Shannon Popkin (00:01) Leith Hoggard, welcome to Live Like It’s True.

Leith Hoggard (00:04) Thank you, Shane, and it’s so good to be here.

Shannon Popkin (00:07) Well, it’s always great to have a friend in real life, you know, and the show with me, you and I got to meet in, you live in Jonesboro, right?

Leith Hoggard (00:17) Right?

Shannon Popkin (00:18) Jonesboro, So I got to speak there a couple of times and you hosted me in your home and it has just been lovely to get to know you. You are a woman of God. I trust you. I love all of the insights that you draw out of scripture. Tell us a little bit about how you serve the church in a

informal way.

Leith Hoggard (00:39) Yes, so in our church, God has just provided great opportunities to give me access to women in counseling through teaching Bible studies. About 20 years ago, God…

opened up the store for me to write Bible studies and then to teach women in our home. It’s been such a blessing. And then we also do marriage ministry. My husband and I are active in the marriage ministry in our church, but also do counseling of couples. And so it’s been a wonderful thing.

Shannon Popkin (01:17) I think what’s unique about you is just saying, you know what Lord, I’m gonna like just open my home, open my life, please use me. I’m gonna write these Bible studies hoping that someone will show up and then they come and I teach them. And it’s like, you’re not, you’re just saying, you know, I could go after certain titles or certain positions, but I’m just gonna open my home in my life. And the Lord has used you mightily. I was at one of those Bible studies.

where they are sitting around your gorgeous large dining room table. We had probably 20 women there and they’re just drinking in the truth and the word. And it was such a blessing for me to be there and to hear their lives, their opening, you know, their prayer request time and they’re receiving from you. It’s just, I just love the way God is using you. And…

Leith Hoggard (02:08) Thank you Shannon.

Well, it’s so well put. I never know who the Lord’s gonna bring and I just think whoever you bring, let me be that. it is, it has been such a joy for me more than, more than anyone else for sure.

Shannon Popkin (02:28) I love it. And I think most people would be like, well, I’m not going to put the work in if I don’t know anyone is coming. On that side of it, I think that’s way you’re unique. And the other side is, I’m not going to presume that I have anything to share unless someone asks me. And you’re just setting aside both of those.

But those insecurities that a lot of people struggle with, I think you’re just setting aside both of those and saying, Lord, I’m yours. I just love that about you. So you’ve got this series of Bible studies that are, you’ve just kind of self-published them

and,

Leith Hoggard (02:59) Yes.

Shannon Popkin (02:59) you know, use them. You’ve got them all like little spiral bound. They’re really nicely put. The one, and you gave me all of your work. Like they’re all lined up here on my shelf. They’re lovely. And so this one is on emotions.

and you unpacked all of, the origin of our emotions. We are created in God’s image, but then you also broke them out, you know, like anger, anger, I’m sorry, anger, envy, sadness, fear. And the one that we’re gonna lean into today is contempt and disgust.

because we’re talking in this series about being judgmental, judgy,

Leith Hoggard (03:45) in that way to read.

Shannon Popkin (03:49) So when we talk about judging other people, there is a certain emotional component of that, like this certain like disgust that we have.

Just give us a list of ways that this shows up in everyday life.

Leith Hoggard (04:02) Yes, so disgust is set apart in scripture as strong dislike, revulsion. as God talks about it in his word, it’s towards sin, God has given us disgust for our benefit. It keeps us from harm. something that smells disgusting is

Shannon Popkin (04:22) I, you know what?

I was just gonna add, I just found in the back of my refrigerator, think it was potatoes. And it was so bad. I was just like trying as quick as I could to dump it down the garbage disposal. So this is like good. If, what if I had no smell of that and I just started eating those potatoes, that would be really bad, right? So.

Leith Hoggard (04:42) had no

emotion attached to that like this just keeps us from harm and it’s with purpose that God has given us this this emotion all emotions he has given us with purpose but even with injury if we see you know sometimes on football games they’ll replay the injury overnight and you’re like please don’t please don’t because

Shannon Popkin (05:06) I have

that, like, it’s, don’t know what that feeling is, but it’s a bad feeling.

Leith Hoggard (05:11) But

it is actually like you feel it with them. And what it does is it goes, I don’t want to repeat that. I don’t want that to happen to me. And so what we have is we have disgust for the injury, but not for the football player.

And so

Shannon Popkin (05:29) right, right.

Leith Hoggard (05:30) there’s this difference in disgust is for things.

circumstances, not people. And so it discusses in real life looks like that. as we lean on our own strength, our own reasoning, we cross over from disgust for things into people and God calls that contempt.

Shannon Popkin (05:58) Okay. I think some people might say it’s wrong to have disgust for sin. Would you say, sin is disgusting, isn’t it? It really is.

Leith Hoggard (06:08) Yes, you’re exactly right that in scripture, in Isaiah 5, it tells us do not call good what God has called evil and do not call evil what God has called good. And God has given us

His last assignment to teach others what I have taught you and to walk in obedience So there is this charge for his followers to agree with his word and Agreeing with god’s revealed word what he’s told us in scripture we don’t really even need wisdom for that. We need obedience for that because god

Shannon Popkin (06:45) Yes.

Leith Hoggard (06:46) has told us what

is good and what is bad because he is the authority We are not. And so it’s agreement with God that sin, disobedience to God is strong dislike.

And without apology, we don’t apologize for that.

recognition of sin we see as not only a good thing in scripture, but as part of our walk with Christ.

Shannon Popkin (07:19) So I’m just thinking how like looking at someone that God says is good and calling it evil or looking at something that God says is evil and calling it good. That all began with, I call it the tree of good judgment, this tree of the knowledge of good and evil. was the good judgment between the difference between the two. and Eve weren’t supposed to take that fruit. They were supposed to leave that in God’s hands.

God decide this difference between good and evil, and they took the fruit and it blinded them. So we live in this spiritual darkness so we’ve talked about like this disgust that we have. Sometimes I think we feel apologetic for the disgust we have towards sin. You know, I’m thinking especially of sexual sin.

Sometimes we have this visceral like, that is wrong. And so I like the fact, is that what you’re meaning when you say we don’t apologize for?

Leith Hoggard (08:14) Yes,

and in scripture, God is not afraid to address anything. There is no question, there is no topic that God’s word does not hold up as true And so, you know, as you talk about sexual sin,

The interesting part and you said it so well, is that we are living in blindness and disgust, good, right, as it crosses over into people, contempt, that is sin. There’s no goodness in contempt, right? And so what Satan, the enemy does, is he will redefine sin to make it more palatable, like…

it’s adultery, like it’s really a love affair, right? And so the love affair removes the sting, Well, what’s wrong with loving? How can that be wrong, right? even as we address homosexuality,

God speaks very clearly on it that there are two responsibilities as followers of Christ. Number one, to agree with God’s word and to walk in obedience. If you love me, you will abide me, right? And so he has spoken on homosexuality and he has declared it evil. And he has told us, not call good what God has called evil. But he’s also at the same time, not in contradiction, says love.

all people and it says love your neighbor as yourself it says love all people and by this that you will know you’ll be known as my disciples so we are known not as declaring judgment on people but how we love people who are sinners

Shannon Popkin (09:56) Okay,

stop right there, Ms. Leith, because like you just said, we are known by how we love each other and not how we judge each other. And I think it’s exactly the opposite sometimes in the church.

Leith Hoggard (10:10) 100 % because we get it wrong, right?

Shannon Popkin (10:13) We totally do. It’s like how you just boiled it down. It’s so simple. We’re to obey and our God is rich in mercy. He is so gracious. He is so loving. What is pent up in his heart is not wrath and judgment. I can’t wait to get them. What’s pent up in God’s heart is this long suffering. This he gives us so much time and he’s so gracious. His

His heart is flooded with mercy and he just can’t wait until there’s a moment when we turn. It’s like that parable of the prodigal son, like the moment that the father sees him coming back, he’s just waiting. You know, what’s pent up in his heart is he can’t wait to welcome. And I don’t see us being that way.

what I see instead of us being pent up with mercy, like I can’t wait until they turn. I see us with our little checklist, you know, like the Pharisees, measuring out, ooh, they did that wrong. They did that wrong and categorizing people as you are a sinner and I have contempt for you and you are not welcome here.

Leith Hoggard (11:14) Right.

Shannon Popkin (11:15) And

this is just so opposite from the heart of God. so, yeah, I just had to interject there. I think we’ve got some work to do to differentiate between the right disgust we have for sin and primarily in ourselves. know, Jesus said, let’s deal with that speck in your eye before you go, or that log in your eye before you go digging for a speck.

This is not some little sin, this disgust that we have toward other people.

Leith Hoggard (11:44) think

it’s important also to differentiate between, so for example, anger, right? Anger in scripture is not forbidden, but it’s dangerous. And it’s dangerous because it can lead to hatred, right? And so being angry about something that angers God is actually serves us well in our lives. But when it…

transitions to hatred, which is our natural pathway in humanity. So as we talk about disgust and contempt, we talk about disgust is a strong dislike for something. And we can misuse that. Like

the New Testament in Matthew about eating meat, not eating meat, right? And so the Jews saw it as a stand, the Gentiles did not, and clearly in Scripture, God had accepted them both, right? And so, but what we see is in our calling of

something that people disagree with us about, that may not be sin, we developed disgust for that, but in our unmerited disgust, it quickly becomes contempt.

Shannon Popkin (13:03) Hmm.

Leith Hoggard (13:04) The NIV says, do not have contempt for those who eat, do not judge those who do not eat. And so

like in the political realm today, if we can be so bold as to go to these really hard times. let’s just try to come all right. As we

Shannon Popkin (13:18) I know. Let’s just tackle them all, Leigh.

Leith Hoggard (13:23) talk about the political realm today, a lot of it is just empty ideology

We’ve stand for these things, but we’re doing nothing to benefit anyone so it’s a boasting up of ourselves. And we’ve made this criteria of worth and value of people agreement with me.

Shannon Popkin (13:40) That’s so good. It’s like, do you agree with me? And that’s how I’m going to determine your worth. I was actually just watching an Instagram real where this woman was saying, I work with this man who’s fair. I really respect him. He’s very brilliant in his field. I’ve always enjoyed working with him, but I just found out that he differs from me politically. And now I am surprised I have this visceral disgust, this hatred for him.

Like she used the word hatred, I think. And so suddenly she is evaluating his worth based on whether he aligns with her politically. And I think we’re more guilty of this than we realize. Do you think?

Leith Hoggard (14:22) Right. That

is falling over into contempt.

those are are not sins right but we count them as sins if we disagree but you know

Shannon Popkin (14:31) Yeah, yeah.

Leith Hoggard (14:32) in talking about God’s revealed word on sin that there is this legitimacy of disgust

Shannon Popkin (14:39) Yeah,

I think that’s a good point because we can have the same reaction to things that are sin and aren’t sin. And I love that you brought up Romans 14 because what’s happening is there are Gentiles being brought into the church and they have not grown up with these laws about what you can and cannot eat. God had these laws for his people of what food was clean and what wasn’t. And so, I mean, you can just imagine it’s sort of the way, Leith, that I look at.

When I see those pictures in Asian cultures where they eat those bugs on a stick,

they love it. And I think that looks really disgusting. I just don’t want that. I don’t want that. And so you can imagine how this is how the Jews are feeling about the Gentiles in their own church who are eating. so whenever we’re talking judgment, we’re talking right and wrong.

you know, we’re talking about there is a line and God draws the line. But with this church, this Roman church, you’ve got God drawing the line differently. And that’s confusing for the Jews. A long time it was wrong. And now for the Gentiles, like Peter had that vision of things coming down in the sheet God saying, eat these things, like I never, these are disgusting to me. And so God is changing.

And this is not, God doesn’t change his mind. I hope that isn’t confusing to people that I brought that up. It’s not like God isn’t, it’s a new covenant.

Leith Hoggard (15:58) It’s the new covenant. It’s the new covenant. Right. And

so in the new covenant, it is not unclean anymore. But it’s going to take a minute for the Jews this has been the law for them. And now God has fulfilled that. Christ has fulfilled that law. But that transition for them is going because this was something that they merited as good works

They merited themselves righteous they held so closely to it they required it of the Gentiles to be holy, to be right with God.

Shannon Popkin (16:35) Well, let’s just, let’s talk, I wanna say two things about that. So there is a moral law and ceremonial law. Moral law carries over into the New Covenant. The New Covenant, when we were talking about Old Covenant and New Covenant, we’re talking about basically the Old Testament and the New Testament of our Bibles. In the Old Testament, they had a whole bunch of laws to live by. They were a unique, separate.

and by they I’m saying God’s people, know, Abraham’s family, they were selected and God gave them a whole bunch of laws to keep. Now the New Covenant, that’s the New Testament, that’s when Jesus came and all the different nations are brought into this family of God. Lethe, you and I are not Jewish and yet we are part of God’s people, we’re under this New Covenant, but God did not do away with the moral law with this New Covenant, we are still under

his judgment because all of us have fallen short. And it’s not because I I ate bacon. Jews were not allowed to eat bacon. That’s not why I am under this law. I am under this law because I have lied, I have stolen, I have lusted. The moral law still stands. we have all fallen short of that. And that is why we are under judgment. So I wanted to say that, but then I also wanted to talk about

someone who actually has committed, you we’re talking about eating food, let’s set that aside.

So let’s just take an example that I know a lot of our listeners are dealing with. Let’s talk about pornography. I mean, the statistics for pornography are astronomical. if I’m just going on that alone, I think half of our women listening have, if they’re significant other married or dating, has struggled with pornography or is struggling right now. So

I’m not saying women don’t also struggle with pornography, have that temptation toward lust, but there is a strong temptation to have disgust, to have contempt for someone who’s struggling in that way. Have you ever dealt with anyone in your counseling, responding to somebody else’s sin?

how would you help them?

Leith Hoggard (18:50) Yes, in fact, often. It is a very prevalent sin for so many obvious reasons

what happens sin always manifests itself in destruction in our life always there are always consequences that follow sin and when my husband and I counsel and there is a problem of pornography, often my husband in the man will meet singularly but we will also discuss it at high level, the four of us, but

It absolutely is something that must be addressed as do not call good what God has called evil. it’s interesting when I was writing this study, I think there is so much power.

in

being able to identify and name an emotion because our

Shannon Popkin (19:45) Mm-hmm.

Leith Hoggard (19:45) emotions we’ve really left to the secular and remind me that I want to go back to adultery on this but we’ve

Shannon Popkin (19:52) Okay.

Leith Hoggard (19:52) really left it to this secular

to address those as if God has nothing to say about our emotions. And sometimes we

Shannon Popkin (20:00) Hmm.

Leith Hoggard (20:00) only get down to mad. I’m just mad. Mad is the only emotion that we have. And we actually have a lot of emotions and oftentimes they build. And so when we look at the sin of adultery, it deals with

the covenant, unfaithfulness

Shannon Popkin (20:24) Maybe,

can you break that down a second though? Because I don’t know that everyone would associate why this is adultery.

Leith Hoggard (20:31) Well, okay, so when we talk about actual adultery, like in marriage,

we know what God has said about that, right? That’s not even for us to decide. There’s nothing negotiable about that, right? God has called it evil.

and so there is a disgust for this. A disgust is strong dislike or revulsion right but it’s separating the act of adultery the sin of adultery from the value of the person that has committed adultery.

That grows over into contempt and what God taught me when I was writing this Series when I got to disgusting contempt

I had never separated those two and It was very interesting to me what happened as I’m writing

it. The Holy Spirit, we were in the process of counseling this couple and one of them was quite difficult and I had allowed my disgust.

of the circumstances to become contempt for the person. I was completely blinded by it. Like I didn’t go into the lesson thinking this is for me, right? And so as I got into the lesson, God so clear like a bolt of lightning said, and

Shannon Popkin (21:52) Yeah.

Leith Hoggard (21:53) you have contempt for this person. Immediately, I just stopped writing and God showed me my sin. It wasn’t

Disgust

was not the sin. Contempt was the sin.

Shannon Popkin (22:08) you were probably so identifying with the partner who was hurt. you’re identifying with one, you’re disgusted with the other. And I think that’s actually really common for those of us who are trying to help our friend. And we talk about, he is just, he’s a monster, he’s an animal, right? And this is not helpful.

because we’re adding onto then the sin of contempt. So how did that affect you then? Once you identified this contempt in your own heart, what changed, what shifted?

Leith Hoggard (22:41) So the power for me came in naming it. And what Satan does is he renames, repackages sin into something palatable, right, for even the believer. And calling it contempt, understanding what contempt was.

understanding through the Holy Spirit that I was committing that sin. I’m not saying this was an extramarital affair Still calling that evil.

but not throwing the person away. And you know, something interesting about what we were talking about with the Jews and the Gentiles and the eating of meat, the scripture doesn’t require them to agree on eating meat.

Shannon Popkin (23:35) Yeah, no,

it says that each one should be fully convinced.

Leith Hoggard (23:39) enough.

Right? Adultery is different because

God has spoken about that, right? The eating of the meat does not require, like politics, does not require agreement, but it does forbid contempt. And

Shannon Popkin (23:54) Yes.

Leith Hoggard (23:55) so each one walking in their own convictions, you know, let the spirit affirm and deny within us.

Shannon Popkin (24:03) So let me just throw out a couple examples for that and then let’s go back to adultery. So this would be like I just had a conversation with someone about homeschool versus public school.

Leith Hoggard (24:11) Yes.

Shannon Popkin (24:13) So the scripture does not require that we are in agreement over that. Or like right now we’ve got all of these debates on what you should eat and shouldn’t eat.

the one convinced that only whole foods are allowable and the one who’s like, you know what, McDonald’s is just fine. God has given us all things to enjoy. Well, God has not required that we come to an agreement on that. we are told to not have contempt for one another in those situations. And we can like we can have contempt for that person who isn’t following our eating plan. Like we can very easily fall into contempt, but

Now let’s go back to the moral law that God has very clearly defined. it’s good to define our terms. I was looking at these words this morning you know, there’s a lot of good ways that we judge right from wrong. that word is used,

114 times judge is used in the Bible. So, and we’re talking judgment, judge good from evil. And we only judge that which is valuable.

And so we’re talking about judging people and people are all valuable because people are all created in God’s image. so anything related to people though, it’s worthy of our, this good for you? Is this bad for you? And so, when we’re talking about homeschool, public school,

it’s good to have a conversation about what’s good, public school, private school, or, you know, homeschool. Those are good conversations. It’s because this child is so valuable. And so we’re making these good judgments because we so value this person, but contempt then empties of value. says, when I have contempt for someone because they school their child differently than I schooled mine, I am emptying

Like the whole reason that we’re trying to make good judgments is because people are so valuable. so contempt is so contrary to God’s good intention for us. contempt is what Herod and the religious leaders had for Jesus. That’s why they killed him. They had contempt for the creator of the universe.

They were so wrong. that their contempt for Jesus was so this emptying Jesus of his value. But we commit that same sin when we have contempt for any person. And that includes the person who is walking in adultery

Leith Hoggard (26:44) And that was the whole principle

behind that contempt, the emotion of contempt, it’s still broken out into layers. contempt in us is driven by insecurity or things that we identify ourselves with

so if we have identified ourselves as good parents because we homeschooled,

people who love their children because we sacrifice And if you don’t, then well, I mean, you can send your kids to public school, but you don’t really love them, we’ve made this the standard of love, right? That has

Shannon Popkin (27:17) Right. Yeah.

Leith Hoggard (27:18) become our identity. And when we separate ourselves from the arrogance of that, even adultery of that, Or it could be from fear. If we fear being poor, right?

and then we look on the poor with contempt as worthless or we fear being obese and then we look on the obese as worthless. So it comes from insecurity and fear within ourselves. And so those things manifest themselves into contempt and we devalue people. And like you said, there is this differential.

The sin of contempt is the same, but there’s this differential in that some of it is moral law, and then some of it is just preference, right? Like homeschooling

And we see that with the Pharisees.

they had taken God’s law and made it primarily their identity, and added their own laws to it. if Jesus was the the final authority, what did that do to their standing? There was great fear in that, which drove that contempt.

Shannon Popkin (28:27) That’s interesting. I hadn’t

hadn’t really put those things together

Yeah, Well, thank you so much for spending this time with us and sharing all of your wisdom with us. And I just love the way that you just so open-handedly share truth with the world.

so tell our guests where they can find these resources that you’ve created.

Leith Hoggard (28:47) So

all of my Bible studies are free for anyone who wants them and I have a Canva website

I have two of them now, the emotion study that we’ve talked about today and then one from Ecclesiastes and I will continue to add those. So the website

Shannon Popkin (29:10) It’s so great.

Leith Hoggard (29:11) is called fitly spoken from Proverbs and so I would love for anyone who would like to know more about that to go there and it’s free for anyone who wants it.

Shannon Popkin (29:26) I love it. Thank you so much. So we’ll put a link to that in the show notes and hope that you’ll pick that up for free from Leith. That’s such a gift. You are such a blessing. Thanks for being with us.

Leith Hoggard (29:36) Thank you, Shannon.

Shannon Popkin (29:37) Well, thank you so much for spending this time with us and sharing all of your wisdom with us. And I just love the way that you just so open-handedly share truth with the world.

All right, so tell our guests where they can find these resources that you’ve created.

Leith Hoggard (29:55) So

all of my Bible studies are free for anyone who wants them and I have a Canva website that will have

two of them now, the emotion study that we’ve talked about today and then one from Ecclesiastes and I will continue to add those. So the website

Shannon Popkin (30:18) It’s so great.

Leith Hoggard (30:19) is called fitly spoken from Proverbs and so I would love for anyone who would like to know more about that to go there and it’s free for anyone who wants it.

Shannon Popkin (30:34) I love it. Thank you so much. So we’ll put a link to that in the show notes and hope that you’ll pick that up for free from Leith. That’s such a gift. You are such a blessing. Thanks for being with us.

Leith Hoggard (30:44) Thank you, Shannon. It’s

been a pleasure.