- 2 hours ago
CTP (S3EFebSpecial8) Judas, Redemption, And The Weight Of Choice
Exploring more of the fascinating intersection of Activism, Community Engagement, Faith / Religion, Human Nature, Politics, Social Issues, and beyond
We talk with Deborah Griffin about reframing Judas inside the story of redemption, how calling can outrun credentials, and why love must reshape judgment and church life. From cancer survival to a quiet nudge to write, Deborah shares how obedience, mercy, and free will meet at the cross.
• Judas as part of prophecy and redemption
• Free will held within God’s sovereignty
• Substance of message over perfect grammar
• Surviving cancer and learning God’s voice
• Poverty, compassion, and having God’s heart
• Discernment without hypocrisy or cruelty
• Church as people on mission, not buildings
• Practical love for widows, orphans, and the unseen
• Balancing accountability with mercy in daily life
• How to find Deborah’s book and connect
https://tinyurl.com/SubscribeToCTP
CTP Audios: https://tinyurl.com/CTPonBuzzsprout
CTP Videos: https://tinyurl.com/JLDonBITCHUTE
https://tinyurl.com/CTPgear
Exploring more of the fascinating intersection of Activism, Community Engagement, Faith / Religion, Human Nature, Politics, Social Issues, and beyond
We talk with Deborah Griffin about reframing Judas inside the story of redemption, how calling can outrun credentials, and why love must reshape judgment and church life. From cancer survival to a quiet nudge to write, Deborah shares how obedience, mercy, and free will meet at the cross.
• Judas as part of prophecy and redemption
• Free will held within God’s sovereignty
• Substance of message over perfect grammar
• Surviving cancer and learning God’s voice
• Poverty, compassion, and having God’s heart
• Discernment without hypocrisy or cruelty
• Church as people on mission, not buildings
• Practical love for widows, orphans, and the unseen
• Balancing accountability with mercy in daily life
• How to find Deborah’s book and connect
https://tinyurl.com/SubscribeToCTP
CTP Audios: https://tinyurl.com/CTPonBuzzsprout
CTP Videos: https://tinyurl.com/JLDonBITCHUTE
https://tinyurl.com/CTPgear
Category
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LearningTranscript
00:00Hello, welcome to another episode of Perstitutionalist Podcast.
00:06I am your host, Joseph M. Leonard.
00:09That's L-E-N-A-R-D at the French.
00:13It's not, it's Leonard without an O.
00:17Thank you for tuning in, as Graham Norton used to say, on his show.
00:24Let's get on with the show!
00:25Welcome to Season 3, February.
00:31I'll be running two a week, rather than one special a week on Wednesdays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays in February to
00:42get caught up on some of the interviews.
00:45Joining me today is Deborah Griffin.
00:48I'm sure there's a prehistoric animal joke in there somewhere, but we'll be right here.
00:55How are you, Deborah?
00:59I'm well, Mr. Leonard.
01:01How about yourself?
01:02Like I always say, and have my characters in my books say, could always be better, could often be worse.
01:12Yes?
01:13Absolutely.
01:14Right?
01:15Mind you, I do moan, whine, be, complain, you know what I mean.
01:22But when I do, I remind myself a whole lot of people out there got it far worse than we
01:29do.
01:29Yes?
01:30Yes.
01:31Well, that's, I think that's the faith journey.
01:34That's why it says we walk by faith, not by sight.
01:39So, you know, we're in this moment of what it is and real, but with anticipation and hope for many
01:47other things.
01:49Oh, I'm glad you said what you said because, and my audience knows, and as you could tell by the
01:56Griffin lame pun, I can't pass on lame puns.
02:00So, you said walk, not walk by sight.
02:03Well, some can't because their head is up their hind side.
02:07They can't see anything.
02:11I feel like that many times, but I have to remind myself of the faith journey, and a part of
02:20the journey is that you just have to believe, or if you're of little doubt, confess, Father, that I am
02:29doubtful and I need for you to help me stand in this space to get to what I'm believing for.
02:37Or hoping for.
02:39Yeah, and we all are entitled to bad days.
02:45Excuse me.
02:46Pardon me.
02:49A radio no-no, clearing your throat on air.
02:53But anyway, oh, I forgot where I was going to go.
02:59Oh, no.
03:00Yeah.
03:00We're all human, right?
03:02All frail and flawed and perfect, right?
03:07So, we're all entitled to bad days.
03:10Some days you can have a bad day, an off day.
03:15So, and like in the book of Kennedy, Project Carpe Diem, I call some out there mass holes, right?
03:25The masses of asses, the negative Nellies, right?
03:30Always miserable SOBs that seem to dwell in their misery and they want to make everyone else miserable and drag
03:43them down.
03:44And I talk about, indeed, just try to avoid those people, right?
03:53And again, but Martin Luther King Jr., content of character, remembering, again, we're all entitled to bad days.
04:03Someone may be having a bad day.
04:07So, a first impression may not always be the right impression, right?
04:12Why we're supposed to forgive and give grace and second chances, but even turn the other cheek is not an
04:23unlimited thing.
04:27Jesus didn't say, always be a sucker, let yourself be abused.
04:34No, it's give a second chance, but if evil's going to continue to be evil, well, then you know their
04:43character and you react, adjust accordingly.
04:50Just why I don't script shows, never know what rabbit holes will open when we go down, because that's not
04:57what you're here to talk about.
04:59Well, I like the reference of Carpe Diem, Caesar Day, because that's all that we have is today.
05:07Yesterday is gone and I hope for tomorrow is just that it's tomorrow.
05:12So, when I'm feeling low or oppressed or depressed, I have to remind myself that all I have is today,
05:21and that way I draw myself back into staying focused on what I'm hoping for and what I'm working toward.
05:29Absolutely, and both part of my life and living series of books, the book of Kennedy Project Carpe Diem, a
05:38female lead, and a short story, a lasting legacy, Ryan, a male lead, both part of my life and living
05:46series, making that point.
05:48We can't determine how others will act towards us, but again, aside from a bad day where we may react
05:58badly, we choose how we react to others and the world.
06:04And our conscious Christian choice to try to sow good, plant good, and leave it to God to water and
06:16fertilize what we plant and hopefully change hearts and minds of others, yes?
06:23Absolutely. God holds us accountable for what we know about him and how we walk that out.
06:31That's where our accountability adds up.
06:35Pardon, I'm looking out the window because somebody was walking up to the porch.
06:40Apparently, I got an Amazon delivery, but while we're recording, at any rate, and my regular listeners know that's an
06:51ongoing running gag segue thing, at any rate.
06:55So, we're now like five minutes in, and let's actually get to what you're here for.
07:04To talk about Judas, like in my CTP3 book, I go into anti-Semitism, right?
07:16The idiocy of some fake Matthew 23 supposed Christians, blaming Jews for the death of Christ.
07:27When it was preordained, it was God's will, God's plan.
07:33And Christ himself said in Matthew 5.17, I have come to fulfill the prophecy.
07:40He had to die on the cross to be the final blood sacrifice and resurrect and prove he was the
07:50Messiah based on Jewish Torah law, right?
07:57So, those few Jews involved in handing them over to Pilate, it's why Christ said, Father, forgive them.
08:06They know not what they do.
08:08They were acting in their own interest, but as part of God's overall plan.
08:15They had to do what they did, or Christianity wouldn't be here today, yes?
08:21Yes, as so Judas, because...
08:25Exactly, why I said that to lead into Judas.
08:28Judas had to do what he had to do.
08:31You're the Judas expert.
08:33Run with it.
08:34I'm not an expert, but I always proclaim, and I truly believe, that Judas is as much of the redemptive
08:44story as Jesus the Christ.
08:47And I try in my simplest and humblest way to outline that in the Judas book.
08:55I was told, I believe, to script that small book of why Judas was born to betray Jesus.
09:07I was watching the Passion of the Christ, and as I was walking out of the theater, I believe I
09:16heard a quiet, still voice within me say,
09:19I write a book on why Judas was born to betray Christ.
09:25Prior to that, I had no knowledge, no understanding, no interest, no nothing about Judas.
09:34And even doing that, I totally dismissed and minimized what I thought I heard.
09:40And that was because I had no interest in that, I had no knowledge, no prior thinking of, and I
09:52thought that why would the father tell somebody like me, who am not a real reader, I'm not a deep
10:01reader, I read only professional things and small things of interest.
10:06And why would he tell me to write in that space?
10:10I don't even think I had the proper command of the English language to write that.
10:18But he did not give up on me.
10:21He kept from different times and spaces and places to tell me that again.
10:30Yeah.
10:30Oh, I hear you.
10:32Like writing, I've written my whole life.
10:35It's a wonderful hobby.
10:38My profession was IT, but now that I'm on health-related disability, I have time, more time to dedicate to
10:49doing this show and writing my books.
10:53And I get a great chuckle.
10:56In fact, in both the books I mentioned, I talk about in the intro, I'm not Shakespeare or Dickens.
11:05If you're looking for Shakespeare or Dickens, go read Shakespeare or Dickens.
11:11I'm not even Hemingway, but I write in American English, not the King's speech, and it kills me.
11:22A reviewer will say, I'm one too sure about the grammar.
11:28Did you get the point?
11:30That's what meant the substance.
11:33Do you get the substance?
11:36That's, you know, the grammar Nazis that want to focus and nitpick trying to make it about them and their
11:45ego.
11:45Oh, oh, I'm, I'm a PhD English scholar, Oxford trained, and that comma doesn't belong there.
11:55They're making it all about them and their ego rather than about your subject matter.
12:02And that's an important subject.
12:04Not how you're telling it, but whether you come across in Judas's life and absolutely whether you can come across
12:16in the spirit of what you think God wants you to do.
12:21How can you convey that where people who might can look past how you set it up, how you presented
12:29it, and catch the essence of the spiritual meaning.
12:34And I think that's why I could give myself to it, because he said to me one day, which I
12:41did clearly understand, that he calls the foolish to confound the wise.
12:47And that resonated with me, because me as a writer was calling the foolish, and that I understood.
12:56And, and basically my, my conversation with him, even though I heard him internally, I verbally come converse with him
13:04and said, okay, father, I give, I understand.
13:08And I give myself over to this understanding fully my limitations in this space, not only as a writer, but
13:18as an understanding of knowing the subject matter.
13:21And I did do some research as best I could at that time, and as limited as I was, but
13:30God had brought me through so much.
13:33And what I did understand in that space was understanding his voice in a simple manner.
13:39Because prior to that, in 1989, I was diagnosed with breast cancer, and I remember the Holy Ghost talking to
13:51me in quiet, still voice.
13:53And because I wanted to live, I held on to everything that was possible and comforting in that space, and
14:02that was learning his voice.
14:03His voice initially led me to get that lump in my breast that I felt out at a time when
14:13medical doctors told me not to worry about it, which was wonderful with me, because there was no intervention, but
14:20to keep on living.
14:21But God knew what was in the center, the core of that lump, or that tumor, which was cancer.
14:31It was encapsulated.
14:34And that's how I walked forward with the Judas book, because I knew there was something God wanted to get
14:42out and say to others.
14:44I was going to joke with you a bit, if indeed there's a bit of you in the book, and
14:51a relation.
14:55You went a completely different place.
14:58I was joking, like, I'm sure you've not betrayed your best friends or anything like that.
15:07Yes, and you're also not a psychology major, but that's at the bottom and the root of all this, too.
15:16Psychology, human nature, human interactions, the willingness to throw somebody else under the bus to save oneself.
15:29Yes.
15:30Absolutely, none of that.
15:31I was none of that.
15:34I am a black female, as you can see.
15:38I was born to a 17-year-old mom, and we were quite poor.
15:44I was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and Mississippi saves a lot.
15:50And we lived in Bolton, Mississippi, B-O-L-T-O-N, Mississippi.
15:55Oh, is that where Michael's from?
15:57Ba-dum-bum, right?
15:59Yeah.
15:59Michael Bolton.
16:01Right.
16:02No.
16:02Yeah.
16:03Okay.
16:03No, not nearly the same.
16:07But I was born in a very poor environment in terms of financials.
16:18But I understood God early on, and he said to me, when I used to go to school, we had
16:28to pay for lunch.
16:29And even though I was poor, my parents did provide me with money for lunch.
16:35But when I would go to the lunchroom, there were a lot of kids who were left sitting in the
16:39room that couldn't go to lunch.
16:41Their parents were not able to give them lunch money, but I had a heart for them.
16:46And when I went to the lunchroom, I would always bring extra milk back or my milk or some of
16:54the kids in the room.
16:57And I did that for a long period of time.
16:59But at one point in time, I can remember hearing the Lord saying to me that I had his heart.
17:07Did I understand that?
17:08No.
17:10But I remember him saying that.
17:13And while doing the Judas book, I grew to understand why he said that to me.
17:21Now, he didn't just say that to me.
17:22I believe God speaks different things to millions and thousands of people.
17:26He's just wanting somebody to pick up that mantra and walk it out.
17:31And in that space, not much had been written about Judas.
17:36I did not believe anything I had heard about Judas prior to about him being a traitor.
17:43I didn't doubt that, but I knew that there had to be more depth to him in that space.
17:51And if nothing else, it's because he was picked to be one of the 12 disciples.
17:56So something more in-depth had to be known of him.
18:03And he had to bring more to that position or that placement than I understood.
18:09But he is, of course, branded Judas the traitor as Benedict Arnold in our early nation years.
18:19Benedict Arnold the traitor.
18:21Benedict Arnold did a lot for this country.
18:24Judas did a lot for Jesus and the establishment of Christianity outside of that, but pinned with that label.
18:34But back to what you said about the lunch thing, goes back to the top of the show.
18:39As I said, could always be better, could often be worse, right?
18:44You knew some worse off than you.
18:47And no matter how bad we are, if we can, the whole idea of charity, supposed to be from our
18:58blood and treasure.
18:59We are to want to be our brothers and sisters keeper, not forced at the barrel of a gun to
19:07do so.
19:08I know that's off topic, but your reaction to that?
19:12But that's not a topic, because I think I believe, and I think you do too about us discussing, that
19:20our omnipotent father knows the end from the beginning, every end from the beginning.
19:28And we get to walk it out.
19:30I think that different path that he allow us through that path of knowing to take.
19:37And that was the same with Judas.
19:41And the third chapter of the book is a wonderful story about Judas's parents.
19:48And even the night that he was born, I did not create that chapter.
19:54I borrowed that chapter from a pastor whose name is John Piper.
19:59And during my research, I found that, and it fits so well in my thinking and resonated so well in
20:08the message that I was trying to convey in that book that I reached out to him and asked for
20:15permission to include that part in that book.
20:21And it came back, why do you want to use it?
20:25And how do you intend to portray it?
20:27And what is his cut of the profit, right?
20:34I'm kidding, I'm kidding.
20:36He did not ask for any profit.
20:39And I wasn't expecting any.
20:42I looked at my writing or trying to write that book as a task.
20:47A calling.
20:48It's a calling, yeah.
20:50A calling, a task.
20:51Not even trying to understand the message that God wanted to purvey broadly in different spaces.
20:57I just wanted to represent it from my limited knowledge and my limited point of view.
21:03Okay, again, we've well established my inability to pass a lame pun.
21:09Even though we've already covered it, I'm going to ask a repeated lame pun question over.
21:17Since this is a Christian show, what was the genesis, right?
21:23But I'm bummed of the root of why you wrote about Judas.
21:29And indeed, we have already covered that.
21:32So, but I can't pass on the pun.
21:35I got to get in.
21:38And I think about from my perspective of my background that I talked about, about the times that he told
21:46me that I have his heart.
21:47And as I've walked this journey out, I do believe that.
21:50I do believe that we are our brother's keepers as best as we can be in those spaces.
21:56I do believe that God is no respect of person, that he loves us all, and he's the creator of
22:05us all, even though we all come here in different circumstances and environments.
22:11Yeah.
22:12And that helped me to formulate some of the beliefs that I've portrayed in that story, in that book.
22:21And some might be right, some might be wrong, but that's because of the fallibility of my human perspective that
22:31I bring to the table.
22:32But I do try to release or relate to those who read that we only know in a measure.
22:41God knows in the totality of all that we have, and that if we bring our tiny piece of measurement
22:51or measure to that table or to that point, God has different stories for different people that he will reveal
23:01different things at the appropriate time or the time of their understanding.
23:06So I think my writing of that book was not to convince anybody of anything other than that Judas was
23:16as much of the redemptive story as Jesus.
23:19I think that at that time, Judas was taken onto heaven when he was aware of how he betrayed Christ
23:30at the time.
23:31I'm sure he was given a special place for playing that role.
23:35Oh, yeah.
23:36Absolutely.
23:37He had no foreknowledge, but then afterward, his foreknowledge was known, and that is how God, Jesus, took Judas' whatever
23:45essence of what was left, his soul and his spirit, to heaven, which was in paradise, Hades, one side, heaven
23:53on one side and hell on the other side.
23:55And then I think he wanted to convey to us that he created us as free-thinking and free-willed
24:03individuals because, you know, in the beginning of some of the scriptures, he said, choose death or life, but I
24:10would prefer you to choose life.
24:12Yeah, people have the ability and the free will to, I go into my books exactly, you have the free
24:20will to choose to be a mass hole and so evil, right?
24:27You have that choice.
24:29To love him, the choice to learn him, and the choice of how you walk out this opportunity of life
24:37that's given to us in this space.
24:40Yeah, I do want to go back to Brothers Keeper, Widows and Orphans, Charity, dog gone, frog in my throat
24:50today, aspect.
24:53The Bible also says, if you don't work, you don't eat.
24:58Now, that isn't necessarily literal.
25:02We are to take care of widows and orphans and brothers and sisters who are unable.
25:10That's an implication.
25:12The context there is, yes, be charitable to those who are unable, but we have no Christian obligation to those
25:22who are unwilling to bother to do for themselves.
25:27Important distinctions, just like with Judas, you're making the important distinctions.
25:34You can't just focus on the betrayal.
25:38We need to look at his whole life as an example.
25:44100.
25:44But I also think this is a scripture comes when it says, judge ye not.
25:49I do believe that we are our brothers capers.
25:54And I think that it's easy to judge anybody if you've not had any knowledge or walked in their shoes
26:04or understand their journey.
26:06So someone might not be, they might appear able to us.
26:12But even in, right, but even in that space, if we're Christ-like, we should give them the benefit of.
26:19Yeah, look at me.
26:23I'm due to a myriad of health issues.
26:26Both my arms work, both my legs work, right?
26:30I don't appear disabled, but due to my health issues, I'm unable to work traditionally and am on disability.
26:39So yes, and again, Martin Luther King Jr., right?
26:43Don't judge on appearance, but the content of the character.
26:48And I talk about Matthew 7 on this show all the time.
26:52It's really, condemn not lest ye be condemned for final judgment is for the Lord.
26:59There are 12 dozen other scriptures that tell us to judge, including ourself.
27:08By what measure you meet, you shall be met.
27:13Judge biblically, don't be a hypocrite.
27:16But as you're alluding to, or not alluding to, you outright said it, be aware we can be mistaken.
27:26He says, too much is given, much is required.
27:31And I think somewhere in this journey of life that many people forget that whatever they have or position or
27:43station in life,
27:45I do believe that that was ordained as even anything that was ordained and making reference back to the Judas
27:53story.
27:53So what does it hurt me if I give out of what I have to someone that I believe that
28:01needs it, even if they don't?
28:03I think it benefits me because sometimes he says that we entertain angels unaware, but not just in terms of
28:12entertaining angels.
28:14It's a part of the great story of God, which boils down to one word as far as I'm concerned,
28:22and that is love.
28:24Because I think that in pure God-like love, it minimizes or it decreases the impact of judgment, just love.
28:36And if I love in that space and give of what I have, then I've walked out what Jesus tried
28:43to show in his lifetime of the 33 years that he was on earth.
28:49And more specifically, the last three years when he walked out the ministry, because the last thing I'll say, and
28:56I'll give it back to you, is that he says that we are all to go ye.
29:01And go ye, and go ye mean that we walk out his life and the word or the preaching or
29:08the scriptures that are prescribed before us.
29:14Yeah, I ran into someone on, go on it, there I go again, social media who said, you know, I'm
29:25walking away from the church and going to create my own group.
29:29And basically, he doesn't want church.
29:32He doesn't want the church of Christ.
29:34He wants, as Dennis Quaid says, churchianity.
29:39A building with a steeple, but it's really a humanist club.
29:44It's the church of humanism.
29:47The church of modern day.
29:49The church of woke.
29:51Not the church of Christ anymore.
29:54And I am very concerned.
29:56I 100% agree with you, because we think of church as a building, as a facility, with a leader,
30:06and all of those things.
30:07And I think that there are some wonderful churches.
30:09But at the same time, I think there are a lot of false churches or false false churches.
30:13Matthew 23.
30:14Right.
30:15Right.
30:16And so what I would like to maintain or try to convey in this point is that the church is
30:23truly us.
30:24It's how we work it out.
30:27Wherever two or more are gathered.
30:29Right.
30:29And when you learn of him and the things that he say, even if you don't have a great understanding
30:35of all that you have, the church is in us.
30:38And he wants us to do what we know.
30:41I don't need to go sit on Sundays or whatever on a pew for somebody to tell me what's right.
30:46It's good to do that as a matter of community.
30:51But, yes, it's not an answer.
30:52What about those who cannot get there?
30:55Are they condemned to hell?
30:57No.
30:58And that is my point.
30:59Yeah.
31:00Absolutely.
31:00That's my point.
31:02Right.
31:02We agree.
31:04We agree.
31:05All right.
31:06Now, I know you're associated with bookhavenliterary.com.
31:13Is there another website where people can reach out to you or whatnot and I take it, find your book
31:21on Amazon and all that good stuff?
31:24They can find the book on Amazon and Google and I think you said other good stuff.
31:30I am affiliated with Bookhaven Literary.
31:35It is a new entity, but the spirit of that entity I am attached to, meaning that I feel that
31:45they're trying to do as I do, and that is to spread the good news.
31:51Not Deborah's news, not their news, but the good news.
31:56Amen.
31:57I'm not here for me.
32:00Right?
32:01I could spend my days watching TV to pass the time.
32:05I'm here because I feel it necessary to be here to spread his message, not mine.
32:13I think with Bookhaven, the genesis of it is rooted in love and in truth.
32:21And that could come from different people in different places.
32:25And that's why I think it exists so it can give you different perspectives of what that really is.
32:33Okay.
32:33Well, thank you.
32:35Normally, I repeat a person's name several times, right?
32:38Understanding marketing and that you want to drop a name or reach people seven times to get it to stick.
32:47And I didn't do that with you.
32:49So thank you, Deborah Griffin.
32:52But, of course, for those viewing behind-the-scenes video, it'll be on the bottom of the screen.
32:58So thank you, Deborah, for joining today.
33:01Great discussion.
33:04I'm glad to be able to talk about the goodness of God.
33:08It's always a pleasure to talk about the goodness of God.
33:13It is not the scriptures according to Deborah.
33:16It is the scriptures that is according to Jesus the Christ.
33:21Amen.
33:22Amen.
33:22Like and subscribe to the Christitutionalist Politics Podcast and share episodes.
33:30We need your help.
33:32Thank you for having tuned into another Christitutionalist Podcast show.
33:38I really appreciate that you stopped by.
33:43Again, please like, share, subscribe.
33:46We need you to help spread the Christitutionalist Movement.
33:51Thank you again.
33:53Take care.
33:54God bless.
33:56Love you all.
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