Note: This is a transcript of an audio recording of a Bible study talk, lightly edited by Claude AI. Misspellings have been corrected, sentences and paragraphs have been formed for readability, scripture references have been highlighted, and banter or side conversation has been marked as such. The content and voice are those of the original speaker. Some portions were inaudible or unclear and have been rendered as faithfully as possible.

Two Systems: Matter, Spirit, and the Lordship of Christ Over All of Life

Speaker: Nathan Conkey Setting: Sunday Bible Study

Opening

[Banter and setup: The group gathers, technical issues with screen mirroring are sorted out, and children settle in. Prayer is offered for the group, for Cheryl and her family dealing with sickness, and for safe travels for family members.]

Introduction: Dirt in the Eye

You know, I was in Walmart today. I don’t know if you can relate to that or not, but I realised — I’m a little bit different. I’m a little bit different. But the issues we encounter as Christians, no matter where we are in the world, are rather similar.

Where do some of your families come from? Way back — in the old country. Does anybody know where their families come from?

[Responses from the group: Ireland, Germany, Scotland.]

All those places have been influenced throughout history by a common set of teachings. Some dead guy who’s been dead for ages and ages and ages — people still read his books. And other dead people, once living, now gone. And as a result, we have something in our eyes.

If we’ve got something in our eye, what happens? You can’t see clearly. The older folks know what a cataract is. If you can’t see right, you can end up having a smash.

So — this is a piece of stuff in our eye. What kind of stuff can we get in our eye?

[Response: Dirt.]

This is a heap of dirt. Not the way Christians think. But those dead people who taught other people, who were living and are now dead, passed these ideas down through history. All the bad ideas, essentially — they’re a little bit like this.

Review: Matter and Spirit

Can you remember anything from last week? There was a beanbag and an egg, and a little bit in between.

[Response: Matter and spirit.]

That’s right — matter and spirit. Good job. Anything else? Can you remember?

[Response: Emotions are on the bottom.]

Can you touch an emotion? No, you cannot. Emotions are here, on the spirit side. What else is the kind of thing you can’t touch that might belong up there?

[Response: Knowledge.]

Knowledge — or we might say ideas. Good job.

And what kind of stuff do we find on the matter side — stuff you can stub your toe on?

[Responses: A pickup truck, a brick, a door.]

Yes — pickup truck, brick, door. All that solid stuff. Good.

The Dirty System: The Sacred/Secular Divide

Now, in this system — the dirty system, the heap of dirt — one side was good and one was bad. Which was which?

[Response: Spirit was good and matter was bad.]

Well done. That’s exactly right.

Now, the key feature of this system is that these two realms are entirely separate. They join only at a tiny little sliver — a razor-thin connection — but they will never truly be one.

In this dirty system, what do you need to get from the material world up to the spiritual world? What sits at that narrow joining point?

[Response: A priest.]

A priest. You need a priest. And what else was there at that point?

[Responses: Bible, church/temple.]

Yes — and we might put God up at the top, since that’s what this system is trying to get you to. And we can add truth in the middle section. So: to get to God in this dirty system, who do you have to go through? A priest. Is there a special place you go to be closer to God? Church.

This is not the right way of thinking — but it moulds and shapes our thinking in certain ways, even if we don’t realise it.

The Right System: God’s World, God’s Way

Now, the good system. This little rectangle is the universe — the uni-verse.

What kind of things do we find in the universe?

[Responses: Planets, supernovas, animals, bugs, giants, angels.]

Excellent. Now — is God part of the creation?

[Initial “yes,” then correction.]

Right — why not? Because he made it. He is the Creator; he is outside the rectangle. There are two kinds of being: created being — stuff that was made — and God himself, who was never made. Did God have a start? Was there some point in the past when God began?

[Response: He was just there.]

He was just there. That is a perfect answer.

So: two systems. One has God separated from creation with a priest and a temple as the only bridge. The other has God as the sovereign Creator of all things, and his word — the Bible — sitting inside the creation, available to all.

How Do We Know God?

In the bad system, we can’t reach God directly. He is there and we are here. What could you do — run really fast and jump? No. So how does God bridge that gap?

[Response: He comes down to us. He has to reveal himself to us.]

He has to reveal himself to us. And is there a special book that exists that tells us about God?

[Response: The Bible.]

That’s correct. So — how do we get to know God? We read the Bible. Can we really understand the Bible without going through a priest in the dirty system?

[Response: No — it belongs to a different place, and we can never truly access it unless we go through the priest.]

Exactly. In this dirty system, the Bible is locked up. It belongs to the spiritual realm, and the ordinary person — living in the material realm — can never truly touch it unless they go through the priest. Someone is taking the Bible away from you. Taking away knowledge of God. No way.

But in the right system — how do you get to know God?

[Response: Read the Bible.]

Read it. And if you ask your pastor, or your mother or father, or an older brother who knows about God — they can tell you because they read it in the Bible.

And what does God have to do for us to truly know him?

[Response: He has to change our hearts.]

He has to change our hearts. I don’t have a diagram for that — but it is true.

The Ten Commandments: What Does Good Look Like?

Now, in the real world that God made, where do we go to find out what is good and what is bad?

[Response: The Bible.]

The Bible. Does anybody know the Ten Commandments? Let’s try: G-I-V-S-H-K-A-S-W-C.

[The group works through them together:]

These commandments apply to every area of life. A sloppy electrician who wires something wrong and gets someone electrocuted has broken the commandment against killing. A house-flipper who lies about rot or mould in a property has broken the commandment against bearing false witness. A fisherman who over-fishes and destroys the population is being a bad steward of creation.

Applying This to Our Callings

Now — in the dirty system, is it good to be an electrician? Bad. Why? Because it is matter. You’re working with your hands. You’ve got a truck, some ladders, wire, an impact driver. All matter. In this system, no matter how good you are, how honest, how hard you work — you can never really be good unless you hand money to the priest. You’re just dirt on the bottom of somebody’s shoe.

But in reality — are electricians good or bad?

[Response: Both.]

Right — an electrician can be good or bad, depending on how they do their work. And the standard for good work is right there in the Bible.

[Banter: Discussion of what tools an electrician needs — wire, impact driver, ladders, and a pickup truck.]

Here is the challenge for you: if you want to be an electrician, have you gone to the Bible to study what it means to be a good electrician? How should you cost the job? How should you treat the client? If you want to flip and sell houses — do you take the Bible and apply what you’ve learned to that calling?

Because, amongst other things, you will have a market advantage. You’ll be able to get better clients. You’ll eventually be able to charge more. If you apply the Bible — which is here in the creation — to your calling — which is also here in the creation — God will bless you, and you will have a good name.

You don’t have to buy a $3,000 course. It might be a good idea to do a trade course on sparking, or fishing, or whatever. But whatever you do, the Bible is for life. I would encourage you: take out a piece of paper, think about it, and start connecting the Bible to what you do. Plug it in.

The Problem in the Reformed World

[Discussion with adults in the group:]

Group member: Would you not say that in the Reformed world, that dirty model looks more like knowledge at the top rather than spirit?

Nathan: Yes — exactly right. What they often do, as part of their devotion, is they think that serving Christ means becoming better and better at getting better ideas. It’s like sharpening a pencil. You sharpen it, sharp, sharp, sharp — but you never do anything with it.

They go to conferences. They talk about ideas. The ideas float about in the air — but they’re never in front of a circuit board, at work, or dealing with a client face-to-face, applying it. So yes — it’s like juggling ideas. And they can do it. If you’re really good, you can juggle five ideas at once, or a really big idea.

But in reality, you’ve got to apply what you know from the Bible to your life — at home, as a mother, as a grandmother, as a seller of furniture. God wants to bless you in this world. God wants a witness in this world.

Vitamix your Bible into your life. Mix it in. It’s everywhere. And if it’s everywhere, you will come into contact with people more readily and speak with them more freely.

Being Called to Ministry: A Young Person’s Question

Group member: Just for the sake of argument — what if I was sitting here as a 13-year-old boy, and for the last year or so, I’d felt a burden on my heart that God might be calling me into the ministry? But I’ve just heard all of this, and now I’m worried — because in the dirty system, the priest is the bad guy. What do I do with a sense of calling to be a pastor?

Nathan: First of all — it’s not bad to be a pastor. It’s good to be a good pastor. It’s bad to be a bad pastor.

Ask your pastor about that. Ask your mother and father. Read the books about it. But also — pick something else. Pick a trade that maybe your father does, or somebody in the community does, that you think would be good — and learn that as well. Because the model we have in Scripture is sometimes bi-vocational, like what Jim does here.

I know plenty of people in ministry who have no options because they don’t have any other marketable skills. So even if God is calling you to pastor — pursue another trade as well. I think that’s pretty much vital today.

Just like Paul did. What did Paul do for a living?

[Response: He made tents.]

He made tents. He was bi-vocational. Trading and pastoring. He flipped and sold tents. He was a pastor and a tent-fash. (cf. Acts 18:3)

Group member: And it can do nothing but help you in leading a church — because the church is made up of people who are working. If you end up being a full-time paid pastor, your job is partly to identify with the people. To give them a sense that you know what they’re going through, because you’ve been there too. I’ve heard church members — not always in the best spirit — look down on a pastor who came straight from seminary and never got up at 3 a.m. to go to work. It can’t do anything but help you going down the road.

Parents Are Not Priests

Group member: One area this can apply to — especially to the younger people here — is that it’s natural, somewhat, to fall into this system and place your parents as the priests, if you’re not taught otherwise.

Your parents are not your way to God. Believing what your parents believe doesn’t make you a Christian. You don’t get to know God because you believe what your parents teach you. You have to go to the Bible, and pray, and have the Spirit of God reveal himself to you.

Your parents are great teachers and sounding boards — you bounce things off them and ask questions. But you cannot get to God through your parents’ faith. You cannot get to God through what your family believes. You have to know the Bible. You can’t place them in the priest role. You’ve got to go straight to the Bible.

It also tends to be natural to think: He doesn’t care about this area of my life. Read the Bible — he commands it. Does God care about fishing? Yes, he absolutely does. Does he care about flipping and selling houses? He absolutely cares. Because people live in houses.

For me, as someone more hands-on, it was a turning point to come to the place where I thought: Whatever my hands are doing, he cares whether it’s done well or done poorly. That’s a different frame of mind — it puts you into a space where you are supposed to be pleasing to God in everything.

The Virtue of Incompetence in the Dirty System

Nathan: In the dirty system, it is positively a virtue to be incompetent. Because after all, the “spiritual man” — the holy man in inverted commas — is not concerned about that. He has withdrawn from the world. He eats as little as possible. He chants. He stares at his navel. He wears a loincloth. He has a big beard. What is he good at?

[Response: Chanting.]

Chanting. Would you trust him to look after your children? Would you trust him to change a wheel? So in other words, the dirty system makes incompetence a virtue — because the only thing that matters is drawing near to the spiritual realm. All this earthly, material stuff is beneath you. And that implies that the more time you spend on earthly, material, useful, productive things — the worse you are.

[Response: So in that system, you’re only good if you’re focused entirely upward — which by implication makes you useless at everything down here.]

Exactly. And I know this from my own life. I lived like that for a long time, and it made me a useless person. I was born into a family where my father was a minister — faithful to his calling, a good man. But it was just the air I breathed. And you can’t see that you have that system. You can’t see it when you’re trapped inside it.

It was only through reading the Bible — and, obviously, the Holy Spirit — and reading a lot of Rushdoony as well. Gradually, little by little. And I wasted ten, twenty, thirty years of my life because of it.

Group member: But because we believe in the sovereignty of God, nothing is wasted.

Nathan: Nothing is wasted. But you can do a good thing with bad motives. I learned a lot when I was there — on the mission field, wherever I was. But I was doing it to fulfil a path that had been laid out for me. And I didn’t value my work in the world. I gave second-best for Jesus in the world — which is terrible, and which is very common, sadly.

If you don’t value something, you’re not going to put the effort in. If you have this dirty system in your head, you’ll drive toward becoming more and more “priestly” — more “spiritual” — with all your might. It’s like people who think that power and blessing and happiness are found in sin — they drive towards that goal even if it wrecks their life, because the idea is in them.

“Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” (Romans 12:2)

You are transformed by the renewing of your mind. So you’ve got to be thinking specifically about your calling. Maybe you’re a mother. Maybe you’re a house-flipper. Maybe you’re a fisherman. Maybe you’re a boy doing boy things. Take the Bible and apply it to the things you do.

If you’re driving a pickup truck — how can I drive this pickup truck to the glory of God? > “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” (1 Corinthians 10:31)

I’ll tell you a story. There’s a guy I know — George. Very smart. Photographic memory. Speaks Korean. Did a master’s degree in biology in Korean as a foreign language. Big brain. But what do you think his car looked like?

[Response: Dirty.]

Very dirty. Big lumps of dirt. Four wheels, but barely. He didn’t care about matter. He’s a Christian — but blinded by this dirty system. He’s a terrible witness in the things you can see. You’ve got to connect the Bible to everything.

Closing Remarks

Whatever you do, it doesn’t matter what it is. Start taking out a piece of paper and thinking about what you do on a daily basis — as a hat salesman, a nurse, a mother, a farmer, whatever. Apply the Word of God. Think specifically: what can I do, in obedience to the Bible, that gives me a market advantage — that gains the blessing of God?

And check your motivation. Do you really believe that what you’re doing is important? Maybe there’s a niggling thought in the back of your head: My job doesn’t matter. I wish I was doing something more “spiritual.” If so — make that connection. It will turbo-charge you.

Closing Prayer

We thank you for the ability to come together and learn about you. We thank you that you are a God who has come down to us — not a far-off deistic God who made the earth and backed off and left it to spin on its own, but a God here, actively involved in each of our lives.

You are ever-present with us. You did not leave us to figure it out on our own. You gave us your word — the Bible — that we can read and learn about you. You gave us prayer so we can talk to you. You gave us the Spirit that would lead us and guide us in that word.

We pray that each of us would avail ourselves to that. That we would read our Bibles. That children would read their Bibles each day. That we would realise what a privilege it is to have an infinite number of Bibles at our hands.

Help us to see that we can apply it to every area of our lives — in our relationships, in our jobs, in our schooling, in our church, in our community. Help us to be witnesses for you, who go out and show the world the love of Christ through the application of your word to our lives.

In Jesus’ name. Amen.

[Post-session banter: Discussion of scheduling a Saturday shooting trip, a brief conversation about mobile homes vs. RVs, and general fellowship.]

Scripture References

ReferenceCommandment / Theme
Exodus 20:3”Thou shalt have no other gods before me”
Exodus 20:4”Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image”
Exodus 20:7”Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain”
Exodus 20:8”Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy”
Exodus 20:12”Honour thy father and thy mother”
Exodus 20:13”Thou shalt not kill”
Exodus 20:14”Thou shalt not commit adultery”
Exodus 20:15”Thou shalt not steal”
Exodus 20:16”Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour”
Exodus 20:17”Thou shalt not covet”
Acts 18:3Paul’s tent-making trade (alluded to in discussion of bi-vocational ministry)
Romans 12:2”Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind”
1 Corinthians 10:31”Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God”