Plays On Word Radio
An in-depth look at the Word of God, the Plays On Word community, and the Plays - with original music - we perform, that are based on the Word of God. New episodes drop Fridays at 7AM EST! To find out how Plays On Word Theater can perform 'LIVE on YOUR STAGE' and to support this missionary & podcast visit: https://playsonword.org/
Plays On Word Radio
Ep 101: Unity Through Faith - Transcending Barriers and Rethinking the Nativity Story
"Today's episode highlights Christian unity, emphasizing shared faith, doctrinal discussions, and the importance of lasting, meaningful relationships. How can we strengthen unity across denominational divides? Plays on Word does just that!"
The episode explores the profound connections among Christians across the globe, emphasizing the unity found in faith despite cultural and denominational differences. Through personal anecdotes and reflections, the hosts illustrate the importance of maintaining focus on essential doctrines while encouraging healthy conversations around secondary beliefs.
• Celebrating global fellowship among believers
• The significance of unity in Christ
• Navigating doctrinal differences without division
• Meaningful stories of faith-building connections
• Cultural insights into the Christmas story
• A reminder of our shared mission as God’s family
• Encouragement for listeners to foster lasting relationships
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Lord you know. Hey guys, you are now listening to Plays on Word.
Speaker 2:Radio. It's the best, fantastic time of fellowship. And here was this older woman and I was able. We were. You know, our paths would not normally cross, unless they cross in the supermarket or something, but here we had a fantastic. We had church, literally we had church. We were praising, praising the God of heaven, standing in faith in Christ. You're the only name, you're the only name, you're the only name.
Speaker 1:Hello and welcome to Plays on Word Radio, where we discuss, analyze, work and play on the Word of God. Thank you for joining us on this excursion. Today let's join Pastor Teddy, also known as Fred David Kenny Jr, the founder of Plays on Word Theater, as he does a deep dive into the Word of God.
Speaker 2:Well, welcome to all of you listening to Plays on Word Radio. Amen for checking us out. Thank you for being faithful to stream and to send this to other people. We have been blessed. We've been streamed in 57 countries now. Yeah, I can't help but wonder if that's one person that just is like a travel agent flying around all over the place, or is it just a bunch of people? Actually, I know better than that. It's a bunch of people and we thank you.
Speaker 2:And whatever country you find yourself listening to this broadcast in, we are united in faith in Christ Jesus. Therefore, we are family members, and this is really cool. This is a great benefit of being in Christ and say you know, some of the people that are the closest people to me are not blood relatives, are not family members, but people in Christ, which is a different blood. It's the blood of Christ that washes our sins away. What can wash, what can take away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. It is the shed blood of Christ, the faith we share in Him, that unites us. But I often say there's no way I would know some of the people that I know I would be in relationship with some of the people that I'm in relationship with. There's no way if it wasn't for Christ. I mean, it's just like the world, left on its own, wouldn't bring us together and I'm just so grateful.
Speaker 2:When I look at the spectrum of believers in Christ and I look at the diverse nature of every, I mean there are people that are super wealthy and then there are people that are super poor. There are people that are super tall and super short, there are people that are super thin and people that are well-fed. It doesn't matter. In Galatians Paul talks about this neither Jew, nor Greek slave, nor free. We're all one in Christ and that is absolutely true. And when we do these plays we get to see that really on display.
Speaker 2:We go to different churches. It's not just Calvary Chapels. I'm a Calvary Chapel guy, but we've gone to Calvary Chapels. We've gone to Methodist churches, we've gone to Presbyterian churches, assemblies of God churches, christian churches, just the whole spectrum. Baptists, primitive Baptists. Shout out to my man, joe Roach. Oh, he's primitive Methodist. I'm sorry, that's right, he's primitive.
Speaker 2:Anyway, the whole spectrum is the idea, and it's only because of Christ and there are doctrinal differences that we have, but for the most part the scripture unites us and we come together over the scripture and I'm not preaching secondary issues, secondary doctrinal issues, and they're not preaching secondary doctrinal issues. And you know, when we come out or anything like that, we unite over the scripture. We have so much more in common than we have in difference between us and you know, on the spectrum of things you could take, you know the Presbyterian brother and the very charismatic Pentecostal brother and yet in Christ we can unite. Christ is the uniter. Doctrinally, there are big differences between my Presbyterian brothers and my Pentecostal brothers. There are, you know, there's big differences, but under the umbrella of Christ, I believe, as family members we can debate vigorously. How about that? We can debate with each other, but we don't have to divide over non-essential stuff.
Speaker 2:Now there are some things that are essential. You start telling me that the Word of God is not the Word of God. You start telling me that God uses multiple pronouns His, them, and he no, wait, hold on now. Don't go against the Scripture. Secondary stuff we can debate vigorously as family members do. Whoa, don't go against the scripture, you know. Secondary stuff we can debate vigorously as family members do, and we don't have to divide. I don't have to say you're not part of my family because I don't agree with your interpretation of whatever or your translation of the Bible that you use, you know. Okay, we don't have to divide. I'm not going to say you're apostate or anything like that, as long as you know we're within bounds of the essential, not even within bounds, we're on the money. When it comes to the essentials, you know the inerrancy of Scripture, that the Word of God is triune. Nature of God is an essential, and the reason I say that is because if you start telling me that Jesus is the spirit brother of Lucifer, now we've got a problem. If you start telling me that Jesus is created, we have a problem. That's insurmountable. That's insurmountable.
Speaker 2:There's a big difference between a Presbyterian and say, like a Methodist or a Pentecostal brother, when they're debating the spiritual gifts and stuff like that. There's a big difference between that and saying, no, jesus was created and God is a man whose span of his hand is nine inches and he lives on a planet. No, no, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a second, hold on. Or that Jesus was, you know, in the beginning, was the Word, the Word was with God and the Word was a God in the. You know, like the, in one group's translation that's a. Those are, those are structural issues that we we need to deal with first, because you have a different Jesus. The Methodist and the Presbyterian have the same Jesus. They're just squabbling over who's going to be seated on his right and who's going to be seated on his left.
Speaker 2:Now, of course, no doubt you can find some people from those camps that would argue vigorously against what I'm saying and want to debate me over it. And we have established a plays on the word suggestion box. There's a shredder right underneath that. It's under the slot. But I'm just joking, don't hate me all over that either. Some of you are getting that. Some of you are saying this guy's talking too fast, I don't know where he's going. Merry Christmas, you guys. So, anyway, back to my main point. Lydia, I'm getting back to the point here. I'm going to stay on track. I know you're telling me, I can feel you telling me I'm wandering away. So you guys can send thank you mail to Lydia. I'm back on the track here.
Speaker 2:The people we see at these plays there is just such an incredible spectrum and we get a chance to go and see the greater body of Christ. For whatever reason, the Lord is letting us debate and hash out non-essential stuff, non-essential to salvation. Okay, might be essential to you becoming part of their denomination that you affirm certain things. Yeah, you know what? Okay, fine, you know, it's all good, but the the unity we have in Christ is the key and that's what we like to focus on. And one of the beauties of being plays on word is that we get a chance to go to these different places and utilize the word of God.
Speaker 2:Now, we did have a group that wanted us to come out and then, when they found out we weren't using King James only, they said no, thanks, I mean, I think that was you know, okay, fine, and that's their prerogative. You know they want to do that. Um, my answer to them was I actually, uh, what, what, what manuscripts? Uh, you know, would you like to look at? You know, because I'm going, I've got better manuscript evidence where I'm coming from. I'm not taking just one translation, I'm going back to the Greek and the Hebrew, so, but, it's okay, you know, it's fine, you can. If that's your thing, then fine, good for you. God bless you and I'll leave it at that. Let me just leave it there. But yeah, we had one group that you know.
Speaker 2:They said no thanks when they found out we were not going to recite in the Elizabethan English. You know, we weren't going to do the whole play in the English that most people wouldn't understand. I mean, hey, I'm using Ebonics sometimes up there, heresy, heresy, alert, heresy, okay, okay, okay, up there, heresy, heresy, alert, heresy, okay, okay, okay, okay. I mean you can pull your chin and go Pharisaical on me all you want, but we're using the language to communicate the Word of God to people and that's what Jesus did. He used the language of the day and he spoke Aramaic. Jesus didn't speak Greek the way we have the Greek manuscripts. They spoke Aramaic. When it was put down, it was put down in Greek. So, even going back to the Greek of the New Testament, you're going back to a rendering of what was originally said in a different language. Anyway, much more could be said on that.
Speaker 2:I'll leave it there for now, but I just wanted to get across the idea that we see a great spectrum of people and the biggest blessing is the unity in Christ and you know, when you're with another brother or sister, that is filled with the Holy Spirit. There is a common union Dramatic pause there for you to think about it. There is a common union that we share. Yes, light bulbs are going off, bing bing bing, that's right. Communion. Yes, there's a common union and a fellowship because of the Spirit of God and we get a chance to see that. And this is the crazy thing. We've seen it across the world, not just in the States or in the Northeast area where we were before. We've seen it all over the world where we were before. We've seen it all over the world when I was in Albania, you know, to have fellowship with somebody I can't even completely carry on a full-blown conversation, I can't carry, you know.
Speaker 2:I can't ask them. Hey, man, can you give me directions to the nearest 7-Eleven? Actually, for those of you listening, in the South you probably don't have that many 7-Elevens, but in New Jersey it was like a convenience store. Now they got gas. Actually, there was one down here in North Carolina. They had gas. It was clean, the bathrooms were clean. I couldn't believe it. And they were open on Christmas Eve. I told the person there. I said I'm so glad you're open.
Speaker 2:It was after we did this play and I needed some water or something. I needed water, I needed some water and yeah, but being in a foreign country, you can't, you know, I couldn't ask, I couldn't carry on a conversation with this person. Yet if I said hallelujah, they knew exactly what I was saying and we praised the one who is worthy of praise. Together we had fellowship. It was quiet, not a lot of words, but we were saying words without opening our mouths. We were praising the God of heaven together and unfortunately, the world can't completely grip that. They don't understand that. You know, I've told this story before. We recently did a play at Calvary Chapel of Monmouth in Leonardo, new Jersey, and Pastor Shaw, who just had his 92nd birthday hallelujah, pastor Shaw and his wife, nancy, and she's with Jesus right now. And, lord, we ask you to just say hello to Nancy for us, please.
Speaker 2:She, I met her. I was working for Comcast at the time as a technician, like years ago as a technician, and I was sent her telephone wasn't working or something like that and I came into the house. She invited me in and somehow we ended up talking about Jesus and you could just, I could just sense that she was a spirit-filled believer. At least I was hoping so, because I was like man. I think she's a believer. Then we started talking about Jesus. I don't even know how he came up I might've said amen or something like that and we ended up talking about Jesus and I got our phone fixed and we ended up having a fantastic time of fellowship.
Speaker 2:And here was this older woman and I was able you know, our paths would not normally cross unless they cross in the supermarket or something. But here we had a fantastic. We had church. Literally we had church. We were praising the God of heaven, standing in faith in Christ and just enjoying life. And it's because of that introduction that the Lord engineered that.
Speaker 2:She went and talked to her husband, who was a pastor, and said and I think Plays no Word had just started. I don't even think it was called Plays no Word yet. It was like I was just doing these biblical plays, I was trying to just be faithful to what the Lord did. And I told her about this play it might've been a few months in and they invited us to come out. Yeah, because of that. And it established a fantastic relationship with Pastor Shaw and Becky and Larry, her husband that's their daughter and son-in-law, who's the assistant pastor there, and the fellowship there, frank Rosato and the whole team those guys you know, we have established relationships that now extend into eternity.
Speaker 2:It's because of the unity in Christ and who he brings together. I'm always amazed. You know my dear brother, john Boyle, who's the assistant pastor at Calvary Chapel, living Water we've talked about it, you know over things we have in common are not enough to like we would be an unlikely friendship, but yet in Christ we're dear brothers. Like dear brothers, I can call him and talk to him about whatever is on my heart, whatever I might be going through, and he can do the same with me. You take Christ out that equation. We're not even going to text each other, but with Christ in the equation, we absolutely love each other, pray for each other and have a bond that is closer than physical blood, and so it's just always a blessing we get to see that, and my wife is always blessed to see the greater body of Christ in its fullness, and that's what we get to do, and some of you guys know what I'm talking about. You know that we would not be. We wouldn't be, have each other's contact, we wouldn't be confidants. It's just improbable. So, yeah, I just wanted to relay that thought. I just wanted to relay that thought to you guys and just share how spectacular the body of Christ is and it's growing daily, hourly, and our family is getting bigger and bigger and when we get to glory we're just going to be like hallelujah man, look at this, I knew it, I knew it. And some of you guys are going to be like, wow, he was right. Some of you guys are going to be like he didn't tell me the half of it. Either way, glory is now closer than when we first started this radio program. Amen, amen to that I wanted to share.
Speaker 2:I know last week, with our 100th episode, we did the entire Christmas Joe, but I wanted to share just one little segment of what we did because we were recently at Calvary Chapel, clayton, north Carolina, which is two hours and some change from where I live, and Pastor Kevin Edwards is the pastor there and he didn't know what to expect. I just met him earlier this year. He wasn't sure what to expect to have us out and most of the people did not know what to expect to have us out. And most of the people did not know what to expect and they seemed extremely blessed when we brought the Christmas Joe play to their Christmas service. We were inserted into what they were already doing and we did our Christmas Joe play there and yeah, he was just so blessed and he mentioned that he and a few people mentioned they want us to come back and do our Pete play.
Speaker 2:So, god willing, we'll go back and bring them Pete, which is well, christmas Joe is a half an hour play and then if you get the full Plays on Word experience it's a half-hour play with about a 40, 45-minute concert. So maybe a little longer sometimes because I can talk and I'm sure Dino let me know. Dino will let me know how long we went when we were at his church. It might have been closer to an hour of music, I don't know. Maybe Roy will let me know. Anyway, yeah, we're going to go back and do our Pete play, god willing, and maybe even Genesis Joe. So we are setting up our Pete spring tour now. So those of you that are pastors and you want us to come out, please reach out. Let us know, because we have a limited amount of time, the way we can set up this tour, how far I can be, how long I can be away from Calvary, southport and all that kind of stuff, so let us know. But I wanted to play something and just get your thoughts on this, so take a listen.
Speaker 2:You know, every summer I come down here to Bethlehem and I participate in the Davidic woodcutting ceremony for the temple. We chop wood for the temple, me and my clan members, my family, the house of David, where I'm from. I know all my family here from Bethlehem, david where I'm from, I know all my family here from Bethlehem. And you know, tonight, when we came down here, no one from the house of David let us in. We were knocking on my family members' doors and nobody let us in. They all said there was no room and every house has an upper room Specifically for family members that are traveling to the temple. Every house has a room and not one from the house of David Let us in, except this kind man who let us stay down here with the animals, and I was kind of upset. Okay, so that's pretty dramatic, although it's very possible that the way we look at this Christmas story this part of the Christmas story is what was the word I'm looking for Sensationalized a little bit. This section, and even in the Christmas Joe play I leaned towards the, you know, the idea that they were in the barn in the back with the animals. Actually, though, in the Christmas Joe play, my effort to be somewhat accurate. I say no one let us in, except for this kind man who let us stay down here with the animals. And so the idea and I hope I don't bust anybody's bubble here, but the idea that there's a barn in the back with the animals and Joseph and Mary were completely alone, that is probably not accurate.
Speaker 2:There's a really good book, it's a scholarly book. It's called Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes Cultural Studies in the Gospels, by Kenneth E Bailey, and he goes into detail about what he calls the Christmas myth, not that Jesus is mythological in any kind of way, but what it's become. So let me give you an example. This whole story, this idea about there's like a holiday inn and it was all the rooms were full at the Holiday Inn and no one would let them in. That's not probable. The word listen to this, the Greek word that is used in Luke to tell the story and it says there's no room in the inn is Cataluma and the definition of that from Strong's definition, something that is for breaking up a journey, that is by implication a lodging place, a guest chamber, an inn. So if we let the Bible show us a little something about. Where else is this word used? Listen to this. I'll just stick in Luke. I'll stay in Luke. You're going to get a kick out of this.
Speaker 2:So in Luke 2, 7 is where we are in Christmas Joe. Then she gave birth to her firstborn son and she wrapped him in swaddling cloth, laid him in a feeding trough that's the manger Because there was no room for them at the lodging place right. And in Luke 22, the same book later on, when Jesus sends the guys to go set up for the Passover meal in the upper room, he says tell the owner of the house, quote the teacher asks you where is the guest room where I can eat the Passover with my disciples? This idea of the upper room is the same word, kataluma. And you drill down even farther. And you drill down even farther. Many houses have a guest. Yes, all the guest rooms were full, but they stayed downstairs and she placed him in the manger, which was the feeding trough, not the whole barn. The downstairs was probably the barn.
Speaker 2:Much more could be said about this and maybe we'll commit the next podcast to this because I think it's fascinating. So until we meet again next week. I'm sorry, time's up. Please forgive me, lydia. I tried my best to stay on time. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
Speaker 1:This program was made possible by the Plays on Word family of supporters. To find out more, check out our website at playsonwordorg.
