Episode 34: The Curious Case of Judas Iscariot

The name of Judas Iscariot is known by everyone -- even non-Christians.  He's the bad guy of the Jesus story, the villain.  He turned Jesus over to the Romans to be crucified. 

But let's dig a bit deeper.  What if Judas hadn't performed this act?  Would God's plan for salvation have been executed?  Was Judas preordained to betray Jesus?  Did he have free will not to do it?  It's a very interesting topic and I hope it'll give you a point or two to ponder.

My guest today is a very special surprise guest! A first-time guest on the podcast, but someone who's been very involved in the podcast from Day One.  He's someone very close to me, -- my husband Norm Larsen!

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Hi, I'm your host Lori Larson, and this is the year I read the Bible. Welcome a Lifelong Christian. I thought I was familiar with the Bible, but in 2023 I accepted the challenge of reading the whole thing, cover to cover. Whenever I encountered something I didn't understand or wanted to learn more. I jotted it down, but I kept reading to stay on schedule. Then I reached the end Imagine Confetti rating down on me, and a huge sigh of relief. I had 40 topics to research in 2024. I started diving into all those topics. I did research, I wrote blogs and I shared them with whoever might wanna learn too. And in 2025, the project continues. I published a book containing all my essays, and now a podcast. Is there something you can learn from that dusty book that sits on all of our shelves? Yes. Yes, there is. Let's dive into The year I read the Bible. Hello listeners, this is Lori and I am back with you today. We have a very interesting essay today, or very interesting character in the Bible. I think everyone's heard of him. He has become notorious across history. Let's get right to it. This essay is called The Curious Case of Judas Escar. When you hear the name of Judas, what is your first reaction? He betrayed Jesus. He sold Jesus to the Romans for 30 pieces of silver. He's a bad guy. Through and through. Sometimes we'll refer to a particularly nasty betrayer in our modern life. As a Judas. Have you heard the phrase your name is mud? Well, that phrase is actually, your name is Mud. MUDD as in Dr. Samuel Mudd, who gave medical help to John Wilkes Booth who broke his leg while escaping after shooting President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Although Dr. Mud was accused and investigated as being a conspirator of booths in the assassination, it was a widely circumstantial case and he was never found guilty. Regardless. 160 years later, the derogatory phrase, based on the good, doctor's name, is still in our American lexicon. And calling someone a Judas for purposely betraying someone has now lasted over 2000 years. I'm sure you know the story of Judas, but let's do a short recap. He was one of Jesus' 12 disciples. In his inner circle. He traveled all over with Jesus and the rest of the chosen, and he was given the job as the group's treasurer. That is, he was in charge of their money when Jesus sent them out in pairs to the surrounding lands to preach and perform miracles. Judas was one of them. But during the last supper, let's read in Mark 14, 17 through 21. When evening came, Jesus arrived with the 12. While they were reclining at the table eating, he said, truly, I tell you one of you will betray me. One who is eating with me. They were saddened. And one by one they said to 'em, surely you don't mean me. It is one of the 12. He replied, one who dips bread into the bowl with me. The son of man will go just as it is written about him, but woe to that man who betrays the son of man. It would be better for him if he had not been born. That was the new international version of the Bible. The fact that Jesus shared this admonishment with the attendees of his last supper means that he knew that one of his inner circle of 12 disciples would betray him. He knew because it was God's plan. Because man stepped outside the will of God. His chosen people in the Old Testament made annual sacrifices of animals and fruits to atone for sin. These sacrifices ended with the once and for all sacrifice made by Jesus Christ when he freely allowed himself to be arrested. Tried. Convicted and put to death. It's a big, magnificent, horrible, wonderful plan for a loving father to make, to secure salvation for all his earthly children. But one of the details of this big plan is to get the Roman soldiers in the right place at the right time to arrest. Jesus Judas played that role. He was preordained by God to play that treacherous role of betraying the Lord and Savior of the world and act that would lead to Jesus' death. That brings up a couple of questions for me. Did Jesus know Judas would be the one? Jesus definitely knew. One of the 12 would betray him based on what he told them at the supper, but he did not tell them which one. In fact, the others were astounded and asked, surely you don't mean me. But if we piece together clues in the gospels, we conclude that Jesus did indeed know that it would be Judas Mark 1420 that I read above specifies that the one who betrays him will not only have broken bread with Jesus, but be the one who dips bread into the bowl with me. I am sure you've seen the famous artistic recreation of the Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci. 13 people attended the dinner all sitting around a table. It wouldn't have been likely that all of them would've dipped their bread in the bowls set near Jesus. Evidently, Judas did. Matthew goes a step further in his gospel. Let's take a look at chapter 26, verse 25. Then Judas, the one who would betray him, said, surely you don't mean me, rabbi, and Jesus answered. You have said so. The gospel writer John, also confirmed that Jesus knew not only that one of his disciples would betray him, but he knew it would be Judas. And going further. He'd known since his ministry had begun, John 6 64, for Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. So there's our answer to the first question. Judas, was a faithful follower of Jesus for most of Jesus's ministry. But ultimately, he betrayed Jesus, which led to Jesus's arrest and subsequently death. Why did Judas do it? The immediate reason is he received money for the transaction, 30 pieces of silver. There are suggestions in the gospels that Judas was highly motivated by money. John 12, five and six documents Judas words as why wasn't this perfume sold and the money given to the poor, it was worth a year's wages. He did not say this because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief as a keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it. That was from the new international version. Judas, potential motives for betraying Jesus have been widely debated with some suggesting he may have been disillusioned with Jesus's peaceful message and was seeking a more forceful messiah. But I think the definitive answer to this question is yes, Judas knew he would be the one. Why? Because he initiated the contact with the chief priests. Matthew 26 14 says Then one of the 12, the one called Judas Gart, went to the chief priest and asks, what are you willing to give me if I deliver him over to you? So they counted out for him 30 pieces of silver. From then on, Judas watched for an opportunity to hand him over. Another question I have is since Judas betrayal of Jesus was in God's plan, did he have any choice in the matter? To answer this important question, I'm going to quote an expert. This is from Dr. Roger Barry's article. Did Judas have a choice or was he predestined to betray Jesus? Quote, did Judas have any choice in the matter? It seems not. He could not avoid or change his destiny. He was for ordained to commit this brutal act. The moment Satan entered Judas, the die was cast. That reference is Luke 22, 3. Now we come to the free will part Once Judas has completed his ungodly mission, he was free to make things right with Jesus. Jesus died for Judas two. You know that if Judas had fallen on his knees. Repented and asked for forgiveness that Jesus would've welcomed him into the kingdom. Peter also betrayed his relationship with Christ, but he is in heaven's glory. Why? Because he returned to Christ and repented. The Bible says, Peter not only felt shame and despair, he repented and asked for forgiveness. The story of Judas is a paradox. He is the epitome of predestination, along with its opposite. Free will. He had to betray Jesus, but he was free to return to Christ if he had so wanted. Wouldn't that have made a great story of redemption and salvation? End quote. And with that, let's pray. Dear Father, thank you for the amazing complexity of your living word and your plan to redeem mankind through your son. Jesus, please continue to give us all a thirst for knowledge, for digging into the books of the Bible and learning more. Each time we read it, illuminate the divine truths that you want us to see and help us to apply them to our own lives. Amen. And now readers, I have a guest that I interviewed for this episode. Now, I'm always excited about my guests and I've always really appreciated every single one of my guests coming forward and sharing their thoughts. But this one is a special one, and you'll find out why in just a few seconds. Standby. And listeners, we are back, and for the first time ever, I have a very special guest to the podcast. Let me just tell you a little bit about this man. First of all, he's a man. He has the same last name as I do. We share not only the same last name, we share two sons. Two grandsons, a dog, a house at the beach, and I'm sure you can guess by now, my husband of 36 and a half years of marriage. Norm Larson, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. I am so excited to have you. He, of course, has been with me on this journey the whole way. But when I usually go into my office and close the door to do interviews, he's out there trying to stay quiet. So this time he is in the spotlight. Take a moment to tell us a little about yourself and then also how you and I became acquainted with each other. Well, we have fun with this topic, but. There's a place called the Bebop Cafe, which is a club near our house in Pennsylvania when we were living there, and I hadn't met Laura yet, and there was a, I guess it was a cover charge of $10 and I think it was five. Okay. Five, yeah. And then all you could drink and eat for those two hours. And people came in droves, as you imagine. And one big group was Laurie's group and one big group was mine. And we met each other and I knew she was the person for me from the first five minutes of talking to her. Aw. He always tells me that, he always says that from the first time he met, he knew that he was gonna marry me. What, what made you think that? It's just a feeling. I never had it before, so I just knew it. I told people, my friends thought I was nuts but I knew it. I just knew it right off the bat. Aw. So tell us a little bit about your life. As it stands now in our retirement and our early sixties, I'm not as active as my wife, but, I came from Pennsylvania, as I mentioned, and we lived for 24 years out in Illinois. So when we came here in South Carolina, the weather was so nice. It, it was beautiful. We love the beach, both of us do. So we've kind of fallen into a great thing here. And I've never seen my wife this happy in her life and I am too. Yeah. We're very blessed to end up where we wanted to be. Yes. We are so blessed and so lucky that our lives ended up taking us here. And I just wanted to say one thing when we were. Young married people, but no kids yet. We had a, house that we were saving up for. We were gonna buy a house, take the first big plunge and at that time, I don't know if it's the same now, but at that time, in order to qualify for a mortgage, you had to have been. In your same job or your same company for two years, which both of us were, and so we had picked out this house, signed the papers, put a little down payment on it, and he came home one day from work and said. I got laid off, I'm like, oh no. First of all, we're gonna, lose that house. We couldn't afford the house on one salary. Now you'd have to work somewhere two years. And we were, depressed about that. But. We decided to do something very unlike both of us who were normally very conservative spenders. We decided to take some of that money that we were gonna save for the house, and we jumped on a cruise and we went to Bermuda and it was one of the best vacations of our life. We loved Bermuda and we met some great friends, and we did some wonderful beachy things. We never made it back. To Bermuda until the year that we were married for 35 years. And so we went back to Bermuda and we renewed our vows on our 35th anniversary. That was really special, wasn't it? Mm-hmm. Yes, it was. When I got laid off, the whole office got laid off. Yes. And I looked at it as. When one door closes another two open, you know? Yeah. So we were lucky like that. It turned out to be that the house we bought, we liked better than the one we thought we wanted. Yeah. The job I got for State Farm, they were okay with two years. 'cause that was with a large company and that was better for us. Yeah. So everything worked out. Like I said, very blessed. I like to go with that one door closes, one opens, and I, think that explains how we were. Yeah. And I think we continue to see that throughout the rest of our married life. We put our trust in God and even when things don't go perfectly right the first time, you trust that it's gonna work out for the good. Well we are here to talk about this episode, the Curious Case of Judas Ariat. When I was recruiting, you in particular. To be a podcast guest. You actually volunteered for this Judas episode. What made you drawn to Judas over any of the other topics? Well, it's something I talked about with my father-in-law with his Sunday school class. I couldn't understand how could you betray someone that you knew was God and you knew was the son of God. It just didn't make sense. And then the, Peter denying him three times, was it's more than I could handle. I'm thinking, geez, if we had a back in the day with a, with an army or marine, with, there's true cases of people jumping on a grenade, sacrificing themself for people they don't even know. And this is a person. Not only do they know, they know it's the son of God, so that just bothered me and my father just said everybody has a role to play. And if he picked perfect people out that didn't have the things that they had, that wouldn't have happened. Mm-hmm. So you needed him to be crucified and it worked out for the people he picked. So don't look for perfection. Look for, for that. Yeah. That's a really good point. Well, it brings it kind of to, my next question is, do you believe that God preordained Judas to be the one to betrayed Jesus and. What do you think that means? Why him? Well, I have to wonder, I think he was, and I think it was part of the plan. I think he was greedy. He was a greedy person that could be bought out for money. Although the amount of silver he got doesn't seem to match what he did to earn that. No. I actually did a Google search of how much was 30 pieces of silver in today's. Currency and I think it was like 40 bucks. Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of crazy when you think about that. And then on top of that, his role in it wasn't as large as I would think would be. He kissed him, I believe, on the cheek, identify who he was, but people knew who he was. So eventually 10 minutes down the road, a half hour down the road, someone was going to, so he didn't almost need to even do that. But he made the deal with the. Government at the time, and to me, just as liable or just as guilty as, Judas would be, Pontius Pilate. To me, Pontius Pilate, played a huge role in that 'cause he just wanted his hands cleaned. He knew who Jesus was. Yeah. But he wanted his hands cleaned and he stepped away. To me, he played a bigger role because that really put the guys that ended up crucifying him in charge. So you think that PIAs Pilate was a believer in Jesus, or at least to the fact that he knew Jesus was the Messiah or the Son of God sent down to earth? I believe he did. He, heard stories. People from his own area said We saw him bring someone back from being deaf and, and we saw cripples walk and not just changing water to wine. And so enough people had seen it, but he was more worried about, how can I get out of this when I don't have to make a decision? He knew it was wrong. Yeah. He knew Jesus didn't know anything. Right. But he wanted it out. So to me, he was just as culpable, if that's a proper way of paying it as any of them. So you mentioned Pontius Pilate, who had a large part in Jesus' arrest and crucifixion. Let's take a moment to just fill any listeners in who may not be totally familiar with the story. In Matthew chapter 27, we see in verses three through five. When Judas, who had betrayed him, realized that Jesus had been condemned to die. He was filled with remorse. So he took the 30 pieces of silver back to the leading priests and elders. I have sinned. He declared for I have betrayed an innocent man. What do we care? They retorted. That's your problem. Then Judas threw the silver coins down in the temple and went out and hanged himself. Very interesting that Judas was filled with remorse after discovering they were going to kill Jesus. That may suggest to us that he didn't know the extent of his actions by turning him over. Maybe he just thought they were going to arrest him and stop his ministry, but not to go so far as death. Finally, the leading priests and elders who had seized Jesus. Took him to Pontius Pilate, who was the governor of the region, Pilate questions Jesus and wants him to either agree to the charges or deny them, but Jesus remains silent, which then makes Pilate frustrated. Then in verse 22, we see the act of Pilate washing his hands of the whole matter like you brought up. Pilate responded. Then what should I do with Jesus? Who is called the Messiah? They shouted back, crucify him. Why Pilate demanded, what crime has he committed? But the mob roared even louder. Crucify him Pil saw that he wasn't getting anywhere and that a riot was developing. So he sent for a bowl of water. And washed his hands before the crowd saying, I am innocent of this man's blood. The responsibility is yours. So as you said, Pilate could have stopped the whole thing and didn't he let the rabid crowd take Jesus away and crucify an innocent man? So very good point, norm. Well, do you think that Judas could have used his free will to turn away from that role of Jesus' betrayer? Absolutely. He could have. But. That's why God picked him. He was going to do what he was gonna do. I believe that basically Judas believed in God, believed in heaven, but I don't know if he was so sure that Jesus was the son of God. More so thought of, like the other elders did with the Jews was he was a prophet. Not to make that any better, but I, I don't believe he. Completely believe that 'cause to buy him out of 40 bucks. It just never made sense to me. But no, he could have changed. He had full free will. Well, I think Judas has described in the gospels as more of a business minded disciple. Like he was given the responsibility of, of the treasury, of the little group of, of Jesus and the 12, Judas managed the money. He was reported to have stolen the money. Yeah. Sometimes too, but I think I agree with what you're saying about all the other disciples. They may not have understood what Jesus' mission was while they were doing it, but they were open and accepting it. It's like, oh, okay. You're not gonna be the, you know, writing into. Jerusalem on a steed like a warrior like King David would have. You're gonna come in on a donkey with, very humble clothing. This is a different kind of Messiah than we were expecting. But I think of all of 'em, Judas wasn't on board with that and never really became on board with that. And I wonder if he thought that he was. Earning a place in Jewish history of stopping this. Not a fake or a, imitation Messiah, but that he wasn't the one they were all waiting for. Yeah. And I look at it as that's why he picked the people. He did. He picked imperfect people that had weaknesses in different areas. A lot of 'em just fled away. They didn't want to be, caught. Others like Peter denied 'em right up front. I think, and I could be pushing with this, but I also think when I think of this is he represents everybody. Pontius Pilate, Judas, even the disciples that betrayed him, I think they represent us. So it isn't just they did it. I think God was showing this is what Man does. Yeah. So we're not free from all this. We're getting safe because he did it. Yeah. But we're the same as them. We're not better. That is such an excellent point, because. The Bible was written all along, not just for the people at the time that it was happening for, but now us thousands of years later, we can learn more about our God and our faith by reading what the ancient people went through. But it's the same 'cause God is the same, from now to then to ever. He's always the same God. So the things that were important to him when David lived, or when Abraham lived, or when, Joshua, any of the people of God all the way through Jesus's time, it, it's still important to him now, and we can learn from that. I've often said I'm so glad that I'm a Christian born in this day and age because I have so much benefit of reading back through. All the mistakes that everybody made. And of course we still make mistakes now, but we can learn from the Bible and from, minister's sermons and all the analysis that's available to us now as modern Christians. I agree. And if you look at it from standpoint, Jesus had to pick who he wanted to be in the disciples. And so he, he chose people to do this. But when all this came down, whether you fled away from him when he was being captured, whether you kissed him on the cheek. To say it's him or whether you denied him right up front. I think God was saying to everybody, if you think you're the other person, that perfect person that overlooked it, think again. I'm telling you, you're Judas. You are, Pontius Pilate. You are the disciples that were afraid. Yeah. You're the same boat. Don't put your nose up to that, that that's, yes. And when we add free will, this is what happens. Yeah. And so I think we're sitting there too, doing the same things that they did to Jesus. And it had to be done. 'cause if it hadn't been done, he wouldn't have died for our sins. Right. That's exactly right. Sometimes I, I think when I was younger I was like, oh, I just love Palm Sunday. Everybody's so happy to see him and everybody's cheering and singing and celebrating and then it leads right into the last supper and the crucifixion and it's like, wow, that took such a downturn. You know? But I think as I matured as a person and also as a Christian. I understood that if everything ended after Palm Sunday, our faith wouldn't really be worth much because there wouldn't have been that sacrificial lamb dying to save us all from sin. It has to get dark and brutal in order for God to demonstrate just how much he loves us and is willing to sacrifice to save us. My father had a Bible study and that's where we had a lot of discussions on. He was the one that told me, you're Judas, you're Pontius Pilate. You're the people that went away. Yeah. And but if you look at it, I would still say, my gosh, my dad was a Marine. I said, you were willing to die for your country, but somebody couldn't die for the son of God. And he just said that he had to go that way. It had to be, that's why he picked the people he did, and they're great people. They end up suffering later. And they weren't afraid. Later on other disciples were killed. Yes. And they did the right thing. So they grew. Yeah. Yeah. Just like we would grow if we, he knew what he did. He asked for forgiveness. Like for instance, Peter was ashamed. Mm-hmm. Well, we're ashamed at times in our life. Sure. And we have to do the same. Nothing different, really. We have to pray for forgiveness from our God. Yeah. You mentioned Peter asking. For forgiveness. When Peter denied that he knew Jesus, that, Thursday night, before the crucifixion, when Jesus was arrested and Jesus had told him, you're going to deny me three times. And he said, well, of course not. Of course not. I wouldn't do that. Well then of course, that's exactly what he did. And he didn't just do it once. He didn't just do it twice. He denied him three times. And then, Jesus was crucified and fortunately Jesus rose back to life and he was able to talk to Peter and tell him that he was going to be the rock, that he would build his church. And Peter, threw himself on the ground and asked for forgiveness. That was such a great redemption story. And I think even now, 2,500 years later or whatever. We think of Peter as such a hero of the Christian faith. Obviously we don't feel that way about Judas. We talked in the essay about, if you say, oh, you're a Judas to this day, that means that you're. A bad guy. You betrayed someone. But what do you think about this idea? I quoted a article in the essay. Imagine a World where Judas went ahead and betrayed Jesus just as he was planned to do by God, but later instead of leaving, and I believe he ended up committing suicide, he asked for forgiveness. And redemption. Would that change the way the world of believers think about him now? Absolutely. I would think that, and I, I'm also a believer that we don't know exactly what was between God and Judas. That's a personal thing. Mm-hmm. So maybe before he took his life, maybe he asked for forgiveness. He felt horrible. We believe, I believe that if you ask for forgiveness, you're forgiven. Mm-hmm. It could be Hitler. It could be horrible people, but before they die, they come to the light and ask for forgiveness, we're told that they're saved. Mm-hmm. So it doesn't sound like Judas did that, but we don't know. And I'd like, yeah. And his name is the only one really remembered Pius pie. You just think of wiping his hands clean. That's all you think of with him. Yeah. But he had more power than anyone to have stopped it. Mm-hmm. Thank God he didn't, because Jesus wouldn't have gone on the cross and we wouldn't have our sensei. Yeah, yeah. God is in control. Sometimes the story's light and sometimes it's dark, but regardless of what is going on on Earth, God is always in control. But I like the thought that, there would be a whole different outlook of Judas if he had just asked for forgiveness and redemption, and it encourages us to do the same thing, even if we've done something that we think is unforgivable. God doesn't ever think of it as unforgivable. Yeah. I agree. And again, I want to touch on the point that I think we're all the people that we're shining right now. Just like when slavery was out there, slavery was wrong, but people did that during that time. They're no better or worse when people think, I would never do that. Well, you can't really say that man's evil in a way. Mm-hmm. As soon as we were given the right to have our own point of view and our own will. That's when the devil kind of creeps in and sometimes the devil gets you. In this case, they got a lot of people here. But the key is you can always say, please Lord, please forgive me. Believe in Jesus and his redemptive power. And then ask for forgiveness. And it will happen, it will happen for you through God's grace. All right. Is there anything else that you wanted to say about this topic or add that we haven't talked about? No, I, think we've covered everything. It's just that it's something that always bothered me. Mm-hmm. And I think now that we're talking through it, by looking at the questions, that you've given me, it make you feel. Okay, I understand what's going on now. Rather than say, why the heck did this even happen? Right? If it didn't happen, if we never had Jesus die for our sins, this world would be horrible right now. Yeah. It'd be out of control. It's outta control. Now. If it would've even lasted this long, it wouldn't have lasted that long. Yeah. It was needed, but it just takes some time to look at it 'cause it always bothered me. How people could portray, but I'm more him, these folks than I am. Perfect. When nobody's perfect. Yeah. So look in the mirror when you're looking at these people. Of course, your father, who you were talking about when he was teaching his, Sunday school class, he was my father-in-law. Unfortunately he has passed. But such a wonderful man. I never had the pleasure of attending his Sunday school class. But what a wonderful gift to have, not just a father, but a mother as well who, or such strong, Displayers of the Christian faith as you had growing up. And I myself had as well. We both came from very, Christian loving parents. Well, as much as I said you were the one, if you were a non-Christian, you wouldn't have been. Yeah, I mean that was important. We talked about that. You and I, before we even started dating, we kind of fell through like, what do you believe in? What don't you believe in? What do you, and God was number one. And also bringing up children. Under the same way we were brought up was important as well. So that was a question I had for an interview question if I had to interview before we dated was those questions and we covered that before we even started dating. I think it made it a lot more solid. Right, right off the bat. Yeah. We had common values, common faith. And yes, that's a great starting point. It doesn't mean that there won't ever be arguments or disagreements, but it sure is a great starting point. You're on the foundation and then you can pretty much go anywhere from there if you go by. What my father would say too is I end up looking at Peter and the other disciples totally different after that, the way he did, because he would tell me a story and he would be so. Excited to be talking about what they did and how they redeemed themselves. Mm-hmm. So he looked at it that way. So it was a positive in there. It just took me a little longer. Yeah. Yeah. Me too. I say at the beginning of each episode, I've been a lifelong Christian and I've read the Bible, most of my life, but I didn't realize what, I didn't know about it until I read it. It cover to cover at this time of my life and started digging in and really, satisfying my curiosity by doing research. So there's always room. There's so much material there, there's always room to learn and grow from the Bible. All right. Well, norm, I'm so glad that we took this time together. Thank you so much for being a guest on the podcast. Thank you for making it easy for me. I was a little nervous to hear, but I really enjoyed it and it was a topic that was something that I thought about a lot, so it wasn't just because it is. Yeah. It was just something that was always in the back of my mind all the time anyway, especially during Easter. Yeah. Well, I am gonna go ahead and stop it there, and if you ever wanna come back for another episode, I sure will make a spot for you. Thank you. Thank you. Bye-bye. ​and that's it for today. Thank you very much for being here with me on the year I read the Bible Podcast. We'll be back with another episode next week. If you enjoy this podcast, please do all the normal things to spread the word like it. Review it, share it with your friends. If you are interested in additional the year, I read the Bible resources such as the book, the video channel, and the blog, I will certainly include the links in the show notes, and I'd love to hear about your own journey to read the Bible cover to cover. Have you done it or are you doing it right now? Please reach out to me and let me know how it's going. Until next time, it's Lori Larson with the year I read the Bible. Bye.