Willie Robertson

What's he doing?

If I see retreat and fortification, and that seems to be the underlying strategy and effort of whatever particular church it is, I'm like, yeah, I'll probably back away from that.

But if it's an expansion of the kingdom, then I'm like, ooh, I want to lean in.

and learn more about what you guys are doing there.

That is an interesting fact though, right?

I mean, that is the key teaching of Jesus in that text.

And because what is the kingdom and what is the church doing is evangelizing and spreading the gospel.

And so that is the spreading that's going out.

It's going out, it's going out.

And so what was happening in this particular moment in history is that Christians, even though the Roman Empire was benefiting from the emergence of Christianity, by the way, I have a book on the shelf behind me by a guy named

Tom Holland, I think is his name.

It's called Dominion.

And he writes about the history of Christianity and how much impact it has had on the world.

And if you wanted to just take a deep dive into how has the world benefited from Christianity, it's undeniable.

I mean it's like the history is like undeniable that the world we live in today, modern science, medicine, hospital systems, charities, caring for the poor, the abolishment of slavery, freedom movements –

like it's all anchored in Christ.

And I mean, without the church, there's none of that.

And so you think about like when he writes to Marcus Aurelius and he's basically saying, have you guys not benefited from, I mean, look, this is great.

Like, you know, that was the truth.

But even in the face of that truth, the Roman Empire did not see it that way.