Dani, help us to understand why is this such a consistent sort of byproduct of the gospel, I guess, this relational texture between Christians?

What does that have to do with the gospel? It's one of the fascinating things about 1 and 2 Thessalonians.

Here's another one.

The language of siblings, brothers and sisters, he addresses them and calls them that in these two letters, which have a total of eight chapters across them, they are called brothers and sisters more than 25 times.

So again, in our first earliest letters, probably more than any other New Testament letter, brother and sister, brother and sister is just over and over again.

It just runs right through these letters in a way that you cannot miss.

But to go back to your question, let me just read from 1 Thessalonians 4.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on that as someone who has written extensively and ministered extensively in this area.

Dani, help us see how we can understand more of the context for 1 and 2 Thessalonians from reading the book of Acts.

Well, in Acts 16, Paul is traveling.

So the Apostle Paul is traveling around an area called Asia at the time, modern-day Turkey kind of area, trying to go to towns and cities and to preach the gospel of Jesus to the people there.

But it's really interesting because we keep discovering that Paul Where is Acts 16? Is it beginning of Acts 16? It's a little bit earlier actually.

But he keeps going to these places and the Holy Spirit keeps preventing him from preaching the gospel there.

He just keeps just not being able to do this thing that he's been called and empowered and equipped to do.

And so eventually he's in a place called Troas and he gets a vision at night from a man from Macedonia, which is kind of just over the water from Turkey in kind of modern day Greece.

Therefore encourage one another with these words." Danny, help us understand, what does it mean that we will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and we'll always be with the Lord? Does that mean we're going to be kind of floating around for all eternity? Yeah,

um

Well, I mean, I'm very happy to be transparent, so feel free to ask me questions if you'd like to.

I joke at the beginning of my most recent book called Single Ever After in the opening pages I talk about that if you told me 10, 15 years ago that I'd have published two books on singleness and running a ministry on singleness and have a PhD on singleness, I would have run screaming from the room insisting that you've got the wrong girl.

But here I am.

Unexpectedly, thanks God.

And so part of my kind of journey in that is learning to be transparent about my own singleness.

So I'm very happy to chat about that.

If you like someone, there's my uncle down, he's quite desperate, but I could fix him up with you if you want.

Yes.

So there is a place and a way to do ministry particularly about singleness that that has a view of reaching singles in particular, but not only singles, I think.

The way I want to be, I want to be a sister in this church family amongst my brothers and sisters of all different ages and stages.

I want my singleness to be a blessing and a benefit to them.

And I want their marriages and their family life to be that for me as well.

And I know that means, okay, well, what does that mean in practice? Well, that has to be worked out relationally in the context of the individual and the church.

But I think when we silo off into distinct groups, we're actually missing that.

So in your ministry, Cross Related, what are the outcomes you're looking for there?

Mm

...

in the context of scripture as well.

Yeah, I think it, it's just jumping ahead sort of particularly to verse 11, where really the contentious issues start to kick in.

I think it's really important to recognize that women are called to learn.

We're not called to be passive members of the body of Christ.

We're called to be learners of God's word.

14 verse one.