimes they lose that battle, you know, like they can't get past it. And I think it's guilt more than anything. So they're not bad by any stretch, but they can't get past it. And that's not what God intended for anybody. It was to repent and get over it and move forward, right? And learn from it. Am I right? Or 100% I mean, that is the gospel that we're forgiven. Right. That you put faith in Jesus for forgiveness and you are forgiven of absolved of all your moral culpability, all of your past mistakes and the belief at that moment that even those things God is using. And I may not be able to see it right now. I may kind of be looking through a, you know, through the fog, through the mist, you know, you're not sure where you're going, but ultimately that God is repurposing all of those things and somehow weaving it together with his his goodness, his faithfulness and for our good. And that's the amazing thing about, you know, walking by faith. It's literally we believe that even the worst God can still use for good and for his glory. Yeah. That has been so true. And I know in my life, you know, time and time again, when I look back and say, man, like God, I don't know how you're going to use this, but years down the line, sometimes it's right away. Sometimes it's years, sometimes it's 10 years. Sometimes it's like we're still waiting. Yeah. But every time I look back, I say, you know, go out, how God turned that around. For me, it was my season of depression and anxiety when I was 22 years old. I was I was going through a really hard season, extremely, extremely dark season, had lost some close family members in my life and other relational struggles. And I really got launched into this huge season of depression. And I remember thinking like, you know, waking up every day, just fighting for my life, fighting to stay here, right? Really be tempted just to say, I'm optin out. I'm getting out of here. I'm done with this. And God time and time again, told me that he's going to, he's going to use this for something that I can't understand right now. And looking back, how many times, you know, my videos or my platform has reached somebody who has struggled with anxiety, depression or hopelessness. And, you know, they say, man, I was thinking about taking my life, but I came across your video and it really gave me the hope to keep going. And it's that ability to connect with people, even in the way that we struggled with deeply, we couldn't connect with them. If we didn't have that same struggle, we couldn't connect with them if we didn't have that same suffering, but it's the suffering that we go through that enables us to have compassion and connection for those who go through it as well. I'm going to bring you into my world for a minute. I get put on a lot of shows and I argue, and I don't really argue, I bring up the fact to a lot of scientific experts and people, the pharmaceuticals or medicines or whatnot. And I will argue this all day long, and I could back this up, but I want your thoughts on it, is that there is a cure or a treatment or whatever was given to us for whatever was going to come across, whatever was out there. There was always something here that God put here to make sure that we could be treated for it. And he knows everything that was going to happen. He already knows everything. So I find even most pharmaceutical medications are derived from herbs or something. You know what I mean? In the ground. And so I always, I always find it strange and compelling when pharmaceutical companies or people in that kind of power in the medicine world will tell you, oh, that this doesn't work or that doesn't work when half of the stuff is derived from it. I'm not going to ask you to comment on a big farm or anything like that. I'm not going to put you on the spot, but I do want to know if you do feel what I'm saying is accurate, that God put something here to, within the earth for us to always have an answer. I absolutely agree with that. And I actually would say that most times it begins with getting our, our mind right. Like what I mean by that is our thought life. So if someone who struggles with, with mental illness, I think that there are things, supplements, natural supplements, maybe at times Western medicine. I think most often the real battle begins in the mind, it beginning with the things that we believe about ourselves, the shame, the guilt, the regret, the things that keep us living in these cycles of destructive thought patterns that really, for me at least, and I'm not saying that depression and anxiety and panic, I'm not saying it cannot be genetic. I'm not, I would never go that far because I do think there can be a predisposition to those things. But I do believe that the true battle is always in our minds and it's with the thought life that we choose to steward and adopt. And what kind of thoughts are we feeding ourselves? Like if I'm constantly, you know, the things I'm watching, listening to, if those things are, are, are growing fear and anxiety and, and all these different things. Like I'm very careful with guarding the avenues of my heart of mind. Because if I, if I know what I put in is what I'm going to get out. And if I continue to, to, you know, put in things and that's including what I eat as well. But if I can either watch things that I know aren't going to be helpful or listen to things that I know aren't going to be helpful, but I want to put positive things in my life. I want to be able to put positive voices, listen to guys like Ed and my let and, and guys like that who are building people up. Because I think that those types of voices, the more we listen to those voices, uh, the more that we listen to, you know, the teachings of scripture, the word of God, the more that it elevates the mind above our problems, our situations, and we're not defined by them, but we're actually able to overcome them. And so I'm a big believer in, like you said, there's things that God put here. Um, but there's also, I believe there's, there's ways of living and there's ways of thinking that God wants to renew and transform. That's really going to bring that abundant life. Free us from that mental, that those mental health issues. Um, and I believe so much that starts with doing it, doing it God's way. This is strange because my least favorite subject growing up was always science. And then I got this in my head that science is evil. And I had that in my head forever. And you know, everything I do now is based around science, right? Everything. And what I came to realize and understand is science is one of the most beautiful things that was created because the intricate makeup of our body, the cells, the structure, everything internally, God made that so detailed and so amazing that when I learn it now, like I'm getting goosebumps talking about it, because I know what he did and the, the depths of the makeup of who we are. Because you read the Bible and it's like God breathed into the earth and man formed and there's no detail of the, of what he actually did. It didn't take seven days for no reason. Right. There was a lot of work and effort and thought put into this. And I've seen and learn and understood now. Whoa. This is unreal. I have to learn this. I have to understand it. I have to know it all. So first I went to study cellular health, mitochondria health. Now I've realized what you were just talking about is where I'm going with this. I just enrolled for neuroscience and I'm studying the mind and how it relates to our bodies and the overall makeup and everything I'm focusing now on is the mind and the body connection. And you cannot have full blown overall health without both. Right. But then the spiritual side is the mind side of it that brings it all together. My question to you is the science side of things. Do you agree with me that that's one of the most beautiful things created when it's, when it's learned and taught right in the way it was meant to be? I think my view on it before was it was just, it's abused and it's misused and it can be misleading and misguided. But in actuality, it's one of the most beautiful things that was created because the science, it shows us the beauty of the sky, the beauty of the trees, the mountains, the ocean. I mean, that's all science, right? That's all what it correlates to. So do you agree, disagree? I want your thoughts. Oh man, I mean, I'm right. I'm right with you, man. I think a lot of people, especially we see this in the church where for years, if we look even historically how the church was almost, they were, you know, see this in the middle ages, particularly with Galileo, Copernicus, see these guys, these amazing scientists come up and they come up with these theories and the church was historically rejecting these things out of fear. Really was out of fear because, you know, they believe, well, how can we believe these things about the universe and about the world at the same time? Believe this about the Bible, about scripture. And the reality is those two things are not incompatible. They are not incompatible that, you know, actually, I believe that good science, actually amplifies the teachings of the Bible and good Bible actually amplifies the teachings of the created world of the scientific enterprises. And if you actually look at the history of the universities and the origin of the sciences, it's all rooted in, it's a byproduct of the Judeo-Christian ethos. I mean, we have universities today because of Christianity. And a lot of our values. And so that was really what birthed the sciences. And so, you know, Christianity, we make these false distinctions, false dichotomies that Christianity or some Christians believe that the science is evil or it's not compatible with their faith. And I would just say to those people, that's absolutely the furthest thing from the truth that when you study science, I'm like, wow, I'm like, how amazing is the one who created this? Is the one behind this, you know, from a cellular level to dehuman DNA to, you know, it's beauty. It's beauty in the work. And there's nothing but an intelligent design or designer behind it, I believe. That's what really gives it its beauty. So I'm right with you about that. I think that, you know, they both amplify and highlight one another. You know, in my, when you start to get, you know, this too, I'm sure you get, even regarding what you do, you get approached with everybody, wanting to sell everything under the sun and do everything when you get a big following online and everybody's coming at you left and right. And I have been so selective in everything I do and everything that I has really fallen into my lap has correlated with this and this alone. And that's why I've dedicated my studies, my time, my free time to my, the word. And then the science is here to understand because that's how I'm helping save people. I'm helping save people in two ways. One is to always bring God into the equation and let them know, you know, even if my whole episodes aren't about that, there's going to be, it's going to be touched on. And if you don't like it, I can't, you just shouldn't watch me. And secondly, then correlating and bringing all this together and teaching people the real truth about how to correlate and bring this together and piece it together and really live a healthy, full life. And I'm telling you, man, just to share between me and you and the people listening, I, I am, I may go too hard and I may need to take a rest, but I'm like, you know, when that fire is burning and you know, when you figured it out, it's hard, man. It's hard. And it, it, it, I got to tell you, it's getting to sit here and talk with you and do this and everything has not just made my day. It's made my year. And I just appreciate that the chance and opportunity to do this with you. I really do. Oh, very, very kind dealing. Well, man, thanks for having me on. I, like I said, big fan of what you're doing and bridging the world of science and you know, holistic living, healthy living, uh, and making that accessible to, to the wider population. I think that's amazing, bro. And like I said, I think what you're doing, you're, you're passionate about it. You're purpose driven and that, that comes from somewhere, you know, that comes from somewhere and, uh, yeah, thanks for having me on brother. Appreciate you. Oh yeah. All day long. Well, you, you tell everybody the best places to follow you and I'm going to link everything in the description and your course and everything, but go ahead and tell everybody where to follow, where to sign up, everything they can do. Yeah. Yeah. So they can, they can follow me on social media. I'm across all platforms, major platforms, uh, Kobe F. Meyer is my, is my handle. Um, and if they're interested in, uh, you know, looking at, uh, really growing in their understanding of scripture and how it can apply to all these different areas of their lives, uh, they can check out the, the Academy of the Bible. Dot org, um, Academy of the Bible. Dot org, and that would be a great place for them to get familiar with the platform and see what, what it offers, what it doesn't. And, um, yeah, if that's something they're interested in, we'd love to have them in the community. Awesome, man. Dude, I appreciate this so much. We should definitely probably do it again. If you have the time coming up soon here, I wanted to try to get this out before Christmas and we certainly made that happen. So maybe we can do some new year stuff too. If you're in, I w I would love to definitely have you in multitudes of times. So I appreciate the time, the conversation and everything that you're doing. I'll make sure that everybody sees you that doesn't and knows you and follows you because if they're not, they're missing out. So thank you brother. I appreciate you. Appreciate you bro. Very kind. Thank you. Awesome man. All right, everybody. Well, that wraps up another one. Stay tuned for plenty more to come. Dylan Jamelli and Colby Meyer, signing off.