0:14

Welcome to Christian Capsules . I'm your host

0:16

, Mitchell Seed . Today

0:19

I'm here to interview the creator of the Christian Capsules

0:21

podcast , Jermaine Farrell . Welcome

0:25

, Jermaine .

0:25

Thank you for having me . I appreciate it . Thank you

0:27

.

0:28

Can you please tell us a little bit more

0:30

about yourself , kind of like do a little brief

0:32

introduction .

0:45

Yeah , sure , sure , my name is Jermaine Farrell . I am

0:47

the creator of the podcast Christian Capsules . A

0:56

little background about me . I go to a Baptist church here in North Carolina

0:58

with my family . I am a Stephen Minister , a Liberty University

1:01

alum . I

1:03

used to teach youth for

1:05

several years , and

1:08

yeah , so and

1:11

here I am now .

1:12

So , jermaine , I know you do a

1:15

few things We'll get into that

1:17

in a bit , but tell

1:19

us exactly what is Christian

1:22

Capsule ? What is that ?

1:25

Absolutely Christian Capsule is a

1:28

podcast and

1:31

each

1:33

episode is

1:35

representative

1:39

by a or it

1:41

resembles a capsule

1:44

that you would get in a medicine bottle . You

1:46

know , a capsule is the way you could

1:48

take each end of the pill and

1:51

you could pull it apart and there's

1:53

stuff inside . You pour it out . But

1:56

that's not how you take it . You take the capsule

1:58

and then it's meant to dissolve quicker

2:01

in your body than

2:03

, I say , a tablet will normally do

2:05

so . By nature

2:07

of our podcast

2:09

, each episode

2:12

that we do is

2:14

a dosage of medicine

2:16

for Christianity and

2:19

it's usually a topic

2:21

on something the church needs

2:23

to fix . So

2:30

that's why the tagline Fixing Christianity

2:32

, one Dose at a Time , because each capsule

2:34

or each pill that you take from us is designed to work toward fixing

2:36

Christianity . I

2:38

hope that explains it pretty good .

2:42

It does , it does . So

2:44

you're kind of two

2:47

seasons into this podcast

2:50

or Capsules podcast

2:52

. What

2:54

exactly is the goal ? I mean , you explained

2:56

a little , you touched on it a little bit , but

2:59

what's the ultimate goal with this

3:01

podcast , when you're seeking to accomplish ?

3:04

The goal is kind of I don't

3:07

know if it's like a goal

3:10

per se I'm

3:12

doing what I'm being told to do , I'm

3:16

following God's

3:18

word and I'm listening

3:20

to the Holy Spirit . So I guess the goal

3:22

is to do what God wants me to do . But I

3:25

imagine that each of these

3:27

capsules

3:30

is to

3:33

add a little bit more health

3:35

to the church . The

3:38

goal is if I had to narrow

3:41

it down to that would be to

3:43

repair the

3:46

American church using

3:48

one dose

3:51

of our capsules at a time . It's

3:53

to fix the things

3:56

that is wrong and

3:59

I'm trying to be careful without offending

4:01

any particular religion

4:04

or denomination

4:06

. But there's a lot of things that the

4:08

American church gets wrong and

4:11

it's repetitive . So I'm trying

4:13

to help

4:16

fix that or repair that , and

4:21

hopefully , by

4:24

the end or whenever I'm done

4:26

, other people will see

4:29

what I'm doing and they will do it too

4:31

, and that they're basically plugging

4:34

the holes of a leaky dam

4:36

and

4:38

eventually , after the

4:40

holes are all plugged , we should have

4:42

a sturdy , solid

4:44

foundation

4:46

. I'm tired of seeing

4:48

so many things wrong

4:51

with the church and nobody cares

4:53

and we're just going along with it

4:55

and it keeps getting worse and worse and worse and

4:57

there's nothing being done to fix it

4:59

. Little things , but

5:02

they add up and after a while we have

5:04

what we are today big problems

5:06

all

5:08

over the place . So

5:11

that's kind of the so-called goal .

5:15

Yeah , you mentioned the church . Tell

5:17

me more about that . You mentioned the church . Tell me more about that . Like

5:20

, what actually fixing

5:23

? What is it about churches that's

5:27

wrong with our needs to be prepared ? I

5:29

mean , from what I can see , the

5:31

Bible is still being taught in the

5:34

church . As a matter of fact , the Bible is still the authority

5:36

for what I can see . What

5:38

do you mean by fixing it ? Which

5:41

wrong with it ?

5:44

That's a very good question and I appreciate

5:47

this question because a lot of people

5:49

ask me that what's

5:51

wrong exactly ? So

5:53

, like I said earlier , there's many

5:56

little things that add up . For

5:59

one that stands out to me is Bible

6:01

illiteracy . We did

6:03

a capsule on that just recently

6:05

, did

6:11

a capsule on that just recently . Um , because people don't know their

6:13

bible , they're easily duped , deceived . Um , they can't defend

6:15

their faith . Apologetics

6:18

basically apologetics just goes out the window

6:20

. They're spreading more

6:22

lies because they don't know , they're going by what they heard

6:24

versus what the bible

6:26

says , and that turns

6:29

a lot of potential

6:31

christians off or

6:34

, you know , it kind of pushes people away

6:36

. And then there's the

6:39

uh , the anger

6:41

of man versus the anger

6:43

of god . Um , we're

6:46

not working in God's will . We're using

6:48

our personal anger to

6:50

fight sin versus using

6:52

what the Word of God says . There's

6:55

other things like Sunday

6:58

sermons . We're living off

7:00

of Sunday sermons and

7:04

I think that people don't

7:07

also , they don't , they

7:10

want to go to mission trips and want to do missions

7:12

across the world because it looks

7:14

good on social media . You know

7:16

, I went here or it feels kind of good . It's a

7:18

feel good thing I did this versus

7:22

doing missions in

7:24

your everyday life . If Christians

7:26

did missions in their everyday life

7:28

everybody

7:31

did that , everybody worked toward

7:34

doing Christianity

7:36

in their everyday life , whatever job it is that

7:38

you do or at home , if you're

7:40

just a home person , or in

7:43

sports or in school then

7:45

American Christianity would be in so

7:47

much of a better state . So there's tons

7:50

of things wrong with

7:53

the church , and I equivalent

7:55

again it's like

7:58

a dam that has holes in it . Some

8:01

holes are bigger than others , but they need to

8:03

be patched because right now you

8:05

have a compromised surface

8:07

. So

8:11

those are the kind of things that the church as a whole needs

8:13

to fix . And then bad doctrine . Add

8:16

that upon what I've already listed

8:18

, bad doctrine being taught , and by

8:20

bad doctrine I mean improper

8:23

teachings of the bible being

8:26

perpetuated on and on and on and on

8:28

, so so much that it becomes a myth

8:30

. And I'll give you one example , or

8:33

maybe a couple . One example saying

8:35

that cleanliness is Close

8:38

to godliness . My parents used to say that

8:40

. They said it so much that I thought it was gospel

8:42

. But it's not , I mean , because

8:44

if that was the case , then I guess homeless people in the

8:46

poor and the downtrodden and the

8:48

dirty and whoever , I guess they

8:50

would never get into heaven , right ? Or

8:53

God helps those who help themselves that famous

8:55

one . Well , if we can help ourselves , what do we need

8:57

God for ? God helps us when we're

8:59

weak , and that's when he is strong . So things like that we

9:02

perpetuate over and over again . But those , let's

9:04

be even into a bigger one , manipulating

9:10

doctrine to say what we want it to say . For

9:12

example , because of our Bible literacy

9:14

and we don't know

9:16

how to study the Bible , we turn

9:20

text wrong . It's

9:24

easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than

9:27

for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven . This

9:29

is what Jesus is talking about , right , when

9:31

he actually was talking to

9:33

a guy who couldn't give

9:35

up his wealth , jesus asked him to give up

9:37

his money and follow him . He didn't want to

9:39

. So Jesus busts into that , saying he

9:42

says it's easier for a camel to go through

9:44

the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter

9:46

the kingdom of heaven , and

9:54

everybody's thinking that the eye of a needle . And for a rich man to enter the kingdom

9:56

of heaven . And everybody's thinking that the eye of the needle is a sewing needle

9:58

. And it is not . It is a . In jerusalem they have pathways called needles

10:01

in the innermost part of the temple and for you to get in through

10:03

those . Your donkey , or

10:06

whatever animal

10:08

that you're using to carry your stuff , would

10:11

get stuck in that needle

10:13

, that pathway , that archway , and

10:16

you would basically have to disrobe

10:19

the donkey . You would take

10:21

everything off , get

10:23

the donkey through barely , then

10:25

put everything back on the donkey again

10:27

and

10:30

that's the equivalent of a rich man going to the kingdom

10:32

of heaven . Um , the rich man , because

10:34

the riches have such an

10:37

effect on him , it may be

10:39

that he may have to disrobe himself

10:41

of all the

10:44

riches that he has . So

10:46

his soul is pure enough to go him heaven . So

10:48

that's again . That's one of those

10:50

things that is misinterpreted

10:52

. Because we don't know our bible we're

10:54

bible illiterate . We don't know context . We don't

10:56

know how to study historical , um

10:59

, historical context , context for then

11:01

, context for now , uh , meanings

11:03

of things , checking the flow

11:05

of a chapter or chapters

11:08

, um , paying attention

11:10

to who jesus is talking to there's a lot

11:12

of things that go into studying the

11:14

bible , um , and

11:17

that is perpetuated on

11:19

and on and on and on . There are many things like like

11:21

the yolk people think it's the egg yolk and things like

11:23

. There's a lot of things , um

11:25

, so that's . Those are

11:28

some of the things that American

11:30

Christians have

11:32

problems with , and there's many more , but that's

11:36

what I mean about . Things need

11:38

to be fixed . There's lots of things

11:40

like that .

11:43

Wow , that's something else . That's a lot

11:45

Hold on hold on .

11:47

I just want to say one more thing . I just want to say

11:49

that because

11:51

, yeah , you said , isn't

11:54

the Bible taught in church ? Is it the

11:56

authority ? Yeah , it's still

11:58

there as the authority in most

12:00

churches , but in a lot of churches it is

12:02

not the authority . Man's doctrine has become

12:05

the author authoritative uh

12:07

thing . In the church it's . The

12:10

bible has become a side , almost

12:12

like a co-host , um , or

12:15

in case of acting , you have a primary

12:17

actor and you have a co-actor , um

12:19

. So the bible is taking

12:21

second fiddle to the doctrine

12:23

of man , and jesus warned us against that

12:25

many times by talking to the Pharisees

12:28

about it . He says you know , he's telling

12:30

the Pharisees . He said you've put doctrines

12:32

of men , as

12:34

you know , traditions of men , as doctrines of

12:36

God , and that's a big

12:38

no-no with God . You cannot teach

12:41

precepts of men

12:44

as doctrine of God and that's why

12:46

you know why the Bible is still in church . In

12:49

some ways it has become second

12:52

fiddle .

12:54

I'm sure you've been asked this many , many times

12:56

with your gillings , with people on Reddit and

12:58

groups and things like that , but

13:01

I want to ask you what

13:04

makes you the person to

13:06

correct the many church-going

13:10

Christians in America ? Who

13:14

are you to do this ?

13:17

Well , you wonder who I am ? I'm

13:20

nobody . I'm a nobody . I'm

13:23

no better than

13:26

anybody else in the world . Matter

13:28

of fact , in many ways I'm worse . I was

13:30

worse I

13:35

too . I became a child of

13:38

God , but I'm

13:40

just , I'm nothing special . You know how people look up

13:42

to the prophets in the Old Testament , like , wow , the prophets

13:44

is that thing . But

13:53

the prophets in the Old Testament did not think themselves to be anything

13:55

special and , matter of fact , it was a burden to become

13:57

a prophet . Because , well , one , they all were killed by their own people

13:59

. Even jesus satisfies to that . Um . Two , they often lived terrible

14:02

, just the lives

14:04

were not great . So I'm not

14:06

comparing myself to the prophet , I'm just saying when

14:08

you're doing something for it's not a

14:11

thing where you should be like , this

14:13

is who I am , I'm like this . It's

14:15

more or less . I'm just doing something

14:17

because , one

14:20

, the Lord asked me to do it and two , it

14:22

needs to be done , even

14:25

if the Lord didn't ask me to do it . The Holy Spirit inside me , it

14:28

gets riled up when I hear things in

14:30

a church , that's , they

14:33

get it wrong and it's being taught

14:35

over and over and over again and we see what's

14:37

become of the world Because of that

14:39

. So that's who I am . I'm a

14:41

guy who said Like

14:44

Isaiah did when

14:46

the Lord asked him I think this is chapter 6 when the Lord asked him I think this

14:48

is chapter 6 , 5 or 6 , when

14:50

the Lord asked , who shall I send ? And

14:53

Isaiah said here I am , send me . That's

14:57

what I am . Here I am , lord , send me . That's

15:00

who I am .

15:01

You seem to be targeting mainly American

15:04

Christians , but

15:07

why only them ? Why

15:09

let Christians say like in China

15:12

, israel or

15:15

Iran or

15:17

places like that ? Why only

15:19

American Christians ?

15:21

Well , let me say this first the

15:23

Christian capsule is not just

15:25

for Americans . It could be for anybody , any place

15:27

, anywhere , anytime . Just

15:31

for Americans , it could be for anybody , any place , anywhere , anytime . If you see there is problems

15:33

and a capsule addresses that , please use it to fix it . It

15:35

doesn't matter where you're at . I

15:38

chose to target American

15:40

Christians because one I live in America

15:42

and I can see the problem firsthand

15:45

. Right , I can see the

15:47

problem firsthand . I can see what it's done

15:49

. I've lived long enough to know where

15:53

we've come from the 70s to

15:56

where we're at now . I've

15:58

seen the decline of the

16:00

american church in in certain

16:02

areas . In certain ways it's grown

16:04

um , but

16:06

like the places like you listed , like , say

16:08

, china or Iran or whatever , those

16:11

guys over there they

16:14

appreciate having

16:16

Christianity in their

16:18

country because they fight so

16:20

hard to have it . They're under duress and

16:24

it's a thing where they're

16:26

trying to keep it from

16:28

being taken away from them , so they value it

16:30

more over there . Over here , we

16:33

don't value Christianity . I'm not saying everyone

16:35

. Of course there are some people that do . Of

16:37

course , whenever I'm speaking , I'm speaking

16:39

generally , not everyone . So

16:42

there are some people that they do not

16:44

, in America , appreciate

16:46

what we have the grace that's been given us

16:48

, appreciate what we have , the grace that's been given us , the abundancy of

16:50

churches and ability that

16:53

God gave us over here to be a beacon

16:55

of light . They don't value

16:57

that and because

16:59

of that the laziness

17:01

has crept in and

17:04

the laziness has crept in . So

17:06

then starts these holes

17:08

in the dam because

17:11

of the lack of value or the lack of appreciation

17:13

for the grace that's been given us . So

17:16

that's why I talk about christian , because we're . We're

17:19

the one country that people

17:21

used to look to us as a christian country , and

17:24

I argue we even back then we wasn't

17:27

really a holy Christian country , but

17:29

we were seen as

17:31

that , and now no one sees us as that

17:34

. There's a reason for that and

17:36

that's because American Christians

17:38

are lackadaisical when it comes

17:40

to their faith , or

17:42

the faith should I say ? If

17:57

you had to pick one or two things that the American church

17:59

gets wrong most of the time , or the most , or I should say , needs fixing the most . What would

18:01

it be ? Oh

18:04

man , that is a great , great question . Let

18:08

me think . So I don't want to limit this to one thing . I

18:11

said almost a couple of things , right

18:13

, I'm sorry . So

18:15

one thing

18:17

. The first thing would be Bible illiteracy or

18:20

just Bible stupid . American

18:22

Christians are Bible stupid

18:25

. They don't know the Bible .

18:33

I mean no verses verses .

18:34

There's nothing . They don't know anything , basically , about their Bible and we barely

18:36

and we have two Testaments , old and new testament

18:38

and you barely can

18:40

even get somebody to list , to quote me

18:42

, a verse besides Jesus wept out

18:44

of the New Testament . That's

18:47

a big problem . But not just

18:49

that . Living off of

18:51

sunday sermons , that's another

18:54

big problem , probably even

18:56

more so than the bible literacy . Just

18:58

living off sunday sermons , just thinking that

19:00

all you have to do is go to church

19:02

and listen to a sunday sermon and

19:05

hope that that gets you by for the week , is

19:07

insane . That's insanity , insanity

19:09

. You wouldn't eat food like that

19:12

, eat one meal

19:14

on Sunday and then say I'm good for the week

19:16

, or drink water one day like that

19:19

. You wouldn't do that . You wouldn't

19:21

work one day of the week and say , all

19:24

right , my paycheck should be good

19:26

before a week . I should be making money all week because

19:28

I went on Sunday or Monday

19:30

. So

19:35

that's bad . But the third thing I

19:37

would say is probably

19:41

not doing enough

19:43

with your daily life . Using

19:47

that as a mission field . Those

19:50

three things Bible literacy , living off

19:52

Sunday sermons and using

19:54

your day-to-day life as a mission field those

19:57

are the three things that need fixing . If

19:59

I had to pick it out out . Of all the things

20:01

you do those things

20:03

, you fix those things , they will lead to everything else

20:05

kind of getting fixed .

20:08

So this question kind of piggybacks off what

20:11

you just said . These things

20:13

are so messed up . What

20:15

can be done to

20:17

right this shit ? I

20:20

mean , besides this capsule

20:22

that turned to it , what

20:25

can the average person do , who's

20:28

not you , to help right this

20:30

shit ?

20:32

Well , I'm an average person too , so

20:34

the average person is me and everybody else

20:36

. But what can

20:38

be done , basically , is each

20:42

one , teach one the

20:44

truth . Slide

20:47

down the truth , slide down the truth . Teach it to

20:49

your D groups , your connect

20:51

groups , your Sunday school

20:53

, your youth groups

20:55

, sermons . Constantly

21:01

teach the truth and have your people

21:03

teach their people . Teach their people

21:05

. That would

21:07

right the ship . That

21:09

would right the ship .

21:12

I feel like we could talk all day , but I'm going to

21:14

never . This is already getting long , so we're interviewing

21:16

, so I'm going to just combine

21:19

the two last questions into one what's

21:22

up next for season three and

21:25

what else do you have

21:27

in the pipeline ? What

21:29

else is on the docket for 2020 ?

21:33

Well , for season three , which

21:37

will be sometime

21:39

late next month . So

21:42

I wanted to get into

21:44

season two , but I never did get it in . But

21:47

I want to do series Like

21:51

three to four part series

21:53

or things like for

21:55

angels , for instance , angels

21:58

and demons , religions

22:02

series on religion that's

22:14

coming up Islam , things like that . Judaism , jehovah's

22:17

Witness , things like that . Um , judaism , uh , jehovah's witness , things like that . I want to get

22:19

into series of things . Uh , another thing that's on for season three is um , more

22:21

, more serious issues and more , more

22:23

things that might seemingly

22:25

offend people , but

22:27

have I don't . They

22:30

may seemingly offend people , but there

22:33

is great merit to having

22:35

this fixed . Um , I don't

22:37

want to tip my hand right now , but there

22:39

are some serious issues coming up . Uh

22:42

, well , okay , I'll tell you what we'll talk about abortion

22:44

, um , the lgbtq

22:48

, that kind of stuff , like more

22:51

of that kind of things . There's

22:56

many more topics that I

22:58

have , and I always start off with

23:00

a list of things that I want for the season

23:02

and some things don't make the

23:04

cut . Well , the things that didn't make the cut

23:06

in the previous season will get tacked

23:08

on to the next season . So that's kind of

23:10

how I work for seasons , and

23:13

there's some surprises along the way . Also

23:16

, what's in the pipeline ? Well

23:20

, the book Christian Capsule

23:22

book , which comes out in

23:26

midsummer that's

23:28

being worked on right now currently

23:30

. And Midsommar that's being worked on right

23:32

now currently . And what that is ? It's like the

23:34

Christian Capsule podcast , but

23:36

on steroids . It's

23:44

expanded upon some of the topics that we talked about in the podcast

23:46

, but other things that could not be , they're too long for

23:48

a podcast format . Some teachable

23:51

things , that's

23:53

in the book . So there's a

23:55

nonfiction , kind

23:57

of a teaching book called

23:59

Christian Capsules . Then

24:02

, after that's released

24:04

, fast forward

24:06

about six or seven months and

24:09

then there's a fiction

24:11

work coming out . And

24:13

that's all I'm going to say on that . There's

24:21

a fiction book coming out , but that's down the line . So that's

24:23

what's on for this year and

24:25

, like I said , that fiction book may not even

24:27

make it . I know it's not

24:29

going to make it for this year . So

24:32

that's down the line . So right now , keep going with

24:34

the capsules and then release

24:36

the capsule nonfiction

24:38

so

24:44

they can kind of pair with each other and

24:46

that's pretty much it for 2024 .

24:47

Well , that's all I have for today . Thank

24:50

you so much , Jermaine . I appreciate your

24:53

time .

24:54

You're welcome . Thank you for having me . I appreciate

24:56

it .

25:00

My name is Mitchell Seed and we'll talk to you guys next time

25:02

.