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On this episode, I read Part 7 (the final part) of my Substack series on God's law and present several principles by which we can take an Old Testament law and apply it in light of Christ's birth, life, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. This method of interpretation and application follows the pattern presented by the Apostle Paul when he describes himself as following "the law of Christ."
In future episodes, we will look at specific laws and actually apply the interpretive method presented here.
As always, if you have any questions or comments, please email me at thegbgpodcast@gmail.com or go to my Substack page at http://www.governedbygod.com and message me there!
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What happens when we don’t just hear a lie, but actually prefer it to the truth?
In this episode of Bold Apologia, we begin the series Getting Real with God by examining one of the most sobering moments in the life of King Ahab. Surrounded by four hundred prophets telling him exactly what he wanted to hear, Ahab already knew where the truth could be found. His problem wasn’t that God had failed to speak. His problem was that he hated what the truth demanded of him.
Walking through 1 Kings 22, Romans 1, and 2 Thessalonians 2, we confront the danger of continually resisting God’s truth until the lie becomes more desirable than repentance. God’s kindness is meant to lead us home, but what happens when we keep refusing to turn?
The question isn’t simply, “Do I know the truth?” The deeper question is: Do I love the truth, even when it tells me something I don’t want to hear?
Truth doesn’t become false because the majority rejects it, and a lie doesn’t become true because everyone around us agrees with it.

Rental Family exposes the idolatry of self-image, counterfeit apologies, and the vanity of legacy, and shows why grace beats a kind lie.
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Episode 177: Rental Family
For the full show notes please visit areyoujustwatching.com/177
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When the roles we perform for other people start to feel more real than who we actually are, we arrive at the quiet ache at the center of Rental Family. Directed by Hikari, the film stars Brendan Fraser as an American actor in Tokyo who takes work with an agency that rents out stand-in grooms, fathers, friends, and mourners, and roughly half its dialogue is in Japanese. Eve and I found plenty to talk about. Eve traces the idolatry of self-image through the man who runs the agency. I take on the agency's apology service, which sells the look of repentance without the substance, and an aging film star whose last journey plays like a page out of Ecclesiastes. Eve closes with why grace, rather than brutal honesty, is the Christian answer rather than a kind lie.
Take aways:
A real Japanese industry, not a movie invention. Rental Family's premise — hiring people to play family members, friends, or apologetic strangers — is based on an actual agency employing thousands in Japan. Eve and Tim use it as a case study in what happens when a culture's public/private-self divide gets commercialized.
Idolatry of self-image. Tada, who runs the rental agency, turns out to be living the same illusion he sells — a "perfect" wife and son who are actually his own rented employees. Eve traces this to 1 John 2:15-17, Isaiah 44:9-11, and the film's closing shot of Phillip staring into a mirror inside a Shinto shrine, which she ties to James 1:22-25 and Matthew 23:27-28.
Counterfeit repentance vs. real repentance. Tim contrasts the film's performed apologies — most memorably a cardboard-cutout confession from an embezzler — with the godly grief of 2 Corinthians 7:9-10, Joel 2:13, Hebrews 9:22, and 1 John 1:9. The point: a confession that costs nothing changes no one.
The vanity of chasing legacy. Kikuo, a once-famous, now-dementia-affected actor, becomes an accidental stand-in for the Teacher of Ecclesiastes — a man who "gained everything" the world sells and found it was vapor. Tim walks through Ecclesiastes 1:1-2, 2:16, and 3:11, landing on the film's mirror ending as "seize the day" without God as the tether.
Grace, not brutal honesty. Eve's closing theme tackles the classic "is lying ever justified" debate (the Hebrew midwives, Rahab, David feigning madness) and argues Scripture's answer isn't permission to lie — it's grace for when we fail. She lands on James 1:19-20, 1 Thessalonians 5:11-22, and Ephesians 4:29: the opposite of a harmful lie is a graceful truth, not a brutal one.
Where the hosts split. Eve leaned more positive overall, identifying with the film's loneliness; Tim was more unsettled — particularly by Mia's mother's deception plan (which he says lands harder for him given his own family history) and the "hooker with a heart of gold" treatment of Lola, colored by time spent with anti-trafficking missionaries in Salzburg, Austria.
Redemption without a Christian framework. Nearly every character gets some kind of turnaround by the end, which both hosts flag as real but incomplete — repentance without the tether to God that would make it more than "the fool's wisdom."

On Today's Show:
Scripture Reading from the Legacy Standard Bible
Prayers from the 2019 Book of Common Prayer
Reading from Daily Readings From the Life of Christ by John MacArthur
Monday Meanderings!

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Five Day Bible Reading Plan
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2019 Book of Common Prayer
Theme music: Enfield’s recording of “Crown Him With Many Crowns” © 2010 by Resolved Music. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (LSB®) Legacy Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2021 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Managed in partnership with Three Sixteen Publishing Inc. LSBible.org and 316publishing.com

The Matt Slick Live (Live Broadcast of 09-28-2026) is a production of the Christian Apologetics Research Ministry (CARM). Matt answers questions on topics such as: The Bible, Apologetics, Theology, World Religions, Atheism, and other issues!
You can also email questions to Matt using: info@carm.org, Put "Radio Show Question" in the Subject line! Answers will be discussed in a future show. Topics Include:
1 Cor. 10, What is The Perfect?/Knowing God/Cross Out Some Scripture?/Prophesying Theological Forefathers/Romans 5:18/Eternal Security and Free Will/
Is it God Who Chooses and Saves Us?/
What is Provisionalism?/Fundamentalism?/Dispensationalism?/The Campbellite Movement/Who are The Israel of God?/
September 28, 2026