Did Dinosaurs Live with Adam and Eve?

0:00Welcome to Curiously Caitlyn, where we try to make theology make sense. I don't know. That doesn't make any sense. What? Curiously. Caitlyn. Welcome back to another Curiously Caitlyn. I am joined once again by producer Mike. Mike, how are you today? I'm feeling combative. Well, well. Yeah, I didn't see that coming. I didn't see that coming. Come back. You know what I titled my notes for today's dinosaurs versus Adam and Eve? Like Adam and Eve have swords and they're fighting dinosaurs. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, it feels like as we're going to hear in our questions, like it's a big rumble of like who's side are you on? Adam and Eve are the dinosaurs. That's, wow, combative. So I should be on guard. Yeah. And I just had a coffee right before this. I'm feeling. I'm feeling. I've got my coffee with me. So I'm ready. I'm ready. I came prepared. Okay. I feel like mad if it is all ready.

1:02You know, we only got a few episodes left. So we got to get it all out. You got to get it all out. That's right. If you missed two weeks ago, we just have a few episodes left. But we do have a few more. Some good ones. And including at least one episode where we're just going to go through a lot of unanswered questions. So if you've got some burning questions off, like get them in. And also, as we announce, Caitlin, we've got a new podcast you're working on. We think we know the name. I know. Are we going to say no? We're not. We're not. But now you all know that it's not just undecided. It's like living in our brains right now. And you just don't know. And like the first few episodes, oh, man, I'm ex we were just talking about it. I'm excited about it. It's going to be good. All right. But let's listen. We have three questions for today. You ready for these? I'm ready. Which came first, the dinosaurs or the Bible? I know the Bible says God created animals and Adam and Eve. But what about dinosaurs and evolution?

2:04All of the animals in the golden were then full of what have got into the animals that we know today. Hey, one more. Wow. One more. I do some people say that and Eve refers and some people say that dinosaurs refers. Great questions, kids. These are fabulous questions. Yes. So Caitlin, which is it dinosaurs or Adam and Eve? I love this question because as we'll get into one, we just like don't have an answer to this question. But two, such a perfect kid question and that it's not only like a good logical question of like, okay, I've heard this story. I've heard this story. How do these fit together? It's also a very kid question in the sense of like dinosaurs. Dinosaurs. Dinosaurs are so fun. Right. Well, you also hear the, I remember thinking this as a kid. You hear in all the books and all the classes at school that dinosaurs and humans did not

3:07exist at the same time. Right. And yet I'm hearing in Sunday school that Adam and Eve were created like six days after you know, creations started. So how does that? It was a pretty small window. Tinosaur's were only alive for two days, Caitlin. Just that's a very good point. I actually remember in seminary learning for the first time that there were a substantial amount of people in my program who just did not believe in dinosaurs. Yeah. Like they were like, it's one of those things where like the scientists put the bones together and they're lying to us about how they go together. Oh, yeah, the same thing. That the bones that wasn't listening to me. I've heard, have you not heard that? I haven't heard that. I haven't heard that. I haven't heard that. I haven't heard that. That Satan put the bones there to confuse us. And it's works. Yeah. How fascinating. Yeah. Okay. So as we said, there's not a straightforward answer to this question. I think it's most helpful to say there's kind of three broad categories of ways that Christians have answered this question. First one is along the lines of what we were just saying, it's the closest to that kind of you, a young earth creationist view, which if you've never heard that term before,

4:12could mean lots of things like being young earth creationist could mean lots of different interpretations of Genesis and science. So basically it means God created the world along the timeline that the Bible seems to give us. I don't think the Bible is necessarily giving us a timeline, but the earth is relatively young, like 6,000-ish years old. And what happens in Genesis, if you take a very straightforward kind of literal, quote, unquote literal interpretation of it, then that's what happened. One day, everything created in the first day was created. Second day, everything in the second day. It took literally six days. Everything was finished. And then we've just kind of rock and roll from there. That's everything very straightforward. In that interpretation, there's no evolution. Obviously, everything happened within the last 6,000 years. Everything happens in a six days of creation. And most of those people, not all of them, but many of them would say dinosaurs if they were real, because as you said, some of those people might not believe in dinosaurs. If they do believe in dinosaurs, they would say they were created when the other

5:15animals were created, and then they all died in the flood. Or something like that. No as flood, or maybe they just weren't long for this world. And at some point, early on, the dinosaurs died. In this view, which honestly is not my view, but it's kind of fun to think about, because it's fun to think about admini in the Garden of Eden, perfect relationship with all creatures. They're just riding a T-Rex, hanging out with the dinosaurs. That's kind of fun. And that's one category. It's like, in this view, the Bible is intending to give us a timeline. It's intending to describe in a very literal way how things came to be creation-wise. And in that view, it might be sort of strange that the Bible doesn't mention dinosaurs, but they were there, and then they died. That's why they're not here anymore. Second general view is Old Earth creationism, which again, sounds very straightforward. Old Earth, the Earth is very old. If people in this camp would accept a lot of the scientific estimations now of like, I don't even, honestly, I have no idea.

6:16I'm not a scientist, trillion bajillion, whatever, years old. I like billions, billions. Billions, whatever. They would accept what most scientists say about how old the Earth is. And they would say, God created everything slowly, still did not employ the means of evolution. Evolution is not accurate. That's not a scientifically or biblically good explanation of what happened. But things that happen very slowly. Genesis might be describing epochs of creation. It might not be actual six days, 24 hours. But in a general span of time, these things were created. I've also heard kind of a hybrid between those first two is that God created things with age. So just like Adam and Eve, we're not created as babies. Oh, yeah. And so that is why when we go to try to use our scientific methods to see how old something is, it could be skewed because God created everything with age. God created a billions of year-olds. Exactly. Yes, very possible. In this view, because there's a longer time than those 6,000 years, most Christians that fall into that camp would say dinosaurs lived and died a long time ago, they probably did

7:18not overlap with Adam and Eve. They were prehistoric in the sense that we take them to be, but they did not evolve and no other creature evolved. It's just a very long time frame. Sure. Third kind of general, and again, you could have, as we've already witnessed, so many variations within these large camps. But if the first one is young, or the second one is old, the last one, and again, there's lots of different terms you could put in this last camp. But very broadly speaking, the last camp accepts a lot of the current scientific ideas about evolution and about the creation of the world as this very old process, evolution is a very long process, but says that all of that was directed and guided and under the sovereignty of God. So rather than a thoroughly scientific explanation that just says, the big bang happened, we have no idea why. Things just came into being and animals evolved over time and like what a crazy, amazing thing that that happened in this camp, Christians would say, we think science is telling us something true.

8:18We think science not perfectly, but imperfectly is telling us something about how creation came to be. But unlike the scientific explanations that say that that happened through thoroughly materialistic explanations, God guided that process. If you're in that general camp, you would say dinosaurs lived a very long time ago and like a lot of scientists say today, some kind of, you know, meteor hitting the earth cause the extinction of the dinosaurs. And then later on, there's this long period of evolution that leads to humanity. So there are like the three big camps. I think it's important to say all three of those camps are trying to reconcile what the Bible says and what science says. One of them are just completely chucking one or the other, even though it's easy for us to say that last group chucking the Bible, that first group is chucking science. No, all of them to some degree or another think that science is a means through which we can know things imperfectly. And the Bible is a way for us to know things also imperfectly, not that the Bible is imperfect,

9:19but we are imperfect interpreters of the Bible. And they're trying to figure out how to reconcile all of the things we want to say theologically about creation and God with the things we seem to know scientifically. Some of them lean more towards doubting some of those scientific conclusions because of what they believe about God. Others lean more towards saying, okay, I don't totally know how these fit together, but I somehow believe that both are somewhat true. Some of them lean more towards saying, I'm just going to believe that God is the cause of all of this and science gives us some explanation for how it happened. Okay. I think this is where I want to reveal to the audience that we're kind of doing a bait and switch. Oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh. Yeah, because we could spend another 10, 15 minutes talking about, where are you following this, what you think. It's actually not. I won. I don't think we're the two best people to answer this question. There are some amazing, I read some in the My Very Limited Preference episode. There are some amazing resources out there, amazing Christians who are scientists, the ologians who consult scientists, like there's a universe of interesting ways of thinking

10:21about this question that is out there. What I think is more relevant to our podcast, at least last few episodes into our audience, is how do we talk about topics like this with our kids when they bring up these questions? Because kids bring up these kind of questions, not just down to so related ones, but all of these kind of science versus the Bible type questions all the time. When I was a youth pastor, oh my goodness, the number of times the junior high kids have questions around creation and trying to reconcile the creation story with what they're learning in school. Even just the other week, Oliver and I, my eight year old, we were reading this book. It was like a little kid's book, autobiography of Carl Sagan, the scientist who is an atheist, and towards the end of the book, they talked about how his core message to everyone was that we're all made of star dust. And Oliver was like, that's not true. And I was like, what do you mean? He's like, well, God made us. And so even like at eight, when he's not growing up

11:23in a fundamentalist house where we are constantly talking about how bad science is, he is picking up on the tension between kind of what science might say about the origins of humanity and what he's learning about in Sunday school. So even in the ARBs of last week, he was asking how many kids did Adam and Eve have and how old were they? And I asked him a few questions about what's so interesting and I asked him some leading questions admittedly, but it did seem like he's really interested in age for along the same reasons. Like that doesn't seem to be what happens now is the Bible telling us the truth about this, which very sweet good church kid. He was like, no, no, no, the Bible is true. But I wanted to give him the out to be like, I struggle with like, is the Bible telling us the truth about this when it doesn't seem to be how things work in the universe now with the methods that we have to learn things about the world? It seems like the Bible is in conflict with what we know scientifically. And so what I kind of said in our preparation for this is like, oh, Caitlin, I actually would love for you to help our audience kind of start thinking through,

12:24what do we do when our kids are asking questions about the Bible that the Bible is not trying to answer? Yep, yep. I think the first thing that we should say is specifically with these questions about science. There's a couple things I think we can say. One is I think, and this will depend on where the kid is developmentally, how old they are. But along the way of teaching them these questions, there needs to come a point where we say, not just, oh, the Bible doesn't answer that question. We need to start saying, the Bible is concerned with different questions than the questions that we have. And I think it can actually be really important to kind of empathize with kids that that's frustrating. Like if a kid's like, I wanna know how many kids out of any pad or how old they were. Sometimes I find it helpful to be like, I wish it told us that too. Like I totally get why you're frustrated that it doesn't tell us that, but it doesn't. But then as they get older, I think it's really important to both show and highlight and kind of hold up as an ideal. The things that the Bible does tell us.

13:25And because sometimes it's just frustrating when it's like, well, that's a wrong question done. Instead say, okay, well, there's other things that the Bible is trying to tell us. Here's what they are. But specifically, I think as the kid gets older, especially if we're talking middle school, high school, I think it can be really important to find some ways to give examples of questions in real life. That they and you can agree. These are questions the Bible answers. And these are questions the Bible doesn't answer. But by taking it outside of the realm of the thing that they're anxious about, I think it can help us actually understand that difference better. A good example of this for grown-ups, you would wanna change this depending on what the kids interested in or how old they are. But I've used this example before with grown-ups when it comes to the Bible and politics, where people are like, I want the Bible to tell me exactly what to vote for, what policy to support, who to vote for. And what I'll say is things like, if the question you're asking about politics is how many students in my school district aren't able to afford three meals a day? The Bible is not going to answer that question for you.

14:26It's not a very good source for answering that question. A social scientist, great source for answering the question of like, what are the poverty levels in the area that I'm in? How many kids are not able to eat school lunch? How affordable is the school lunch at my in my school district? A sociologist, someone with data can answer that question better. But if your question is, does it matter how many students in my school district aren't getting three meals a day? Or if your question is, do I have a responsibility to help make sure that children in my school district are being fed? The social science data does not give you an answer to that question. The Bible does give you some really good answers to that question. They're not chapter-verse. Here's exactly the policy to support. But if you're interested in asking questions about what kind of responsibility you have to your community or what really matters in the world, the Bible has answers to those questions. And now avoid my spot, sir. Wait, what does spot, sir? If you're looking for a companion podcast to our show,

15:26I have the perfect recommendation, with and for hosted by Dr. Pam King. With and for's latest season brings together psychology and spiritual wisdom in a way that feels thoughtful, accessible, and deeply human. Hosted by Dr. Pam King, a developmental psychologist and ordained minister, the show offers clear, compassionate insight into faith, emotional health, and what it means to live well in a complicated world. Not sure where to start? Check out their episode with our friend and no small endeavor host, Lee C. Camp. In it, Lee turns your preconceptions about the four virtues, prudence, justice, courage, and temperance upside down. And he shows how to turn virtue into a daily habit. It's a conversation filled with wisdom and wit, and I can't recommend it enough. I also wouldn't miss with and for's special summer series of wisdom practices. Released each Monday, there's short exercises that will become your toolkit for thriving. Consider them your experiment and becoming more fully alive. So go ahead, follow with and for hosted by Dr. Pam King, wherever you're listening now.

16:27Here is Lee, Kate, and Sam. Like, as I've thought about this, as approaching it with my own kids, I want to, and I'm learning as I go, but try to help them understand that the Bible, in one sense, is not an answer book. We're told, oh, the Bible has all the answers to all of life's problems and stuff. It does not. And it truly does not. And I even have jokes with Oliver. Like, oh, imagine if we're reading, if you give a mouse a cookie. And at the end of that book, at the end of that book, I asked you, OK, take from what you learned about this book. And now tell me, how do I make chocolate chip cookies? Now the book does not answer that question? It includes chocolate chip cookies, but it does not answer the question of, how do you make chocolate chip cookies? Yes. And so to try to read, because I think at the end of the day, you have to reorient their relationship with scripture. And what scripture is trying to accomplish?

17:27It is not trying to answer all of our scientific questions, all of these modern questions that we have. It's trying to do something different. And so Caitlin, I guess then, if that is one way to look at it, what should we be emphasizing with our young kids? And what is the Bible trying to accomplish? Yes. I think the first thing before you even answer that question is, and I tried to do this when Oliver and I were talking last week, when a kid asks a question, almost always my first reaction is to first just be like, well, what do you think? Partially because they often do have an idea. But then a second or third question to ask usually would just be something like, why are you asking that? Or what made you think that? Or what story in the Bible? Are you thinking of? That's so important. And you know this as a parent. This is true outside of the Bible. If you ask some follow-up questions, you might discover that they're asking something different than you think they're asking. My favorite example of this is a parent in my church

18:27back in North Carolina told me that his daughter, he was helping his daughter, who was really young at the time, take a bath. And while she's taking a bath, she asks her dad, dad, what does three in one mean? And he jumps in to be like, all right, the Trinity. You must have heard this at church. And he's like halfway through explaining it before he looks at her. He literally had not been looking at her. He looks at her. And she's staring at a bottle of three in one shampoo, conditioner, and body wash. He's like, so I was answering a question. You were not asking. Speaking of the Bible. But now he's in the Bible. But now he's in the Bible. There you go, conditioner, body wash, shampoo. So I think the first thing before you get to like, well, well, what can we say that the Bible says? You first have to figure out, what are they even trying to figure out? What is bothering them? And that is just interrupt briefly. That is what I loved about your conversation with Oliver last week that if anyone came into that episode of hoping for to learn something new about the Bible, or even like they were going to be disappointed.

19:28But it's like, but this is so many of us freak out when our kids ask us questions because we're terrified of giving them the wrong answer. We don't know what to say. And so much of good Sunday school teaching, good parenting is just asking good questions. Not necessarily having great answers and letting them explore their curiosity and just helping, making sure they know that their curiosity is not a bad thing. It's not something to squish out, but it's just something to explore more deeply. Yeah. So for example, I mean, this is like kind of the stereotype with kids, right? They're always asking why. They ask why you give an explanation like, well, why that? If you can stop instead of just going down the cascaded list of this, well, this, the miss, if you stop and go, what are you wondering about? Or what's kind of bothering you? Or what you'll more easily get to an actual question that you can understand that you can give an answer to. This, by the way, true of grownups. I say this all the time when I'm working with churches. It's like, someone comes to you, upset about something, you're asking a question about something nine times

20:28out of 10, even as a grownup. The real question underneath the question is a different question. And if you just go right ahead answering the specifics of the question, you'll miss what's going on here. This dinosaur question is a great example. Even if a grownup is asking, hey, which came first dinosaurs are at in my name and you rush into, well, there's five different theories and here's the science and here's a bunch of Bible verses. And if you don't know that underneath that question is a question about if they can trust the Bible. Or if God is good, or maybe they're really worried about, okay, I've heard some stuff about evolution. But would that mean that like sin entered the story before the Bible says, if you don't know which of those variations of the question they're asking, they're gonna be overloaded with data and you haven't even given them anything that helps them have a closer relationship with God. So I think with kids, it's the same. You start with, okay, here what they're already thinking because a lot of times they've also got, not only they have an idea, but they might have some pieces that you can help them reason together with. Like even in my conversation with Oliver,

21:29when he was asking about why God rested on the seventh day, I said something like, well, do you think he was just really tired? And he was like, yeah, I think so. And I said something like, okay, well, but we know that God is really strong and has all the power and then he goes, okay, yes, so I don't think that he was taking a nap, you know, sometimes it's actually better to go, let's pull out some things you already know so that you can come to some conclusions yourself because the goal is not just plug up all the questions with answers, the goal is kids and grownups who feel safe being curious about God. If you feel anxious about their question, they will learn that asking those kinds of questions is scary and might even hurt their relationship with God or might, I mean, if they see you feeling anxious, they'll go, I should feel anxious about questions like this. And then they become a teenager and adult who feels anxious about questions like this. Whereas if they ask questions, even very pointed ones, like even if they say, like, I don't think the Bible's right about this or I don't like that God did this.

22:31If you look calm and you are kind of helping them, you're modeling for them, a non-anxious curiosity, that will serve them well for the rest of their lives as opposed to putting a bandaid on it and go, don't know, don't worry, don't worry, I have an answer, I have a Bible verse, that's not gonna be very helpful. Once you have figured out what's the real question, what's the maybe fear? Because even for kids, sometimes it is like, oh, this scares me, I'm worried about this. Or once you've figured out what that is, I especially if we're talking about younger kids, I would keep the focus on simple, true ideas about God. With this question about dinosaurs, I would make very clear, God made everything. God tells us the truth in the Bible. All of creation is good. God is really different from us, so sometimes it's hard to understand what God is saying to us because he's so different than us. I would say things like, people worship God by discovering things about the world. So we've learned all this stuff about science in the world,

23:32not all of it's true, but some of it is true because God made us the kind of creatures that can figure stuff out about the world. All of those are not answers to the question. Things like God made everything, God is good, the Bible tells us the truth. That doesn't help us necessarily answer this question, but sometimes if a kid underneath the question is just wondering, does this grown up who I trust, my parent, my Sunday school teacher, my friend, do they actually believe that the Bible is true and God is good? If you just start off with some of those things and you seem not bothered by their question, and actually you can model for them, that you can have a question like this and still believe that God is good and the Bible tells us true things, that might even just write off the bat, not that that answers all the questions, but that might be enough for them to go, okay, I can keep asking this question and it doesn't have to lead maybe some of the places as they get older, they might be scared at leads, which is I can't believe God is good anymore, or I can't believe the Bible is true. I mean, that was something I tried to do when Oliver was questioning the Stardust in the book. And I essentially was like, well, Oliver did God

24:35create the stars and he's like, yeah, I was like, and so God created Stardust, yeah. I was like, so could not God have created us out of the Stardust that he created? Like, why is what's wrong with that? And he goes, yeah, I guess that's right. And I love you just set it a couple minutes ago of asking kids' question to help them work on the logic themselves. It is what I'm probably the worst Sunday school teacher when I fill in at my church because I look at the curriculum and I look at it and I basically ignore it when I'm with the kids. It's like reading this to them, I don't wanna do that. But I do want to, I remember a month ago, it was that we were doing the story of the woman at the well. And I was like, what do I want these kids to take away from this complicated story? There's so many different lessons. I was like, I actually just at this age want them to know there's nothing they can do to cause God to love them less. That is such an important lesson, especially at this age. And so I instead of telling them that, I said, I've got a question like,

25:36is there anything this woman could have done that would have made Jesus love her less? And then I gave like real scenarios because it was funny, cause on, of course on principle, they're like, well no. And I was like, well what if she never read the Bible or what if she stole something and it would, you could see there an instinct was, oh that might have impacted. And then you could see that there wheels turning. I'm like, well no, but wait a second, that contradicts what I know about God. And so I love trying to do that with kids. I'm like, you know, the Bible is trying to teach us characteristics about God, his relationship with people and then how we should treat people. And so let's take some of those big lessons and then we can stress test them along the way, but I want you to try to work out that logic, not me just try to tell you the right answer in a sense. The other reason I think this is so important to focus on these like big, simple ideas is because sometimes in our attempt to get all of the information in at the beginning,

26:36cause many of us we're coming at teaching kids the Bible from a place of having our own things we were taught as children that we maybe wish were different. But then we over-correct by being like, I'm gonna make sure you hear none of the bad things that I heard. And we assume they're asking questions, they're not necessarily asking. And we wanna make sure that they never have the misunderstandings that we had. So we go, here's everything, you know, again, we're just like trying to plug up all the question holes with answers. And what ends up happening is if you're doing that, especially with a young child, and you're trying to do it in language they can understand, you often end up actually distorting the truth. So the example with the woman at the well is such a good example. If you're trying to tell a five year old about the woman at the well and you're like, actually, it's very important that this child knows that that woman was not sexually promiscuous, she actually was abandoned by her husband. And then you're gonna try and explain that idea, which is not an idea for five year olds, and you're trying to do it in five year old language, you'll end up distorting the story so much

27:36that they will just like you were afraid of at some point in adulthood have to go, oh, that story I was taught did not mean what I thought it meant, you know? Which is why I think not only are there some stories that are just maybe not stories for kids, but there are stories like this one that we might teach kids, and instead of going, what's the kid friendly version of like the sexual history of a woman? Instead we go, what is the truth here about God? Like you did, what's the truth here about God that they need to learn? And they probably, they might ask some questions you're unprepared for. I have taught the Christmas story a lot of times and had to answer some uncomfortable questions about Mary, but they also might just not be paying attention to the things that we are paying attention to. And they can understand that there, that this basic truth that like it does not matter what you do, God will love you. If there are other details about the story that they miss or that are not appropriate for their age or that are too complicated to try and explain to their age level, there is a lot of other time for that,

28:38but the important thing is like did they get the point about God and about themselves? And I think if you go in with kids with the main goals being, they believe true things about God and they experience true things about God in terms of like the safety they feel with you and in the church community that they're in, but they believe true things about God, basic things that like you said before, they can then stress test those things with other stories, but it just starts with like God is good, God loves you, you were made good. The world is messed up, but it's not, God is gonna fix it, like some basic true things, you start with that, but then if your focus is also am I modeling a non-insious response to questions and am I being the kind of adult for this kid that they will continue to ask questions to? Am I focusing on building their relationship with God as a safe person and their relationship with me as a safe person to ask questions to? If you get some other things wrong along the way, you'll be fine. Like if you accidentally teach them a small detail about an Old Testament Bible story a little bit wrong,

29:40but they learn that God is good and God loves them and you love them and they can keep asking questions. You're fine. Yes, we have to keep not only first things first, but just an appropriate size of discussions and topics. Like I think of it, like when we're traveling, when we traveled on vacation this summer, I had a giant suitcase that we were gonna have to check and everything, but Oliver had a tiny suitcase. He was taking through the airport. And it's one of those like, oh, over the years, my suitcase of all the baggage that I have taken on from growing and living in the church culture and all of that, my suitcase is quite large when it comes to Bible, theology, church culture and all of that. I cannot expect Oliver to carry that giant suitcase. He's going to make him fall over. It's gonna hurt him. It's gonna cause major problems. I have to figure out what can fit in his appropriate size suitcase and realize a lot of this, just he's not ready for. He will be Sunday. He's not ready yet and it's just not appropriate

30:41to give him more than what his little brain can handle right now. So, Caitlin, as we wrap up today, any other kind of final words of wisdom or that you wanna pass along to those in our audience as they are trying to think through, how do I manage these hard topics with the kids in my life? Yeah. I think going back to the kind of science and Bible question, because I do think you're right, that is a lot, especially as kids get older, that is a lot of the kinds of questions they ask. I really don't think we can overestimate the power of that non-anxious response because I have been in church settings where a kid asks a question along these lines, if like can I trust the Bible when this other source of information seems to contradict it and people freak out. And they think they're doing a good thing. They think they're giving enough information. Like they're very anxiously, giving a list of data, a list of Bible verses, a bunch of stuff to try and plug that whole up. And in reality, again, depending on the developmental level of the child, some basic facts will be helpful. But I also think it's really helpful to not only model

31:46a non-anxious presence in response to curiosity, but also to model being okay, but also still sad or frustrated that you don't have answers to questions that matter to you. Like you don't have to be anxious to acknowledge that it can be frustrating or upsetting if the Bible doesn't give you answers to questions that really matter to you or if God is confusing at times or if there are things that still feel really hard for you. It's a balance here. It's like don't freak out because that teaches a kid to be scared of their own questions. But also don't pretend like you have no feelings about this. Like if a kid asks a question and it might be about science and the Bible, or it might be like, it seems like God did something in this story that I don't like. And I'm scared because I wanna trust God and you told me God is good, but this story seems really bad. It's good to be non-anxious. It's also good to be like, I get it. That bothers me too. Because you're teaching kids over time that it's not only okay to ask questions,

32:47it doesn't scare grownups when you ask questions, but also you're teaching them that someone can trust God and be unsure about something. Someone can trust God and have questions that still bug them on an emotional level. And then you become a safe person not only to keep asking their questions too, but you can become a model to them of someone who doesn't need to have all of the answers lined up before they trust God. If you're consistently telling a child, like, man, I don't know the answer to that question and it bugs me that I don't know the answer to that question too, but it helps me to take that question to God. And God is kind to me when I bring my questions to Him, just like I'm trying to be kind to you when you bring your questions to me. That is not going to solve all of the problems, but I think looking back in my own childhood, I think, wow, I think I would have asked more questions in a way that brought me closer into relationship with God and others if my questions hadn't seemed to scare the grownups in my life so much. Yeah. And I think on that note too, it's also okay to say, I don't know, but give me a few days,

33:48and let me try to find a good answer for you. Or let me learn a little bit more about this topic, and then let's talk about it. Yes. Like, I hope this won't come as a surprise to anyone in our audience. Caitlin, often you don't just know the answers off the top, you're headed to any of these answers. You are researching in the days leading up to the recording and writing down notes and thinking through it before we hop on a recording. No one is expected to have all of these answers off the top, you're headed, but it's an opportunity, it's kind of the point of this podcast. It's an opportunity for you to grow deeper in your faith and your understanding because it presents an opportunity to go learn about something that you haven't thought about. Yes, and you can even model for a kid when you say that. Like, you know what, I don't have a great answer yet, but let me go look up, look it up, talk to some people, figure it out. You could even bring a child with you to a pastor. If you're like, hey, let's ask our pastor about this. That'd be great. But even just modeling for a child, like, it's really fun. Yeah. It's fun to find answers to your questions when they're not though to be so much anxiety.

34:48That's why I keep coming back to the anxiety piece. It's not like anxiety is the worst thing ever. It's just that when our questions provoke anxiety in ourselves and in our grownups and in our friends and in our pastors, it teaches us that asking big questions might be inevitable, but it's not fun. Like we haven't said this a lot in the podcast, but curiosity requires a certain level of non-exitity. Because if you're anxious about something, you don't get to have the freedom and playfulness to just keep going back to it, to keep asking more questions. If you are rooted in, you're just like, I love God. God loves me. I will find nothing in scripture that contradicts, that God is love and that I can access God. You can have fun, men. Like if it's not scary, you can have a lot of fun. And if you model to a child, asking questions and finding answers, even when you don't initially know the answer can be fun. That's a positive lesson to teach them for the rest of their life. I love that. It does sound a little nerdy to try to listen. Listen.

35:49I cannot be who I am. No, I'm brand. All right. Caitlin, thank you again. Everyone else come back next week. We've got another great episode for you. Curiously, Caitlin is a production of Holy Post Media, produced by Mike Strailo, editing by Seth Gervett, theme song by Phil Vischer. Be sure to follow us on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And leave a review so more people can discover thoughtful Christian commentary, plus cute kids, and never any but news. You