Unashamed with the Robertson Family
Ep 1223 | John Luke Explores the Principle of “No Kings” & How Parenting Can Shape a Nation’s Future
05 Dec 2025
Chapter 1: What is the principle of 'No Kings' and its significance?
I am unashamed.
What about you?
So welcome back to our Unashamed podcast on Friday with Hillsdale College. We are in the study of David. And we're deep into it. John, look, you said you were going to go deep after that last podcast from last week. So you ready? I'm ready.
He's always ready to go deep. It's interesting, Zach. So I was in Idaho last week. And it was, they call it a classical Christian school. And I didn't really know what that meant because those are just Christian school. And so they got into some of the things. I mean, when you add the word classical, I was like, what exactly does that make it like more highbrow?
Do you listen to the old music, like Vivaldi? So I was trying to figure out. And then they said joyfully classical. And I said, all right, somebody's got to explain to me, what are we doing? But it was really interesting. They have a link. to Hillsdale. They have a lot of their graduates go there. And it's kind of the same type thing. They've been around a long time.
They're totally non-governmental funded. And their ideas is that we teach the Bible, but also the founders and all the classical works of Western civilization. that were founded on this idea of who God is. And so it was great, but they were just a little small group, but their school has been around for 115 years. So they know what they're doing. They know what they're doing.
And when I got up, I said, 115 years, you've got to be doing something right.
That's why I love Hillsdale. I do love what they're doing because we actually educated our kids, at least the older two, when they were younger, we went through classical education because we homeschooled, so we used a classical curriculum. which it's basically divided up into three parts called the trivium. And it's the first phase of education is like your grammar stage.
It's more like memorization, learning facts, and your ABCs, that kind of stuff. Then the second phase of the education is more logic. And then the final one is rhetoric. So it kind of mirrors really how we learn. And it's the foundation of really how we learned in the West. So I'm a big fan of it as well.
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Chapter 2: How did cultural envy influence Israel's demand for a king?
That's exactly right.
Like a home school? We call that the anti-Hophni and Phineas. That's exactly what it's called.
Yeah. Well, it really is helpful because education nowadays, it's all one. It's like one size fits all, but one size doesn't fit all. So it's kind of a problem. And it doesn't allow for students to interact with the material. But these courses are great, what we're doing here. You can get them for free, by the way, at unashamedforhillsdale.com. You can sign up. We've already done Genesis.
We've done Exodus. And now we're in the story of David with Dr. Jackson, who... has become a friend of ours. Al, you guys text on a regular basis, correct?
We do. I call him JJ now because we're friends.
Oh, JJ.
I call him Dr. J. Dr. J is another good one. But he is, and it's funny because when Dr. Arnn introduces each of these courses, he speaks so highly of Dr. Jackson. He is excellent. He's really more of a linguist and more of a literature guy and talks about the prose of these writings. But the insight he has, I find to be really helpful.
And I love that he basically, every time there's like a controversial thing he'll get into, and sometimes I won't even know it's controversial because I'm not as smart as Zach. So I'm not sure what he's like referring to. But what he does is he'll say, I'll leave that to those guys. Let me just tell you what I think about this.
And I like that because in essence, that's what we all have to do, right? I mean, none of us are, except for Zach, are experts, so.
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Chapter 3: What lessons can we learn from Saul's kingship?
So we're in just a reset. Last week we started. This is a course about David, and yet we have not gotten to David, and we won't again today. Maybe we'll get right to the edge of David today. But it's his story. But what I love about the course, this particular course, is to understand David, you almost have to understand where the whole concept came from for kings of Israel.
Mm-hmm.
And the fact that that was really never God's plan or design for Israel was to have a king. I mean, it's very clear he said that. And even way back in Deuteronomy, he was mentioning that if you take a king, knowing they would, of course, Moses is saying that if you take a king, here's what's going to happen, and it won't be good.
Because they had just come out of a Pharaoh situation where they've got this tyranny. He's like, you're going to put somebody over you, you're going to find tyranny again. So that's the concept. And so we went through this whole period. called The Judges.
And you can go back and read that, which, by the way, The Judges is a wild read because it's a bunch of, it's like the wild, wild west of our history, what was going on in these settings. And it always would have this same cycle. I wrote down, you would have first this, there would be this period of defeat, like,
you know, sin had overrun, they'd gotten too much like the culture, and then something bad happens, then you'd have repentance, and it'd be like, oh, God, we got to do something different. You know, we're in a terrible situation. God would raise up a leader. And that's when you see the judges. And it was a lot of unlikely people, as we've been talking about.
I mean, Jephthah and all these people that nobody knew. Gideon, they'd never heard of him before. Even Samson, who we talked about being Nazirite. But he wasn't very spiritual at all. But he wound up being a great man. Then you would have victory. They would win and defeat the foes. And then you would have apathy, and the whole process would start over again.
So it was just like there's 14 judges, and it was the same thing over and over and over again. So we get to Eli, and he's sort of now at the tail end of this cycle of the judges. And then Samuel, who, as we said, was not really designed to be that next guy, but he was. What we don't know is, when they were in the historical context— is Samuel is the last guy. for this.
But it's not because of God's decision, it's because of the people, because they want a king. And the reason they want a king is because their biggest reason was because everybody else has one. I mean, that was their greatest reason for a king. So I thought about this idea of cultural envy, sometimes how countries are, and we wanna be like this country, that country, whatever.
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Chapter 4: How does David's character contrast with Saul's?
All right, Zach, that's a historical overview.
Well, once a week in Black Mountain, the town that I live in, and probably Asheville too, they have a protest downtown. I saw it last time I was there. Yeah, No Kings. Yeah, No Kings. It's No Kings. It's kind of interesting because I wonder if they may get it from this text. No King, it's like No King Day, but it is interesting.
I almost stopped enjoying them, Zach, because I'm good with No Kings as well since we're a democracy and a republic. But I really wanted to do it because I would have been the youngest person there and it would have made me feel good about myself.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's an older crowd, but it's interesting, though, that this premise that's happening in, I mean, if you think about what was, how God pulled Israel out and really the formation of Israel, it began in Genesis 11. after the Tower of Babel, no, Genesis 12. Genesis 11 was the Tower of Babel, and there were no nations up until this point.
And then so they're building this tower, and they're going to say, we're going to reach heaven. We're going to build our way to heaven. And God's like, no, you're not going to do that. And as a consequence for what you're attempting to do, I'm going to actually confuse your languages. I'm going to create nations for the very first time.
So he creates all these nations, and then he pulls one of those nations out for himself, which is Israel, Genesis chapter 12, and that's when he has the conversation with Abram. And the purpose of Israel was to be separated from the other nations and that they would draw the other nations in. They would be a light to draw the nations in to worship the one true God.
So it's interesting here that the very thing that God created them for is now the thing that they don't want to do. They're like, no, we don't want to be different. We want to be like everybody else. So give us a king like everybody. other nation. And that's kind of the foundation of the story. No, that's good.
And if you think about our last two studies, Zach, to your point, when Egypt, who was the greatest power of their day, look what happened. It was Joseph who rose up through the ranks, a Hebrew. who rose up to ranks to be the second in command, only second to Pharaoh, and so here's Israel again infusing itself in, which then leads to the enslavement of these people, but then what happens?
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Chapter 5: What role does repentance play in leadership according to the discussion?
So to reset the story where we are here, you get chapter five and remember the story was that the two sons of Eli are killed. And during this battle that they lost, the Ark of the Covenant gets taken into custody by the Philistines. And so they don't really know what they have, but they realize that to the Israelites this was a big loss because everybody's moaning and groaning about it.
But they set it up with their god, who was called Dagon, And they've got him up on a shelf, which anytime you have to build a shelf for your god, you probably not think it big enough. It's just a general rule of thinking about it. But they put the Ark of the Covenant in the room with the Dagon, and every day they come back and comical things are happening to their god. First he falls down.
Then he fell down and flipped over and was facing the wrong way. Then his arms and his legs were cut off.
Yeah.
I mean, it's almost common. I mean, I hate to laugh because I know it was their guy, but it was just almost funny to me that, you know, the presence of God was there. It was like, no, Dagon's not going to win the battle. It's so funny. So what do y'all think about Dagon or the story? I mean, did you laugh when you were reading about it?
Oh, yeah. No, I totally did. I thought the same thing. I thought it was kind of interesting me thinking about these like Old Testament – like spirits and like what they believed Dagon to be as their God, which I think could have been a real demon or, you know, on the bad side of spiritual entities that they were worshiping. Which we've talked about before.
Which we've talked about before. I mean, that could have been representative of some heavenly realm being that wound up here.
And so they could have been really speaking to it, and it could have been really speaking back. And I just imagine when they leave, they go out of whatever the tent or the temple that Dagon was in, that there was some kind of spiritual battle between... God or an angel and that spiritual entity and the spiritual entity one every single time. Yeah.
And the manifestation of it was some little broken thing on the ground. Broken thing on the ground.
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Chapter 6: How does the concept of education relate to the biblical narrative?
But similar to that, I was just getting y'all's take on that. Why do you feel like... Because, I mean, you read all the amazing things Eli did. You read about all the amazing things Samuel did. And even his sons didn't follow in his ways. And they were wicked and cruel. But then you look at someone like Saul, who's... I mean, Jonathan, Saul's son, is an amazing person. But Saul's not Samuel.
And then you even have David. And David, I guess Solomon was great, but you have Absalom. And David's other sons were not good people, but David was an amazing person. So I feel like sometimes... You know, it's just the way God wills it.
And, you know, I feel like sometimes there's no rhyme or reason for why Samuel's kids were terrible and why somehow Jonathan, coming from Saul's lineage, ended up being a great guy.
It's a really valid point. And my take on it always has been if you are a person of faith, You can't assume that your children are going to follow the Lord because of your faith. Your faith will take them only so far. And at some point, they've got to make that decision. You're trying to craft that, and you're trying to restrain as much as you can. We talked about that at the last podcast.
In the case of where you have someone that's not so great, I think the best lesson is you don't have to be bound by your parents' lack of faith. I've had so many people I've talked to through the years that say, well, you know, you guys are always talking about the father, the father... and how much you love the Father. And my father's terrible. And then they just rant about how bad it is.
And then I'm always like, well, then you need to know about our Heavenly Father because I get it. You're hurt. I hear it. I hear it in your voice. But you don't have to be bound to their mistakes and turn out just like him. You can elevate. You can do something different. So I think either way, the answer is in turning to faith.
And just because your parents don't have faith or you aren't raised in a Christian home, in our case, doesn't mean you have to be bound to that. And to continue a generational curse of a lifestyle, anybody can make the change. And Lisa and I, when we share our story, Lisa always, when she shares it, it just brings me to tears every time because she broke a lot of generational curses in her family.
And if she had just continued on a path without God and without Christ, She would have been bound to that, but she didn't. At some point, she'd have to say, no, I'm going to be different. Make sure you go to unashamedforhillsdale.com to sign up. No cost for this course, and you're going to love it.
This is actually my question I was going to ask in the previous podcast talking about Eli.
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Chapter 7: What are the implications of choosing a leader based on appearances?
Before I say this, I want to make a caveat and just to bounce off what Al said too. At Camp Shioka, I've seen kids, you know, I see – 1500 kids ish a summer. And I've seen them every year for the last 10 years, grow up. I saw a girl today who was, who's in college who I've seen as a day camper from five years old girl all the way up. And I see them year after year, every week.
And I see their siblings and their whole family. And sometimes you have parents who are incredible. You can tell they're Christian. You can tell they're super involved. and the kid is just terrible. And sometimes you have parents who are the worst people I've ever met in my life, and their kids are just the best person. You know, they're awesome.
Sometimes I see brothers who are, you know, two brothers. One is awesome, one's terrible. And it seems like there's no, very little rhyme or reason to how, you know, it is with their parents. But that is kind of... the edge cases, you know, in some sense. But I want to make that caveat to say sometimes it just – people just are who they are.
Even from the beginning, yeah, you have Cain and Abel. Right. It's like I don't know if I would be like, well, maybe Adam didn't nurture Cain. You know, like I don't know if you could have that whole discussion. But, yeah, I think it's just deeply flawed in us as humans. Right.
But I want to make a – I say that to make this point about Eli because this is a question that I had and just a different kind of take I wanted to get your thoughts on. I'm not saying this is a correct reading or not. This is just a thought I had. Whenever it says Eli heard that his sons died and then he heard that the ark fell. And when the ark fell, he fell over and died.
Yeah.
one commentary I read made the point of, this was because Eli was so dedicated to God that when he heard the ark fell, he fell. But my thought was, it almost kind of shows that Eli was more concerned with the ministry than with his kids, because losing the ark impacted him more than losing his kids. And on some sense, I'm like, what if the reading was, had Eli had focused more on his kids,
and less on the ministry that he was trying to build, maybe his kids would have turned out differently. Because I see that with pastors who focus all about their ministry. And it's not because it's like, on some level, it's like, oh yeah, they're following God. But on some level, it's like they're trying to win whatever business they're in. They see ministry as a business. They focus so much on
the speaking, the teaching, the church, they ignore their own family, and then their kids turn out crazy.
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Chapter 8: How does the story of Eli and his sons reflect on leadership failures?
You're exactly right, John. I struggle with it, no doubt about it. And I didn't set out to do it. It's not like I said, okay, I'm going to be so excited about the church and my mission work and everything else that I'm just going to leave Lisa and the kids behind. But that's exactly what I did. And in the midst of it, when you're doing it, you don't notice it.
But that's a great possibility that maybe the reason the kids were so bad, maybe those two sons were so bad is because he just wasn't paying attention to what was happening with them. that he would just not even notice. How would you not know this? And so I think it's a very valid point.
And I always used to say that one of my biggest mistakes was that I elevated the bride of Christ, the church in my case, because that's who I work for, above my own bride. And at the very least, they should have been equal. At the very least, equal. And so that resentment that built up over the first 15 years of my and Lisa's marriage led to terrible things.
And again, that was no excuse for mistakes Lisa made, but I was helping provide an atmosphere by which the evil one could come in and do what he does best. And that's make things look really tempting and good when they're really evil. And so I think as men of God, the four of us having this conversation and all of us have wives and children and in my case, grandchildren.
is we don't want to provide an atmosphere that makes it easy for the evil one to deceive anyone we care about. And so we should at least have them on equal par with anybody else we're trying to work with. I mean, that's what I've learned through the years.
So that's an excellent... Yeah, we got the benefit now of... Back then, the temple was the ministry, and attending to the temple was the work of the vocation of the priest. Now, the tip was us. Do I want to get involved in the geopolitical sphere and see good emerge there? Yes, but I probably should take care of what's happening in the U.S. before I worry about what's happening in China, right?
Well, before I worry about what's happening in the federal government, I may want to worry about what's happening in my state first. And before I worry about what's happening in my state, I probably should think about my own town. And before I worry about my own town, what's going on in my own house? Before I worry about my own house, what's going on in my own heart?
And so it all starts here in us, and then it moves out. So we have that benefit now of knowing that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. And I want to return back to that story about this idol that was in the same area as the ark. Because I think that's an interesting story of Dagon and how they would come back in and he's like, arms are cut off. I mean, like this completely wrecked by Yahweh.
I wonder what was happening in that room when nobody was around, but you got to think about what they had in their possession. They had the Ark of the Covenant, which was constructed in the story of Exodus, right? We get the whole story of that. And if you remember, it had a seat on the top of it. Inside the Ark of the Covenant was, I think it was like three things, the rod of Aaron,
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