Shannon Popkin (00:02) Well, I’m so excited to have Champ Thornton here joining us today. Champ is a PhD from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He’s the director of Children and Family Resources at Crossway and the author of a whole bunch of books for families and kids. He and his wife Robin live in Delaware with their three kids. Champ, welcome. It’s so great to have you.

Champ Thornton (00:29) Thanks, Shannon. It’s great to be with you here on your podcast.

Shannon Popkin (00:31) Thank you. I got to be a guest on your podcast. in the word, on the go. And we looked at like a Bible verse per episode, right? And it was just real, it was like 10 minutes, you know, in the car with your kids. And yeah, it was great. Is it still active, available?

Champ Thornton (00:36) Yes!

That’s right. That’s right.

One verse, pretend.

It’s still

out there, but I’m not recording any episodes at the moment.

Shannon Popkin (00:53) Yeah, well, it’s a

treasure trove, so you can go find it. It’s still available. And you and I have a mutual friend, Chris Bronze.

Champ Thornton (01:01) Yes, that’s right. That’s how we met.

Shannon Popkin (01:04) Yep. And he’s writing a new book with Crossway, right? Excited about that. Yeah.

Champ Thornton (01:06) Yes, it’s about, he wrote previously a book on forgiveness and this is

in many ways a follow up on the topic of repentance. It’s be good.

Shannon Popkin (01:13) Yes, yeah,

I reference, well, I got to endorse Unpacking Forgiveness. was like the first time I’d ever been, you know, I hadn’t written any books yet at that point, so super big honor to be, to endorse that, but I reference that book all the time. It was really life-changing for me, and I have no doubt that the repentance one will be as well.

Champ Thornton (01:35) Yeah, Chris is

such a great scholar, then also just such a warmhearted and wise pastor. So what he writes is just a treasure.

Shannon Popkin (01:38) Yes, he is. Yep.

Yeah, he’s a blessing for sure. So we’re here though to talk about your new book, 10 questions about salvation and champ. mean, I so appreciate the way that you can take the complexities of theology and make them simple enough even for kids and yet not

cut away all of the important things that we need to know. you are really gifted that way. So thankful for these gifts that God has given you. tell us who this book is for.

Champ Thornton (02:12) Yeah, so this is for eight to 14 year olds. So we’re talking like late elementary, upper elementary and middle school aged kids, even into the teen years. And this is something that parents or grandparents could give to kids of that age and they could use for their own time in the word on most mornings or that families could use together for their Bible time, whether it’s in the morning, you know, before kids go to school or, you know, in the evenings after dinner.

So I feel like it’s got a number of ways that it can be used, but I think it’s definitely for those upper elementary, middle school years especially.

Shannon Popkin (02:48) Yeah, I think it’s, I bought a copy just to have on my shelf. Okay, here’s the secret. I like to have children’s resources on my shelf because when I’m writing for adults, I mean, if you can’t explain it to a kid, you really can’t explain it. And so having these, you know, I have a number of children’s resources on my shelf just for my own benefit. And so, I mean, I bought this because sometimes it is hard to put things into

Champ Thornton (03:05) Yeah.

Shannon Popkin (03:17) an explanation that is simple enough that it doesn’t overwhelm, right? And so you have done that masterfully here. So I think whatever age kids you’ve got, or if you’re teaching other people, this is a great resource. But yeah, I love the idea of doing it together as a family, reading it and yet

I would get, I would definitely give this to my middle schooler. It took me, I mean, I don’t know how long it would take them, but it took me like two minutes to read one of the lessons. And yet it’s packed full. Like you could have some really great conversations.

Champ Thornton (03:48) Yeah, that’s a lot of the goals right for moms and dads is like, what are ways to get beyond how was your day and the answer is like, fine, what did you do stuff, you know, so to be able to have conversations that can go a little further than that, that’s always a win.

Shannon Popkin (03:58) Mm-hmm.

Well, and what could be more important to talk to your kids about than salvation? You know, it’s the most important topic. Like there is nothing more important that we could be talking to them about. And yet I think some of us struggle with how to approach the subject, how to not, I don’t know, how to not be playing into emotions when we’re talking about salvation, judgment, hell, those sorts of things. But we want, you know, we want to give our kids the truth. ⁓ I think I,

could have used this book when I was raising my kids. I think I struggled with that, giving clarity but not manipulating an outcome or response. tell me just real quickly, what was the hardest part to write for this one?

Champ Thornton (04:49) Oh, the writing. I mean, it’s always the hard part, right? Is the writing. you know, in many ways, this book comes out of my own experiences. So, you know, when I was in elementary school, middle school, I I struggled with assurance. Am I really a Christian? And how do you know? And these kinds of things. And so, I mean, there’s in many ways, this was a new topic in my writing, right? In other ways, this is something I’ve been thinking about for a long, time.

And I hope that things that I have found helpful in my own walk with the Lord that people have pointed me to over the years is something that I could then turn around and help others who might be having questions about the same kinds of things. And, ⁓ you know, we don’t want to be manipulative as parents to say like, here, you you need to trust Jesus and then you kind of put on the sales pitch and all that. But the reality is.

To me, the real aha moment, right, when it comes to thinking about your kids and salvation is thinking about the place of faith and repentance in the Christian life. So, you know, we think like, what are the elements of conversion? So Jesus says, you know, the kingdom of heaven is at hand, repent and believe the good news. So those are the two sides of the same coin, right, of conversion of I turn from my sin and I turn to Jesus as my rescuer and king. And, you know, that’s how you become a Christian. You are

You know, as Paul said in Thessalonians, you know, they turn from idols to the living and true God. So these two elements, it’s throughout the book of Acts, it’s in the gospels, it’s in the epistles. And, but then the truth of the matter is, mean, we all know this instinctively as Christians, like this is the bread and butter of our Christian life. I mean, we’re always, if we’re walking with Jesus, we’re always throughout the day repenting of our sin and turning to Jesus.

Shannon Popkin (06:39) Mm-hmm. ⁓

Champ Thornton (06:39) and saying, I was

wrong and you’re right and please forgive me. And, you know, this is how we roll. That’s how Martin Luther started off the 95 Theses, right? Saying this, repentance is something that isn’t something you do occasionally, but this is something that, you know, is just part of the Christian life is one of repentance. And so everyone should go by Chris Brown’s book, like we were just talking about. ⁓ But the reality is, is it really doesn’t matter for my kids.

Shannon Popkin (06:56) Right, right.

Yes.

Champ Thornton (07:08) whether there’s sort of this very first moment, okay, so you’ve been at my house for four years, but now you’re going to turn to Jesus in faith and repentance. Here we go. It’s like, I should be telling my kids this from the time they’re able to understand my words. It’s like, you disobeyed mom and dad, that’s disobeying Jesus because he said to obey your parents. So we need to go to him and repent of our sins and tell him we’re sorry and ask him to forgive our sins because he died on the cross for us to forgive us our sins.

Shannon Popkin (07:14) you

Champ Thornton (07:36) And so this should be part of normal conversation. the reality is probably if we’re doing that, our kids are gonna have no memory of the very first time they did this, right? but it, yeah, I think so. It’s like, so it doesn’t really matter if what they remember is the 107th time they’ve actually done it or, know, and who’s, mean, conversion is a,

Shannon Popkin (07:48) Wow, that takes some pressure off, think, you know?

Yeah.

Champ Thornton (08:03) It’s an event, right? That one moment someone’s in the kingdom of darkness and the next moment they’re in the kingdom of his beloved son, right? So it is an event, regeneration, conversion. ⁓ But we don’t know when that is. You my perception of that may not be as instantaneous. It just may be that over time I’m like, yeah, I’m a Christian, but I may not realize exactly when I went from darkness to light, but I’m definitely at this point I’m in the kingdom of God.

Shannon Popkin (08:26) Yeah.

Yeah, I do remember ⁓ with each of my kids, was different, but one of them had a very pronounced change and it was really ⁓ like that repentance factor because he really was just trying to get away with things before. And then I remember having, don’t remember exactly how the conversation unfolded, but I do remember the next day at lunch, he had taken something off of his brother’s plate and he,

was like, it was just this new realization. And so I noticed a change in him, just a tender heartedness toward his sin rather than just trying to get away with things. It gave me great encouragement to see that in him. Yeah. But I remember ⁓ as a kid, like,

Champ Thornton (08:57) Yes.

Phrase again.

Super encouraging.

Shannon Popkin (09:14) ⁓ My uncle was not a believer. And so every night we would, were you one of those families that would get on your knees and pray, champ?

Champ Thornton (09:24) No, not usually.

Shannon Popkin (09:25) Okay, our family was one that we would get on our knees and pray and we went from youngest to oldest. And like one of our family jokes is that sometimes when it was my dad’s turn, you had to nudge him. Sorry, dad, if you’re listening, but yeah, no, he would, you know, and in prayer. Yes, yes, yes. Which I totally can relate to at this point in my life. But anyway, every night I just remember us being on our knees and praying for my uncle Kenny because he was not a believer.

Champ Thornton (09:37) Yeah.

Get a little too comfortable there, right?

Shannon Popkin (09:55) And that, I think more than anything else, raised all of these questions in my heart about, well, then what happens if someone’s not a believer and why, like, why isn’t he a believer and what’s God gonna do about it? And ⁓ just kind of wrestling with, like, this doesn’t seem fair. I love my Uncle Kenny.

and I want him in heaven with me. ⁓ And just questions about, what is hell and how does this? And from a very young age, like God gripped my heart with the salvation story. My mom remembers me on the front porch preaching to the neighbor kids about hell. She had to come out because my sister was terrorized. She was only two. So she had to like, you know, put a stop to all this. from an early age, I remember wrestling with

the question of hell and like judgment. And so you said in your book that we can start wherever we want. So I was hoping that we could talk about that

What words of advice do you have talking about judgment and mercy with children?

Champ Thornton (11:01) So depending on the age of the child, right? We are sometimes talking about the topic of how is this fair, like in a global context, like all around the world in any situation. And those are very kind of technical, difficult questions to answer. But sometimes questions of judgment are more localized and personal. Like I’m feeling guilty and I feel like I’ve realized I’ve…

disobeyed Jesus and I’ve disobeyed mom and dad. I’ve disobeyed the Bible. Not just in my actions, but in my heart. You know, and I’m like your son. He all of a sudden, he was aware like, I’m a sinner. ⁓ And so sometimes judgment’s more of personal conversation. So I feel like depending on the question that the child is asking, we’re, we have different, a whole different kind of conversation.

Shannon Popkin (11:52) Well, and I think even for adults, we can blur the two. Are we talking about judgment like we just had tornadoes in our area? Is this God’s judgment? Or are we talking about something beyond that? Let’s define our terms. What is God’s judgment? What are we talking about when we say saved? Saved from what?

Champ Thornton (12:12) Yeah. So I think if, so here I am, I’m in my living room. It’s after dinner. the conversation would be something like, okay, so we’ve had tornadoes and you asked a good question about, this a sign of God’s judgment?

And to get an idea of how to answer that question, we actually have to back up and say, well, this is not how God designed the world originally, right? So back in the Garden of Eden, there was no pain and no catastrophe and no sin and all these things, whether it’s cancer or whether it’s a tornado.

whether it’s someone who just is living independently of God and worshiping a false God or denying that there is a God, all those things happened after Adam and Eve sinned. And so it would be the most cruel thing of all is if God had let everything go on as if nothing bad had happened, as if Adam and Eve had not sinned and had given us no clues that something is truly deeply broken in the fabric of the universe.

And so he has said, yes, there’s going to be pain. There’s going be pain when people go off to work. There’s going to be pain when babies are born. There’s pain in relationships. And ultimately pain is going to end in death for every person. And so God has given us these pain points to remind us, hey, something else is broken here. What do think that brokenness is? And they would say, ⁓ your relationship with Jesus? I’d say, yes, that’s exactly right. And so is, does this mean this tornado?

that the people whose houses got destroyed or this person who ended up in the hospital, that they were especially bad or that God’s judging them in particular. Well, the Bible would say not necessarily, but it would say that it is a warning to all of us that we need to be aware that something is deeply broken in the universe and we need to deal with that. So we can look at the tornado, but then look inside our own hearts and say, ⁓ are we…

Shannon Popkin (14:05) Hmm.

Champ Thornton (14:12) putting ourselves under the authority of Jesus. Is he our King and our rescuer or are we living with ourself as our King?

Shannon Popkin (14:19) That’s good. So you’ve divided this book into 10 questions and question number eight is if God is loving and powerful, why doesn’t he just save everybody? And so if he’s the king and he has that power and he’s a good king

what about those who are excluded? And I love, Champ, the way that you open this chapter with talking about a Google search and like, how do you do a Google search? Well, you just type the question in and it gives you the answer. Well, that as the user, that’s true. But as the backend of Google with this complexity with code and all this, well, that is not the answer to that question. So.

Champ Thornton (14:54) Right.

Shannon Popkin (15:01) Yeah, this is a complex question of why doesn’t God save everyone? And just give us a little summary of how you answered that. in this chapter?

Champ Thornton (15:13) So

it’s a really great question. I remember one time reading when I was in seminary, a systematic theology, and he was talking about how the Bible talks in terms of phenomenology. So phenomenon. It often will speak about the way we observe things. So it might say that ⁓ the sun rises. We talk this way, right? The sun rises. Well, mean, that’s the phenomenon we observe, right? We all know in modern day, and they probably knew back then, that we were.

Shannon Popkin (15:39) Okay. Yeah.

Champ Thornton (15:43) around the Sun, but that’s not how we talk about it. So it’s not incorrect, it’s just there’s more to the story, right? And so in some ways you can think of that phenomenon is like you’re in the driver’s seat behind the wheel, you’re looking through the windshield, you’re seeing how, you know, if someone said, do you drive a car? It’s like, well, you get in, you put the key in, turn, you go through the step, say drive a car. Our two youngest are getting ready, and the twins are getting ready to go to driver’s ed. So they’re gonna be going through all these things, right?

Shannon Popkin (16:10) Mm-hmm.

Champ Thornton (16:11) but they’re not gonna be learning about necessarily how to fix the engine. So it’s like, how does a car go? Well, you turn it on with the key. Well, there’s another way of answering that question, but it’s a lot more complex. It’s like, well, there’s fuel and oxygen and a spark that ignites it. There’s internal combustion engine and the carburetor and all the things, which I don’t have a clue about all that. And the Bible will talk about both. So some passages in the Bible are very much behind the wheel. This is how…

you like the phenomenon of life, right? But then sometimes we’re into that’s behind the wheel. Yeah, exactly. And then sometimes especially maybe in Paul, or some of the teachings of Jesus, it’s like they pop the hood and go, okay, see this, that’s the carburetor. It’s pretty complex, isn’t it? And then the hood gets shut. And you’re like, how did that work again? You know, it’s it’s more detailed. And theologians and Bible scholars will spend time

Shannon Popkin (16:44) Like repent, repent and believe that’s like behind the wheel. Like this is how you, this is how it works, right?

Champ Thornton (17:10) poking around the engine and trying to figure out exactly how it works. And there’s parts of it that are helpfully explained and parts that are like, wow, I’m not entirely sure I know. But what the Bible’s really clear about is the behind the wheel. So if someone said, is it really fair that God doesn’t save everybody? So there are under the hood Google coding kind of questions, right? And then there are questions. There’s a reply that says, well,

He said that whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. So I may not be able to answer all your questions, but the most important question is, have you turned to the Lord? And so I feel like there’s some helpful ways parents can ⁓ talk to their kids when they approach it in a lot of the ways that the Bible approaches it, which is on a phenomenological level.

Shannon Popkin (18:00) That’s really good. I like that. You also talked a little bit about the desire for judgment. We have a sense of justice. We would not be OK if someone, like if our mom got killed by a drunk driver and nothing happened. If the judge did nothing, that wouldn’t be OK. And when we’re talking about judgment, this whole series, we’re talking about judgment and mercy.

And so some of the time we’re talking about judging each other for right and wrong, but ultimately we defer to the judge who is overall and will ultimately judge ⁓ all people for all time. ⁓ But helping a child understand why that judgment is right and good, why is it good that we have a judge and he does judge.

It’s like, well, what if we didn’t have a judge? What if we had to deal with all the injustices of the world and there was no one who either could or would set things right? Well, that doesn’t feel good either. Intuitively, we know that that isn’t right. so ⁓ you opened your, I think it was the third lesson in this chapter, ⁓ talking about like, okay, there’s these movies where you get three wishes.

And you rightly said, well, if it was me, I would ask for unlimited wishes. ⁓ But then you talked about how these wishes, these people in these movies that get the wishes, it just creates turmoil. And that’s in real life too. So people having free will, getting to choose their own wishes creates…

Champ Thornton (19:30) Well, of course, right? That’s, that’s.

Shannon Popkin (19:50) you know, this this havoc and then you pointed us to the story of Pharaoh with the Exodus. So how is that? And this this is exactly what we do here on Live Like It’s True. We talk about a story of the Bible and we won’t unpack it the way that we usually do. embedded in these stories are these, you know, these tangible truths that you can’t rearrange them. They are what they are. You know, the fact is Pharaoh ⁓

his heart was hardened and the text says both that Pharaoh hardened his heart and God hardened his heart. And so how does that help us with this, you know, this idea of free will and judgment?

Champ Thornton (20:35) Yes, in some ways, I want to challenge even what we mean when we say free will. So.

In many ways, people use the term free will to mean that humans are responsible, that when they do something, they are actually held responsible and accountable for their actions. but the reality is, I mean, Erasmus wrote a book years back in the days of the Reformation called The Freedom of the Will. And then Luther came around and wrote The Bondage of the Will because the contention is, that my will is never free.

I’m always bound by my heart, by my desires. The heart wants what it wants, right? So you know, if you hate broccoli or you hate spinach, you can make yourself eat it, but you can’t make yourself like it, right? Because, you know, you can maybe control some of your actions, but you can’t necessarily, like, if it’s gross to you, it’s gross to you, right? But God can do that. And so when he comes and changes our hearts,

He is, ⁓ he’s changing us so that we want him. God is coming in and doing that work of regeneration. We turn to Jesus. And ⁓ so it’s always a work of God in our hearts. And if you say, well, I’m not sure I believe that. I mean, is that really true? Then I would just simply say, I think we all instinctively operate with that kind of approach. And that is,

that, I mean, you pray for your uncle Kenny to be saved. So if God has no control in that, if God’s like, well, I’d like to help, but his heart is what it is, sorry, then, you know, why would we pray? Right? So again, I just kind of want to say like, you know, behind the wheel, we pray, we know that God is powerful and it doesn’t, you know, then it just raises other questions. Well, how does that work? And what about this? And what about that? That’s fine. But God is powerful in salvation.

Shannon Popkin (22:15) Then why would we pray for him, right? Yeah.

Champ Thornton (22:34) And then we just move the questions that we have to other areas. But it’s really clear when we go like to Acts chapter four that Jesus, mean, Peter is preaching about the crucifixion of Jesus. And he says, this is what God has always planned. And yet you crucified him with lawless hands. You know, you are guilty. So all at the same time, God is standing behind what happened. horrendous crime is the crucifixion of the son of God.

And these people are truly guilty. And I love how J.I. Packer says it is like basically we’re talking about is God is king. He’s sovereign. can he organizes and does as he pleases even over men’s hearts. And he’s also a judge. Because when people sin it is they are rightly judged for their actions. They’re accountable. So in many ways the hard the problem here isn’t between you know in this kind of debate and issue isn’t.

Is it true because both he is both king and judge that real issue is that I just it’s beyond my mind Like how do I and how do I understand all this down to the bottom of of it and we don’t? So when you go to the book of Exodus and talk about Pharaoh back to your original question ⁓ off the free will ⁓ Excursus there the detour ⁓ What we see in the beginning is God tells Moses I will harden Pharaoh’s heart This is part of God’s plan from the beginning

Shannon Popkin (24:04) Yeah, before he even goes to Pharaoh,

Champ Thornton (24:04) Yes.

And it says the first there’s a whole bunch of times it talks about Pharaoh’s heart hardening, right? Being hard. Something’s happening with his heart. And the first handful of times it’s either fair. It says Pharaoh hardened his heart or it says Pharaoh’s heart was hardened. And we just kind of go like, who did that? It doesn’t state it right.

And then eventually at some point there’s a shift and then it starts talking about and God hardened Pharaoh’s heart and God hardened Pharaoh’s heart and God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. So however we want to kind of understand the fact that God said this is what he was going to do from the beginning from in real life, you know, live action. What’s going on is Pharaoh was definitely involved, especially at the beginning. And then, you know, there are other passages of scripture that just talk about how God gave them over to their desires.

And so it seems like, you know, there’s more to the story than this because God’s involved from before it even began. But, you know, on a behind the steering wheel approach, what’s going on is when we continue to sin against the Lord, when unbelievers are resisting him, sometimes he just lets them have what they want. You know, they think, here’s my three wishes. like, wow, that makes for a lot of chaos and a lot of trouble.

Shannon Popkin (25:21) Yeah, yeah, there’s your wishes and there’s what you got. Yeah, that’s helpful to say, to notice that Pharaoh wanted to harden his own heart. That’s what he wanted. He did not wanna let these slaves go. He wanted to keep them and God would send this plague and he’d get miserable enough to say like, get out. But then he’d retract that as soon as the plague was retracted. Well, then he wanted…

Champ Thornton (25:41) Right.

Shannon Popkin (25:47) to keep them. And so he chose to harden his own heart and then God gave him what he wanted. And isn’t that to some degree true of all unbelievers? It’s like God is, he is available. He is, has done everything to make the path to salvation available to all of us. And yet,

It is, God gives us what we want, which is a really wrong want. It’s a corrupt want, and it’s so sad.

Champ Thornton (26:21) Yeah, and I mean, I could hear, like, I’m sure we’ve had these conversations in our family when our kids were younger, but this kind of thing comes up and someone says, well, what about me? You know, did I, have I, you know, kind of like cross that line and, you know, I want to be saved, but what if it’s not for me? And, you know, or, you know, you might say in more grown up terms, right? Am I one of the elect, right?

And John 6 is so helpful because Jesus says in John chapter 6, that the Father gives to me will come to me. Wow. Okay. Now that’s kind of like God picks who he picks. Right? And then he says, the next half of the verse, and ⁓ everyone who comes to me, no one who comes to me will be cast out. And so those two halves go together so beautifully that I want to say to my six-year-old who says, ⁓ you know,

Shannon Popkin (26:59) Yeah.

Champ Thornton (27:16) Am I part of God’s people? It’s like, you come to Jesus, you are. And what do you know? That God is the Father, has given you as one of his people to his son. So, you know, no one who really wants Jesus is going to be turned away.

Shannon Popkin (27:33) Yeah, I remember one of my friends wrestling with assurance of salvation. She’s an adult and she’s just as like, what if I am not one of the elect? What if, what if, what if? And finally, our pastor, she just go with her questions and he just said to her, you know what? You are one of the elect because you’re worried about this. It’s evidence that you, yeah, so just let’s this to rest. You are, right.

Champ Thornton (27:54) Yes, that’s great.

Shannon Popkin (28:01) and the very fact that you’re concerned about this because those, it’s like you said, people who refuse to repent, they don’t want to repent and God gives them what they want. And so those of us who want salvation, there’s none that he turns away, not one. ⁓ And that is such an encouragement and a blessing. So one of the questions that we often talk about on Live Like It’s True is like, what’s surprising about this story?

And in your chapter, you talked about, know, should we be surprised that God does let some people be judged in hell? Is that like, how do you respond to that question of is that surprising that God would?

Champ Thornton (28:50) Yeah, so I feel like the way if, so here’s my kids, they’re 10, 11 years old, we’re talking about this. And they say, you know, is it really, I mean, God sends people to hell? I mean, that’s how do I deal with that? I was like, you know, what’s really the most astounding thing is that God would let anybody into heaven. And because we’re sinners, our perspective is that we think too highly of ourselves and we don’t see things from God’s perspective. And but the reality is like the

Shannon Popkin (29:14) Yeah.

Champ Thornton (29:20) the kingdoms of one, our own selfish kingdoms that we try to construct for ourselves and we want to live in, they’re terrible places to live. Right. Just turn on the news and you’ll and there’s a story after story of not just like how people are bad, but how it’s not just evil, but like terrible. Right. Those things just always go hand in hand. And, you know, in some ways, like how kind of the Lord to say, no, you know, I’m going to. There’s a

Shannon Popkin (29:28) Right.

Yeah.

Champ Thornton (29:49) A long time ago, I think it was a Puritan Jeremy Taylor who said, God threatens terrible things if we will not be happy. You know, he threatens us with all sorts of judgment, legitimate judgment, because we don’t realize how bad a world we’re living in, how bad our own kingdoms are, how bad our own way is, our own sin is. And so in his kindness, he lets us know.

Shannon Popkin (30:02) Hmm.

Yeah,

it’s like what you said at the beginning of what if after Adam and Eve sinned, there were no repercussions and he just let them live with no consequences. That would be really misleading. It would be hard for us to recognize how bad sin is if there were no judgments, if there were no consequences. So what was that quote one more time?

Champ Thornton (30:43) ⁓ something like God threatens terrible things if his people will not be happy.

Shannon Popkin (30:48) Wow, that’s a really interesting way to put it. Because he has, you know, his mercy is so rich and he has such good design for us. you we have to, we can’t slice off the end of the story because there is redemption, there is new earth coming, there is life eternal, there is no more tears, no more tornadoes, you know, no more drunk drivers, no more any of that. And we will be.

fully happy. That’s his design for us.

Champ Thornton (31:20) Yes.

Yeah, he doesn’t want us to be content with, you know, less than him kind of happiness, right? So that’s the kind of happiness is he’s threatening us about missing is I want you to be happy in me and all the blessings that I provide.

Shannon Popkin (31:27) Yeah.

Yeah,

that’s so good. Well, I just loved this book. ⁓ I am a huge fan. I particularly loved the way that you used word pictures and illustrations. It really is helpful. And so I hope everybody will get a copy. Can you tell us where to find it?

Champ Thornton (31:53) ⁓ So it’s available at crossway.com and also ⁓ Amazon, Westminster Bookstore, and other places.

Shannon Popkin (32:01) It’s 10 questions. What is it? 10 questions.

Champ Thornton (32:04) about salvation and it’s part

of the new series 10 questions series so this coming fall fall of 25 we have another one coming out with Beth Broome who is a licensed Christian counselor and she’s writing 10 questions about pain and suffering and then we have another one coming out on 10 questions about the Bible about Christian growth about identity these are all for the 8 to 14 range

Shannon Popkin (32:18) Okay.

These are all for children.

Okay, awesome.

That sounds amazing. And Jesus always used questions to teach us, right? And so I love, yes, I love, yeah, I love this series and just so thankful for you and the ways God has gifted you. Thanks so much for the gift of your time today.

Champ Thornton (32:36) So many.

Thanks, Shannon, it’s been great talking with you.