welcome to real Christianity a weekly show designed to help Christians know their Bible defend their faith and truly understand what it means to follow Jesus the premise is simple the culture is getting louder the church is getting flash ear but few pastors are teaching on how to live a Biblical life my name is Dale Partridge along with my incredible wife Veronica join us as we start an important conversation about what it really means to be a Christian
 welcome to real Christianity Today We Are answering two questions we're not going to be doing just a regular one topic show where we doing two questions what we talked about today we're talkin about how parents can help choose good friends for their children and Resurrection Sunday this coming Sunday is Easter Sunday and so. It'll be important to talk about resurrection and then also a mother asked Veronica a question about how to choose a good friends for your kids and I think running has got some good wisdom on that and that we've learned over the years from our parents and mentors should have taught us a lot a few things before we jumped in one is you can listen to show if you listen to it on iTunes you can also submit on Spotify or Google Play watch it on YouTube you can subscribe to our Channel there would love to have you if your regular listen to the show would love for you to leave a review on iTunes to stop the stars that would be a blessing for us and
 ratified by the Shelf I'm going to let Veronica start today and just dive into this question all star with a question and then you can answer it so pretend that I'm talking in a thirty-two-year-old woman voice how can a mother wisely put together good friends for her children all right I'm just going to start with younger children because that's the season that were in and that's what I'm most comfortable with and what I'm currently exercising and generally a child's first friends other than their siblings are the children of your own friends the parents children that you're going to be having no children in general are a reflection of their own parents so they're going to mirror their parents language their behavior and their character so I would say that when you're choosing and examining your child's friends there's a few questions that you should
 asking yourself what is your family's core values and goals for your child will who will Who they will be hanging out with help move your child towards those goals and values or will they actually hinder or even detour your child another question is who are you surround yourself with because again if you're surrounded yourself with these friends their children are likely going to be around as well around your children and how are they raising their children I know that those are a lot of questions to ask ourselves and I know that in our clothes community of friends as moms and even come together to have an intentional training time if we know that one of our kids is currently struggling or working through in an iterated sharing a few friendly or whatever as moms together
 set up a time to get together for an intentional training purpose to train our kids in those areas are kids don't necessarily know that they're there for training they think that they're just there to play and have a good time but since the moms have communicated this ahead of time they are aware and more observant of the situation and how we do your goal is to go about it one thing is like this difference between training and and disciplining like training is proactive work and discipline is reactive work and and you know what you're talkin about here is this a proactive thing we getting together and go hey Aria is really struggling with you know what you know it was just the example of sharing she's not really starting to sharing but let's just use that as an example can we go over there and put some toys in the room will have conversation and see if they can pass things back and forth and deal with that in whatever manner you want whatever is it you're looking for right exactly what you're talking about
 how having other families around you who are like-minded and have similar goals and values is key to help spring one another on in the parenting Journey friends like that or an and family are so valuable is the trusted voice speaking into your child's life that also happens to align with what you was a parent or teaching them at home
 so those are some questions I would ask yourselves especially with younger kids about that study from I don't know who told us but that kids were raised Community with like-minded adults end up having less rebellious hearts and rebellious activity at they get older because it wasn't just their parents affirming their values but it was coming from different sources of respected people in their lives as well from multiple angles are a little bit older I would say many of these principles still apply you just get to teach your child to ask themselves these questions and teach them how to go to scripture on their own to examine their specific situation with a friend some good friends of ours Angie and Isaac tolpin many of you guys have heard us talk about that before they actually did a whole podcast on this as well over at crazy as parenting
 and when I listen to that podcast there were
 couple of things there's one area that really stood out to me and it was when Isaac was sharing it they and their house they talking about so you know there's three types of friends there's friends there's Friendly's and there's front of me and because we you know in today's culture with social media especially like we just call everybody our friend like all my friends do in Southern California what you actually never met them at just a person to communicate with online but even in person acquaintances everyone just calls their from their friend but friends are genuine friends who you mesh well with you have each other's best interest at heart my friend you are accountable to and vice versa
 Friendly's are more acquaintances somebody that can turn into a friend but you know they're more of a quinces and then Frenemies are people you are friendly with but contrary to how you live I think about this like that your friends of the people you can like have fellowship with like real deep unified fellowship with on core values and yeah we all have that group of people the Bible calls for us to to have that mean the one another's is a hundred one another's in scripture in that site you're so close you can do these things to one another and then that in a second category of like yeah I know that person have the same values but we just don't have enough time to become friends yet and then yeah that last group is that these are people that you love is a Christian but at the end of the day they actually might not be saved they might walk contrary to the scripture
 you don't hate him but you could be praying for them and then another area that I thought of when I was when I heard this question was also take into account your chart your own child's personality and to be honest with yourself are they more of a leader or are they more of a follower if your child is more of a follower who they hang out with is going to make a huge impact on them and we even see that in our own children we have one that's definitely a leader in one that's more seems to be a little bit more of a follower and so I'd I'm glad that we saw this early on and you know those may change but as of now that's what it looks like but if you want to hear more on that I recommend going to check out and you and Isaac at open podcast over at greatest parenting podcast and I believe the episode I'm referencing is called don't run the parenting race alone and they get way more definite
 just to give a follower child Aura it's okay if everybody and the day yeah we have a child who he's he seems to be more of a father with his me that he can't leave his family when he's older than me that it can't be a leader in at work when I get there but his just personality is like he's more of a and he wants to come in and support as a support role and not necessarily a go-getter the way that our daughter has been and so when we pair him up with people he's going to really take on the activities of the other kids are doing where our daughter Aria if we put her out there all the other kids are going to take part in the activities that she's doing you know like you thinking about the same story that I am probably is it you walk into a room and there's five little girls and Aria walks in even if the girls are like much older than her we come back a half hour later and
 they're all playing house and re is the mom and they're all sitting down at the children like that's just how area is she just puts that she and so we need to be concerned even for other people's kids at how our daughter might lead them and that capacity so I think it's a good good point everything else because
 a deal Partridge here we hope this podcast has been a blessing to your walk with God for those that don't know real Christianity is an audio ministry under our nonprofit relearn church.org I'm telling you this because we're listener-supported podcast it takes a small team a serious amount of equipment and several hours per week to keep the show going I share this because Veronica and I want to grow the reach of the show so that it might help even more Christians mature and their understanding of God's word so if you're a regular listener to this podcast would you consider supporting us in this ministry effort we're not asking for much maybe $10 or $20 or $25 per month I promise you that your support will help us continue to get God's truth out to strengthen the body of Christ and the further the gospel if you feel led to make a donation at simply go to relearn Church. Org forward slash donate again that's relearn Church. Org forward slash donate thank you so much for your consideration
 so we're going to talk about I'm going to talk about the second question
 is about the resurrection why is it so important in lieu of you know Easter for those of you that are offended that I called in Easter I'll call Resurrection Sunday I'm just kidding but I know some people are really extensive like don't use that word we don't need to get into the details about Easter that's another podcast I probably written article or had an argument about it as well over the years but I will tell you that the resurrection is critical and I'm going to tell you why and I'm going to give you a theological argument for it and the church is heavily focused on a crucified Christ I think we have this image of the cross the Catholic church is kind of really exploded that visual emblem throughout history but theologically speaking actually saved from a crucified Christ were saved from a resurrected Christ now we need to weed them both we need at all but the reality is is like the crucifixion without the resurrection it isn't me
 the dead person on a cross but the resurrection is critical the resurrection is actually key and I want to tell you why it's so important and why the church has really celebrated and understood and recognized this as kind of the linchpin to the gospel if the resurrection doesn't doesn't occur then the whole gospel falls apart and I'll explain that to you over the next couple minutes there's three reasons why the resurrection is so critical not to listen I'll just to be clear first
 the resurrection is God's validation of Jesus is atonement oh no I'm using big words here but Jesus didn't raise himself God raised him from the dead and he did that as a validation of his ultimately his wrath was satisfied raising Jesus from the dead is is his validation the wrath of God has been satisfied with the atonement of the Lamb of the blood of Christ it was sufficient for covering our sins it was sufficient to offer forgiveness and restore Humanity like a deeper theological background of it Romans 5 9 through 10 says much more than having now been justified by his blood we have been saved from the Wrath through him first 10 for if we for if when we were enemies
 we were reconciled to God through the death of his son much more have you been reconciled we shall be saved by his life his death and Resurrection are so critical because it appeased the wrath of God that does the word in the Bible is propitiation and it's an important Christian word and the word is defined as the appeasing of the wrath of God through blood sacrifice and so Jesus is the propitiation of our sins he's he's literally appease the wrath of God
 through his blood he's made that he's paid the price that we couldn't pay on our own and 2nd Corinthians I don't know exactly Which chapter I think it's baby chapter 5 of the top my head Paul mentioned that we have a Ministry of reconciliation as Christians this is what we're here to do we're here to reconcile not through us but through Christ a rebellious Humanity against a loving God why are 211 God and that's our ministry it's like we've been reconciled so therefore we want to go help other people become reconciled to Christ through the blood of Christ enter the resurrection of Christ the third thing I want to talk about an hour so I should say the second thing cuz I was really just a break down to the first the second thing is the resurrection of Christ vindicates the events that happened on Good Friday and so just like what a tragedy because just in itself it was it was a wrongful
 accused death like even outside of the whole theological stuff just an innocent man died and so going into the logical stuff is that the resurrection vindicates that it braided restores back his life and so that's another cool point I want you to catch real quick the third thing is that one cannot be saved without the recognition and affirmation of the resurrection of Jesus and we hear that in Romans 10:9 it's pretty famous verse it says that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead you will be saved and so you can't even become a Christian according to scripture unless you not just believe in believe in Jesus not just even making him Lord but
 so believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead so you can't really divorce the resurrection from Christianity right there it's a critical part to even having faith in price so I want to look at the centerpiece discussion of the Resurrection that is found in 1st Corinthians chapter 15 and this is like the Crown Jewel of the defense of of the resurrectionist written by Paul at the end of 1st Corinthians it's a great apologetic piece of text I'm going to read it for you guys here it's verses 3 through 8 it says fried deliver to you first of all which I also received that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures and that he was buried so Step 1 Step 2 and that he rose again the third day at 3 according to the scriptures and that he was seen by cephas who is Peter then by the 12 after that he was seen by over 500 Brethren So it's talking about Christians at once of whom the greater
 heart are still remaining to the present like they're still alive go talk to him when he wrote this but some have fallen asleep the difference between falling asleep and dying are perishing is these are Christians that have that have died and not Christians are not people who are lost in perished last verse that says and after that he was seen by James then by all the apostles then last of all he was seen by me also being Paul as born as one born out of Due Time meaning the Paul was not born at the same time as the other apostles were against 1st Corinthians 15 3 through 8 now this is Paul's like logical defense
 for the death and resurrection of Christ it's he's defending this to the Corinthians anybody this challenging that there's a concern about Resurrection this is actually a really important topic to understand because it explains a really important Gap in Christian history that you got to figure out what's going on here the gap between what should have been the movement ending death of Jesus
 and the explosion of Christianity so you have like the movement ending death of Jesus like he's the leader of the movement and he dies
 what other situation in real life do you ever see the leader of the movement that's not that old I'm talking to a couple years old right and there's no internet and the leader of the movement dies which should be like the movement ending death of this movement
 but instead you don't see the death of a move it you see an explosion of the movement how do you explain that like how do you get there and that's where you got to go in and this is just good apologetic material the only reason that you could go from Death you know the L to like a historical a ruption of Christianity it literally takes over the Roman Empire like think about that it becomes eventually the sanctioned religion of Rome and Rome is actually the one that was taking part of Killing In Jesus with the with the Pharisee so like what an amazing thing to go from we're going to kill you and now adopt Christianity is the entire nations sanctions religion write a crazy thing happened to be something as incredible as like a resurrection something Miracle like that
 and that's just one of the gaps is a couple of the gaps I'll mention quickly how do you go from a l dying and then 11 of his 12 followers that he actually knew going and dying for his sick so he he dies and then we're going to go die for him unless he resurrected I just find it hard to believe for someone to go like died and I didn't just die in a group or like peer pressure or like causal loyalties could really kind of change that environment these people go historically speaking and go die independently and alone without the peer pressure like in need most terrible ways to die and so he got to look at that and go why would anybody do that and these are not stupid men they're writing letters who which show their their incredible intellect
 and so it's not like they're just
 idiots that don't know what they're doing and are just taking their lives or allowing people to kill them for for no reason because they're just not intellectually wise enough to recognize the reality that's not what's going on there thing is how do you get a man like Paul who again you know
 he's evidently sane he's written these incredible letters he's at he's a wise well-read well-trained he's a Pharisee historically he hates Christians he actually holds the coats of those people who are stoning Stephen he hates Christian how do you get this guy to then go and endure all the intense persecution seen in 2nd Corinthians 6 toning lashes shipwrecks imprisonment hatred poverty eventually going and giving his like
 being murdered are murdered I should say the same thing for his his faith how did how do you get that to happen to the Sony gaps you got to explain if you're not going to believe that Christ resurrected there's a lot of evidence there that's one kind of Park I want to talk about the second part of that scripture in 1st Corinthians going to read to you guys right now I just cuz I think it's these valuable content to defend the resurrection in in understand how important Sunday Sunday really is in terms of The Narrative of Christian theology so 1st Corinthians chapter 15 12:19 so just a few verses later there's a little gap of texts that you can read in between these two versus but all right now if Christ is preached that he has been raised from the dead how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead but if there's no resurrection of the Dead in Christ is not risen and if Christ has not risen than our preaching is empty and your face is also empty yes and we're also found false Witnesses of God because we have testified
 of God that he was that he raised it Christ whom he did not raise up if in fact that they do not rise for if not rise then Christ is Arisen and if your faith is futile you are still in your sin is! Then also those who have all fallen asleep in price have perished if in this life only we have hope in Christ we are of all men most pitiable
 okay so this is Paul McGann breaking down the chain reaction of like that if the resurrection is not true like we got a huge problem and he gets seven things and I'm going to just list them off quickly one is like never want that there's no Resurrection one there's no resurrection of the Dead if Christ has not risen and there's no resurrection of Christ if there's no resurrection of the dead because Price is Right season is logical argument to explain this phone number to he says all of Christian theology for the past two thousand years is empty and useless all of the preaching of the teaching all of the writing is empty and useless if Christ did not rise
 the third thing you said our faith is useless and in vain which is the same thing like if chrysin writes your faith is totally a waste there's nothing there there's no faith in what is what Paul's saying here if Christ did not rise the apostles are liars that's what Paul said like I'm a liar if the if Jesus did number 5 if the resurrection didn't happen we are still in our sins and under God's Wrath and we are not justified and we are not being Sanctified and we are totally
 on our on our path to damnation mean that's really what this is Saint again appointed or 6 if the resurrection didn't happen those Christians who have died following Christ they're not with the lord they're actually have perished in Hell which is another like sad reality of the Resurrection is not true the seventh thing Paul says it's Resurrection happened we Christians have terrible lives we're sitting here sacrificing all these things and and dedicated Our Lives to
 a theology that's ultimately not real if the resurrection is not true and what I want you guys to walk away with today in the short teaching of the Resurrection is that it's the linchpin to the gospel like it's connected then you take a resurrection off and it's all falling apart these seven things they all rise and fall together you know you take that it's like a domino effect Resurrection Boomin all those things happen is what Paul was saying and if you're around Christian debate
 or if you kind of look at like that the tip of the iceberg I should say the bottom of the iceberg where people are really fighting in defending the faith you'll actually realize that the enemy knows this he knows how critical the resurrection is in the first place the attack is is often had in an argument with like intellectual Minds for people that are fighting for defending the faith is in the authenticity of the Resurrection did that really happen because if they know if you could take that out the whole Domino's thing Falls over and Christianity falls apart and so that they know that you can't deny Jesus has historical existence there's too much evidence for that you know that you can't deny his crucifixion is actually too much evidence for that but if you can just bring doubt to the resurrection that's their aim that everything starts to fall apart and so it's a really important
 I'm part of the Christian Theology and I even say like it's it's the most important part I think Paul would say that yeah it's like without this Nothing Else Matters and so we need it all we need we need the crucifixion we need the resurrection about what I'm saying is that man just look at the emphasis that Paul gives here on this argument so you guys are trying to understand your theology for
 Easter and Resurrection Sunday whatever you want to call it and that you can put some more meaning into that and be able to defend the face in that capacity so
 what you think about that sounds great we talked about this forgot to actually did a message on this at church a few months ago so it was really nice to reference back these things so I think that's it for today at shorter show again it take us you know 10 minutes to answer every question that I got was like deep end of the pool question and I was like oh my gosh I could do a whole episode on these things are series or series of episodes on them so you guys were working hard to do that again thank you guys for your prayers on me writing I'm just finished the manuscript for real Christianity and I'm doing the editing process now we're making lots of progress there so I'll give you an update on that as the podcast move forward
 on that note if you guys last night would you guys like review because I keep forgetting to say that I do not say that all the time I don't forget if you guys leave a review those are really important at the end of the shows the best time to do it okay I think Christians underestimate the influence the culture can have on us I think without even noticing many of us have traded this incredible life that God wants for us for an empty counterfeit if you haven't realized the church has become comfortable with things we shouldn't be comfortable with weave normalize things in our work our marriage has our families and our finances that are not normal but the question I have for you is this what does the Bible say about what's normal what kind of life should Christians be chasing what if I told you that what's popular is it
 Superior what if I told you that what seems smart isn't actually right what if I told you that the worldview of success is actually God's definition of failure the Bible says that the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God so what if we're doing it wrong what if the lives of those who followed Jesus look more like the culture than like Christ what is the life we're so desperate to have isn't something to seek after but actually to be saved from I answer these questions in my latest book saved from success how God can free you from cultures Distortion of family work and the good life it's a short convicting bold book get your copy and hard back or audiobook at relearn church.org success again that's relearn Church. Org forward slash success
 thank you for joining us on this episode of real Christianity real Christianity is an audio Ministry of relearn church.org if you'd like more information on how to live out a Biblical life relearn church.org of Articles podcast sermons and videos to support your journey real Christianity is 100% listener-supported Ministry and if you'd like to support our efforts simply click to donate tab at relearn church.org you can also connect with both Veronica and I on Instagram Facebook and Twitter for daily lessons and Bible teachings thank you for being with us today we hope to see you next Wednesday for another episode of real Christianity