Dungeons & Disciples

Tony Benda 0:02
In lands where moonlight waves, its song in Echoes, dance where myths belong, a voice arises, bold and free, a Bard's enchantment, Melody, their tales commend, their words Ignite. A whisper, strong as dragons might with loot in the hand, in the heart of flame, they turn the tomb into a name. So gather close, both wise and new for secrets deep we shall pursue with verse and more we shall explore the Bardic path its ancient core. Now heed the call that curtain sways. Let stories weave through night and day. This is the hour the tale begins where music, magic and fate are twins. Welcome traveler, lend your ear for Dungeons and disciples. Is Here you

Josh Shaw 1:17
That was so good. If Oh, good ladies and gentlemen. I may be Joshua Shaw, but Tony Benda is here for voice acting. Ah, that's actually so good. Many of you don't know, but Tony started at this point. Yes, okay, they're still started Great. Tony's trying to become a voice actor. Hi guys, for sure. So continue to like, subscribe and share to all your friends and potential voice actor hirers.

Tony Benda 1:49
I'm not in the industry yet. Officially, those

Josh Shaw 1:55
who employ people with really good, mystical voices,

Tony Benda 2:01
those who are looking for voice talent,

Josh Shaw 2:03
and if you don't have Tony's number, just email us

Tony Benda 2:06
email,

Josh Shaw 2:08
but that's for another that's for the end of the episode.

Tony Benda 2:12
Yeah? Well, we'll throw our socials and email up there later, but keep in mind, yeah, officially, hello everyone. Welcome back to dungeons and disciples. As Josh had said, my name is Tony, and that's Josh over there. I'm so excited, and we're doing this again. Today's episode is gonna

Josh Shaw 2:32
be so fun. I really like going over these, these classes. I don't know this about them, but it's just I remember when the Lord was like, just talk about character classes we were sitting at. Was it brew? No, we were sitting actually. Know what it was. I remember what they were talking about. It at Kramer brew afterwards, that was, but that was later. I know it was when we went to, oh my gosh, to Jim and Doc's house. I think it was Thanksgiving, maybe Thanksgiving. Yeah, that sounds about right. And I was just, I remember talking with you about, I was like, Man, I'm just struggling with, like, content creation. You're like, you're like, you'll get it. That'd be fine. And it's true. And then all of a sudden it just hit me. And I remember running outside. Tony was sitting on the porch. I was like, Tony, it's come I have it. He's like, See, I know you did.

Tony Benda 3:30
It wasn't and I told you so moment or anything, it was more like I it just was gonna

Josh Shaw 3:36
happen. I get stressed about these things. But Tony's like, I'm not worried

Tony Benda 3:39
about it. I don't, yeah, I don't stress about this kind of stuff. He really does just normal. It happens. It does. Creativity comes and goes, and then you hit a thing of inspiration where the Lord hands it to you on a silver platter. And, you know, here we are, except with writing

Josh Shaw 3:52
books that's just hard, that's just a whole nother. Mom, yep, yes, it is. But we're talking about the bard class today, if you didn't gather by our fun opening poem, thank you to chat GPT for what a wonderful I have. You know, I really, I have no problem using it. I don't either. I really enjoy, I don't I

Tony Benda 4:14
enjoy using AI in different situations when it lends to, um, I don't know, just a quick, like fun thing, can

Josh Shaw 4:22
I openly confess to a brother? Go for it. I've been trying to, I'm trying to work out a little bit more, and no one wants to go online and pay 100 $200 for a workout plan they might stick to for two weeks. So I was sitting at work one day, and I was like, I have a genius idea. So I legit went on chat GPT, and I said, Write me a one week long workout plan, push, pull legs, yes, and it did it in very grave detail. Oh,

Tony Benda 4:50
my goodness, yes, that I heard that things like chat, G, P, T, or, what is it? Grok, think so, yeah. Yeah, through x, these different platforms now are able to, like, do really fun things. So like, let's say you have a grocery budget for, like, the week or two weeks, or whatever it is. Let's say you have $200 that you want to spend on groceries for X amount of time. You say, I have these types of ingredients already in my pantry. Like, help me create a shopping list for this budget at this store, and hit go. That's crazy. And it also can help you meal prep with those groceries. It can do all like, it's super cool. I've seen tiktoks on it and all these cool things. Welcome back, Tiktok Oh,

Josh Shaw 5:40
so brother, should we have said that? Either? No, that's fine.

Tony Benda 5:46
That's not copyright. Who knows it's, it's short enough, anyway, whatever. But anyway, no, it's, it's cool, like, AI tech is great for some things, some things, yeah, we just don't let it over, control our narrative. Oh, absolutely never will control our narrative. Never. All of our content, while we may filter some ideas through different sources, is always biblically based. It is always prayed over. It is always

Josh Shaw 6:15
that, yeah, I don't think there was a single time, even if we did like a prompt, like, you know, because, like, you know, when you write podcasts, you know, usually, like a general form, like an outline. I don't think there's ever a single moment in this podcast where we're like, hey, chat GPT. Give us all the Bible verses that we need to speak about today. It's no, no. This is, like, there is an AI called church tech. Church dot tech. Yes, that does a little bit of something like that. I haven't invested too much into it, but I think, I think it's, I think, I think I know a couple people that use it for, like, like, just like, Bible studies, for like, new believers, you know, I'm saying, like, hey, build me a Bible study. Um, like, on this particular topic, that makes sense. And then they, you know, they obviously take what's there, and they're like, Okay, let me, you know, let me ponder on it, let me see what the Lord has to say about it. But like, Yeah, I think it can control, but that's not the point of the episode today. You know, I'm saying it can't control but you don't have to let it. But in this episode, absolutely not folks, considering the content that we have in store today, preach so Tony. Today we are talking about

Tony Benda 7:14
bards. Bards. I don't know what to say after that. No, so did like bards. Has anyone here ever played a bard? I've never. I've played a bard, I believe, once, and that was in a one shot. We were at Gen Con. It was Steven, was DMing. This one shot, we played with Adam, and Aaron was there and tuck was there. So yeah, it was Steven DMing for four of us, and I played a bard for the first time. It was fun. It was different, learning how to use the Bardic inspirations appropriately, or in the like, I don't know it's it's weird, because you have this other thing that you can dish out and support as a support character, which is not something I'm used to playing all the time. That's

Josh Shaw 8:07
how it would challenge me. I feel like, yeah, it is not, it is not like what we talked about with barbarian class. Barbarian is very much a hands on, hands on Hulk Smash kind of attitude, versus you have a bard who is very supportive, very passive and yeah, is trying to worry more about like, how to heal a team rather than how to deal damage, yes.

Tony Benda 8:26
So if you have a favorite Bard moment, reach out to us, like, shoot us an email, message us on social media, we love to hear some of your favorite Bard stories. Oh, yes, that kind of stuff would be fun to talk about here on the show. Next, Next episode, as we recap this episode from today, but I think we should go into it and talk about what a bard is. And I do what is the player's handbook say about the bard class?

Josh Shaw 8:51
Yes. So if you were to open the player's handbook and read verbatim exactly what Bard's description is, I will reinforce, and we'll continue to reinforce for a couple episodes, that this is the this is via the 2024 edition of the players handbook. Yep, I believe that, you know, as we love the little bit older version of 5e I believe a lot of our game campaigns are going to essentially start transferring into the 2024 players handbook. I know probably our next campaign will. So might as well just hop in with that kind of particular style there. Okay, well, not style, but the book rather so it says, invoking magic through music, dance and verse. Bards are expert at inspiring others, soothing hurts, disheartening foes, and creating illusions. Bards believed the multiverse was spoken into existence and that remnants of its words of creation still resound and glimmer on every plane of existence. Bardic magic attempts to harness those words which transcend any language, anything can inspire a new song or tale. So bards are fascinated by almost everything. They become masters of many things, including performing music. Magic, working magic and making jests. A Bard's life is spent traveling, gathering lore, telling stories, and living on the gratitude of audiences, much like any other entertainer, The Bard's depths of knowledge and mastery of magic sets them apart. That's cool. I kind of like it, you know, as I continue to read stuff like that too. I almost kind of want to go back it, like, almost makes me want to, like, reformat the whole episode. When I look at stuff like that, he thinks it I, you know, not that. I say, I'm not going to talk about it, but my whole brain just thinks about new things. But, yeah, I just get so I don't know. My brain works a million miles an hour. I believe it. Tony has seen me edit, uh, because usually we talk about these podcasts weekly, and Tony has seen me edit so many things in a sitting, in a single sitting, like, I mean, we'll be sitting there drinking coffee, we'll pray, and we'll start throwing ideas out there, and then all sudden, I'll just get a hint of inspiration, and for about 20 minutes it's just pure silence while my brain is exploding on Google Docs and Tony's just like, this is a good sandwich, yep.

Tony Benda 11:11
Not in a bad way, not a bad way. Sometimes you just got to let the dude flow. And, brother, you flow.

Josh Shaw 11:18
I have a lot of coffee. I think it's great. Even this episode, I have a lot of coffee, so becoming a bar then essentially, right? So again, we're going to also reinforce this as well. We're not going to talk about every level of Bard. If you want to go anywhere past level five to research about how you build a bard, we'd recommend going into the 2024, players handbook to for the sake of time. And so we can talk also biblical concept. Content. We're also just going to talk about up to level five, which is really the a big bulk of how you build the character anyway. So starting off of the level one Bard, it's nice and easy to start off with. You gain all the all the traits in the core bar, traits table, which you can find inside of the player's handbook. Gain The Bard's level one features which are listed in the bard features table. As you scroll down or read into the book, you can continue to find what a lot of those things are. And then it talks about multi classing and different Bard features, which, again, you can touch base on and read. But we're going to start off with level one, which is Bardic inspiration. Now, Tony, I'm going to lean on you a little bit for some of these things. While I can read verbatim, I think it's, I think it's nice to know some input into how a bard is played, because I'm gonna be really honest with you, even though I've read the content here, I really don't understand some of it, so I'm gonna need your help for a little bit of this. Okay, so like, what exactly is Bardic inspiration. We can read it, but like, also, what? What is it? Bardic

Tony Benda 12:44
inspiration is inspiration from a Bardic I'm kidding, wow, wow, from a Bardic player. No, I think let's read it first, and then I'll kind of elaborate on Okay, okay, so the handbook says Bardic inspiration is you can supernaturally inspire others through words, music or dance. This inspiration is represented by your Bardic inspiration die, which is a d6 as you also level up your inspiration, die will change over time. At higher levels, the die will become a d8 at level five, a D 10 at level 10, and a 12 and level 15. You're also limited to how many uses you can use per long rest as a bonus action. You could inspire another creature within 60 feet of yourself who can see or hear you. That creature gains one of your Bardic inspiration dies. A creature can have only one Bardic inspiration die at a time once within the next hour, when the creature fails a D 20 test, the creature can roll the Bardic inspiration die and add the number rolled to the D 20, potentially turning the failure into a success. Oh, that's cool, which is huge. That is cool. It's fun. So like, if you are rolling a con save and you, let's say the DC is 15, and you roll a 14, that Bardic Inspiration can come and clutch, depending on what the situation is, a Bardic inspiration die is expended when it's rolled. So again, the number of uses is equal to your charisma modifier, minimum of once, and you regain all the expanded uses when you finish a long rest. So as I mentioned, you can your dice also changes from a six to an eight or a 10 at higher levels down the road, which will also be super beneficial. But essentially, to answer your original question, a Bardic inspiration is, is just that it like, it's one of those, I don't know, it's kind of like one of those clutch moment kind of things that kind of has happened in the moment. Yeah, it's, it's more of an in the moment type thing that the bard can on their turn set in. Like a Bardic inspiration to another player, kind of at what, whichever player you want that's within that 60 feet. And again, they could only have one at a time. So you really could stack them. You can give one to each of your party members if you want, but you could probably

Josh Shaw 15:16
stack, could you stack like two or three on top to give to one party

Tony Benda 15:20
member. No, oh, so it's just one per person until it's used. So you can give, let's say i My turn is before yours, an initiative. I give you a Bardic inspiration for your next turn. You fail a save, you roll your Bardic, you pass the save with the Bardic. On my next turn, I can then send you another Bardic and just keep going that route. Ah, so you can replenish it once it's been used. But if you haven't touched it, there's they don't stack. But, like

Josh Shaw 15:50
you were saying, there's certain limits per how much you do per long rest, yes, so for players, then essentially, Be wise how you use, how much bargains version you use in a single sitting. Because even though, even though, even game wise, you can start all your, let's say, your action in the morning, like morning time frame of the actual gameplay, you still have so much more time within the actual gameplay itself, you know, because it still works like regular time, 24 hour days. So you still got to be wise with how you use it, too. Yeah. Now, when it comes to spell casting with with bards, it's pretty simple in terms of a lot of other spell casters that it would appear to be. You know, you obviously have can trips, and you obviously gain higher level spells as you continue to level up. Bards in particular, start with our two known cantrips. This is dancing lights and vicious mockery. Tony. Happens to love vicious mockery. I feel like,

Tony Benda 16:41
let me say this. I do enjoy vicious mockery. However, it was more of an inside joke that I'm not willing to share. You

Josh Shaw 16:49
want to know? Email us.

Tony Benda 16:52
It was just an adorable moment. It was just an No, we

Josh Shaw 17:02
will just leave it at that. But as you continue on levels now, you know one thing that confused me at first was bards are not balanced, right? So you can't just pick and choose which spells you're going to use. But as you continue to increase in level, if there's a particular spell that you're just like, hey, I know I don't want that spell, you can begin to shift out spells, getting rid of the one you were essentially using that you didn't have fond of, and essentially put in a new spell. And as the number and as you increase, as you gain the bard levels, the number of spells increases, as showed in the prepared spells column of the bard features table, which you essentially would inevitably research as you're building this Bard. And then finally, when it comes to spells, the beautiful thing about bards is you can actually use a musical instrument as a spell casting focus for your Bard. Spells, which

Tony Benda 17:51
bagpipes, bagpipes you

Josh Shaw 17:55
can do, bagpipes you can do a liar. You can be like me and thinking about bringing a saxophone dwarfs?

Tony Benda 18:01
Yes, that would be fun.

Josh Shaw 18:05
I can only think of The Hobbit when those dwarves were standing on the hill. Oh, my goodness, do you remember what

Tony Benda 18:12
was he playing? I don't know. Was it like a horn some kind of some

Josh Shaw 18:16
kind of obnoxious whore, but every time I think of that, it's funny because dwarves

Tony Benda 18:30
also like to make the largest, most obnoxious items and realize them in daily Life.

Josh Shaw 18:40
Dwarves hold a special place in my heart. Yeah, they really do. It's so fun. So moving on to level two, perspective of it, you gain expertise in two of your skill proficiencies of your choice, performance and persuasion, are recommended if you have proficiencies in them. As you continue to build um, you roll for your character, make sure you as you roll for your character, to put your points into your ability scores, to raise up those things and to raise up those proficiencies and where they would go, such as charisma, right? You want to have a high charisma as a bard, yes, essentially getting higher in performance and persuasion. And I can already think of the things that I would do being a bard? Yep, I don't know how you know, and that's the hard part for me, is I don't even know how I'd use a voice, how I would do it. I just don't know playing a bard y'all is honestly, really, would kind of open your mind and really force you to get out of your comfort zone, yeah, because you have to start doing fun and creative things that basically come out of nowhere. There's no real way to prepare a bard unless your personality is just a bard. Do

Tony Benda 19:50
you want to know a bard that you played or that I played? So a bard I played that you'd be familiar with is Salvatore von sloop.

Josh Shaw 19:58
I love. COVID, Salvatore von sloop. And the reason I also loved it is because as a dwarf, I made fun of him constantly. I was a

Tony Benda 20:07
Drake and blood Dragonborn level three Bard. That was a very fun character to play. I've used him now on three different one shots. Was it Salvatore Vinh sloop? Yep, Salvatore vine sloop. He was the level three Bard. He was a blast and yep, super fun character to pay. I

Josh Shaw 20:26
loved that character. I remember the one shot we did with that character. It was very fun. But also, at level two, you begin to know you gain jack of all traits, which says you can add half of your proficiency bonus, which you would run down to any ability check you make that uses a skill proficiency you lack that doesn't otherwise use your proficiency bonus. For example, in that if you make, if you were to make a strength athletics check and lack the athletics proficiency, you can add half of your proficiency bonus to the check, which I think is kind of cool, yep, considering if you're just a little weakling Bard and you can't sing a tree down to make you a bridge, you can true try to jump over

Tony Benda 21:11
Yes, Bart's gonna be very flexible

Josh Shaw 21:13
and athletic. So next you would go into the bard sub classes. You get a bard subclass of your choice, the College of dance, College of glamor, College of lore and College of valor. Subclasses are detailed in the classes description,

Tony Benda 21:26
and I will say real quick that the college of dance is a new one with the 2024 update. Good word. That's good. So College of dance, for those who are fans of dimension 20 and have watched andor listened to fantasy high Fabian aramaeus seacaster, I believe, has eventually gone into the college of dance as a bard in his multi class. So that is a blast listening to him perform that character. I actually

Josh Shaw 22:01
don't know that character you're talking you're talking about.

Tony Benda 22:04
Yeah, he's Lou Wilson. Plays him. Okay, so Lou Wilson, you're a gem. You may never listen to this, but

Josh Shaw 22:14
well done. You never know. That's all you have to say to him. Well done.

Tony Benda 22:18
Well done. No, you're an inspiration to us at all truly.

Josh Shaw 22:23
Oh, that's fun, but we'll talk about subclasses here in just a minute. Jumping over to level four, a simple ability score improvement. We've touched on that quite a bit here. Just know that you do gain ability score improvements at levels four, 812, and 16, and then level five, you'll gain a font of inspiration, which says you can now regain all your expended uses of Bardic inspiration when you finish a short or long rest. In addition, you can expend a spell slot, no action required to regain one expended use of Bardic inspiration. It's typically that level five, most characters start to get real beefy, which is really cool. So as we go down into the pages all past the spells, we want to revisit level three again and just briefly touch on the bard subclasses here for just a minute, which are the College of dance, College of glamor, College of lore and College of valor. Tony, why don't you go over the College of dance?

Tony Benda 23:23
College of dance, we don't

Josh Shaw 23:27
need to go through all the levels. We can just simply speak kind of how they are, and a little bit what what you do, how we can build the character with the College of dance.

Tony Benda 23:38
So again, this is a new college for the 2024 for the updated players handbook and DM guide. The College of dance. Bards of the College of dance know that the words of creation can't be contained within speech or song. The words are uttered by the movements of celestial bodies and flow through the motions of the smallest creatures. These bards practice a way of being in harmony with the whirling cosmos that emphasizes agility, speed and grace.

Josh Shaw 24:12
I'm going to say as much as we want to hear your stories of Bard, if you've already played a bard in the 2024 edition, I don't know if I want to hear the stories of how you've danced inside of your DND sessions. I do. I if you've got videos, please send. Please send. I'm afraid of that. Well, I'm not, because we can, we could filter out the crazy. I don't want to. There's not crazy. I love y'all. I want to see you shirtless dancing and your D and D sessions. I like

Tony Benda 24:39
me. I picture like Chris Farley doing the whole like chip and dill routine with what's his face. Oh, Mercy. I'm

Josh Shaw 24:48
I'm thankful that I have a brother that imagines that because with

Tony Benda 24:55
Patrick Swayze, yeah, Chris Farley and Patrick Swayze doing their chip and Dale's routine. That's, that's, that's what I picture for. Well, you said shirtless bar dancing. For some reason, my mind went to Chris Farley's skate with Patrick Swayze, totally. What I thought, too. Sure. SNL, way to go, guys,

Josh Shaw 25:18
we're gonna, we're gonna stick with Tony's ideas. Great. I like that one. Okay, I will neither confirm nor deny that I've seen Magic Mike, okay, but

Tony Benda 25:33
that's the spoof. Let's see.

Josh Shaw 25:40
Oh Lord, a seven.

Tony Benda 25:42
This episode's going downhill. No, I'm kidding. While

Josh Shaw 25:46
dancing near the tree or on the tree, you fall off and break a limb, take three hit points.

Tony Benda 25:52
Mercy. So sorry. Yeah, I've never seen magic, Mike, so I'm gonna cut my blessings for that. You should, I will. You should. So you college of dance people out there, let's hear them stories, I mean, the videos.

Josh Shaw 26:12
You can you imagine a player just being real good at dance? That'd be fantastic, awesome.

Tony Benda 26:17
You would be a dance virtuoso, which means you have advantage on any charisma or as a charisma check you make that involves your dancing. Honestly, though, when you read

Josh Shaw 26:26
it, and we're not getting we're not gonna touch base on it, but you should get the layers handbook if you do not have, like, a PDF or something, kind of read it. It's actually, it's kind of nice, it's fun. I wouldn't do it because I don't want to dance in sessions, because my dance moves are not like and anywhere near equivalent. I don't

Tony Benda 26:42
know if I should confirm virgin high, because I don't remember everything you dance Josh. College of glamor

Josh Shaw 26:50
traces its origin to the beguiling magic of the Feywild Bard. To study this magic, weave threads of beauty and tear into their songs and stories, and the mightiest among them cloak themselves in other worldly majesty. Their performances stir up wistful longing for forgotten innocence, evoke unconscious memories of long held fears, and tug at the emotions of even the most hard hearted listeners thinking about that that's actually kind of cool. That actually be a really cool character, because you can use it in a lot of different ways. Yeah, I immediately don't even think of, like, deceptive waves, but like, almost think of like a mental health counselor, essentially, yes, except using it with, like, even, like, musical interpretation, interpretation of poems. I think that'd be really cool. Yeah,

Tony Benda 27:39
like, I'm looking at this picture here in the player's handbook, and this picture of the College of glamor, like reminds me of what I picture figure out faith, also from fantasy high expansion 20 series played by Emily Axford, another one of the most amazing DVD players in the world. This is literally how I picture fig with their bass guitar, gothed up to the, you know, to the nines and just rock in it. But she's also a multi class individual, so she's, I think she took a level of Paladin and, wow, she took Bard, but she was, I don't remember what she was to begin with. I think she was a bard anyway. Sorry, you guys know better than I at the moment. I'm

Josh Shaw 28:24
telling you, Bard, the bard class really does challenge me. I feel like in this is kind of weird, but I feel like the Holy Spirit is leading me to play a bard at some point, just to challenge me, because this is really cool stuff. It would be cool next to the College of lore. Barge of the College of lore collects spells and secrets from diverse sources, such as scholarly Tomes, mystical rites and peasant tales. But college members gather in libraries and universities to share their lore with one another. They also mean that festivals are affairs of state where they can expose corruption, unravel lies and poke fun at self important figures of authority. If I were going to play a bard, this is what I would do

Tony Benda 29:00
college of law. I really would. It sounds fun. It's it sounds

Josh Shaw 29:07
it sounds very It sounds like you could definitely play a character that's definitely um, optimistic yet sarcastic. Yes, because that's how I guess that's how I think about it. It sounds like a jester type character, even these levels, like even just level three Cutting Words you lose, you use your wit to supernaturally distract, confuse and otherwise sap the confidence and competence of others. When a creature that you see within 60 feet of yourself makes a damage roller, succeeds on an ability check or attack roll, you can take a reaction to expend the use of your Bardic inspiration, roll the die and subtract the number rolled from the creatures roll, reducing the damage or potentially turning the success into a failure. Yep, another

Tony Benda 29:48
wonderful use of the Bardic inspiration.

Josh Shaw 29:52
She thy sword. You twit.

Tony Benda 29:57
It just and that's a miss. Oh goodness,

Josh Shaw 30:03
and last one would be college of valor. Bards of the College of Valor are daring storytellers who tales preserve the memory of the great heroes of the past. These bards seeing the deeds of the mighty in vaulted halls or to the crowds gathered around great bonfires, they travel to witness great events firsthand to ensure that the memory of these events don't pass away with their songs, they inspire new generations to reach the same heights of accomplishment as the heroes of old. And I would think these kinds of bards, and even just kind of looking just more of the level proficiencies of the subclass, you know, if you wanted to use a bar, if you wanted to have a bard, that was also a little bit more combat oriented. And I feel like a lot of first time players would appreciate this as well, definitely, because a lot of first time players, commonly, will probably just play a barbarian. Let's be honest with you, it's a very simple class, but we're a fighter, yeah, or a fighter, but being a bar to the College of Valor gives you almost the best of both. You know you can challenge yourself with the bard class, but if you join the College of Valor, you can inspire others to turn the tides of battle. Even have martial training when level three extras attacks at level six Battle Magic level 14, you can really just kind of tread the waters of bards with the College of Valor, all in all, pretty cool class, in my opinion, 100% challenging class. Yeah, I think it would be a very challenging not used to something like this, yes. So definitely support role. So building a bard Tony, which, which college would you choose? And why? Man,

Tony Benda 31:43
I don't know.

I think

that's a very good question, huh? I'd have to think about it, but I would probably lean more towards kind of like what you were saying about the College of lore, but I think I would want to try the College of dance, just because it's new, and I haven't done it yet. I like trying these new classes and things. It's fun. So probably College of dance,

Josh Shaw 32:15
I Yeah. I mean, even just reading more about Bard, I definitely would say, for those that are playing D and D, whether you're advanced player, or even just the beginning player, if you're going to build a bard, I would say, take some take some time to research it. Take some time to explore all the ins and outs of what a bard could be. Because I think if you don't put enough time into reading it, if you don't put enough time into seeing it, you could probably miss some really cool things you could do, or potentially have the ability to do. And you know, if you're not, if you're not prepared for a bard in this particular sense, you could probably walk into a one shot or a campaign, and just it would probably be a little challenging. In my opinion. I think you can manage it and get through it, but definitely time and research into it, you would probably be, you'll be very satisfied and challenged and really appreciative of the class itself. Yeah, I've always been hesitant of bards, not because I don't want to play one, but because it can be daunting. It could be a daunting task.

Tony Benda 33:12
It can I think there have been character classes that I've chosen not to play because of the possibility of playing it wrong or failure, or whatever, like that thing is that that whole stigma of getting it wrong, so therefore I'm not going to do it. Yeah, but if you have a good party and you're at a good table, it none of that matters, because you're going to just support each other and

Josh Shaw 33:33
play. If you have a good table, they're going to help you play the character too 100% you know, like and not even a while, even just reading through this, you know, live, live for you guys, going to the character classes, even even myself, you know, unedited version wise, we had, I even had to take a few pauses to be like, Oh my gosh. This is kind of hard to understand. This is a little bit weird and confusing, even just to gather Tony's advice through it. So don't be discouraged by it. And even if you want to give it a shot. Like I said, I truly feel like the Holy Spirit leading me to play a bard. And I don't know why, in all honesty, but I do feel like there's there needs to come a point where I need to personally play a bard, yeah, because also playing different character classes that are out of your experience range gives you the ability to take your mindset and just transform it into something new. Yeah, you know, really change your focus and your mindset and really open your eyes to what's really available and out there, which I feel the Holy Spirit stirring already in that considering our biblical discussion of today's content, I really do. I'm excited about this one. It's good. The Bard class hit on a couple of points in it that we're going to draw particular attention to. There's a lot you can draw attention to with a bard, but there's three particular styles that the Bards do or. Uh, yeah, there's three particular stars that the Bards do that really would kind of catch my attention, even biblically speaking. And that's the concept of dance, musicianship and speech. Yeah, that's cool. And I think those three particular topics are brought up, but not all expanded upon necessarily speech. We're gonna leave for last because I can go a million years about the power of the tongue and speech of that manner, yeah, things of that nature. But we're gonna touch on dance and musicianship first, because I think there's some really cool things in that. Yeah, Tony, we've already jumped into the D and D perspectives. Why don't you open us up in prayer for the biblical perspective

Tony Benda 35:50
of it got you, bro, Father God, thank you for just the audience, and for what you're doing in this episode already, and for what you're going to do in the hearts of people. I pray that there's just a nugget of knowledge for these folks today that you are providing. Lord, just let it be open to our eyes and ears. Praise your name.

Josh Shaw 36:09
Amen and Amen. So the first one we want to dive into is dancing. Yeah, no, I do not need to address for my Pentecostal folks out there about the flag twirlers. I don't, I don't. We're not. We're not going there, dude, there's nothing wrong with that. Flag twirling is valid. Your feelings are valid. I've, you know, be honest, I've only ever seen it one time. I've been to a couple churches where they throw flags. I mean, that's all. I mean, good for y'all. That's, I mean, it's awesome. Don't think, don't think. We're not like, we're not saying don't do it. Yeah, I think it's just more of a Pentecostal stereotype, probably, I mean, but that's cool. It's super charismatic. The reason I say it is not to is not to say it's that there's wrongness in it. It's that I not it just being with genuine authenticity. The first time I saw it, I was like, a little skeptical, yeah? I was like, No, I agree. Not in a skeptic system of not filled with the Holy Spirit, but a skepticism of, like, I don't really should understand how

Tony Benda 37:13
or why, how that's edifying, yeah, yeah. And like, because that was my thought when I first saw it, too,

Josh Shaw 37:18
yeah. I was like, how does this edify worship? Where do you where do you come from? This angle from? Yeah, and I really should ask more people about it, but I started to dig into the concept of just like cultural dance, yeah, when we started this, so I started look up like a couple things. And I started noticing things recently. I started watching rugby recently. Okay, odd, but one thing I watched love it is the new the New Zealand Rugby team. Before every performance, they do the New Zealand haka dance. Yes, they do. It's in the haka is perform if I'm saying that right, for those that are New Zealand, if I'm saying that wrong, I apologize. No, haka is correct. Okay, good, good, good, especially since I want to see a video of tuck in his bride, doing the Haka with their kids at some point, that would be fun. Okay, so listeners, tuck

Tony Benda 38:11
good friend of ours, it was on the show before him and his wife moved to New Zealand. Yeah, sad, bittersweet, good, good opportunities and super cool things that they're doing down there in New Zealand, but I just picture their kids just dominating the haka at some point.

Josh Shaw 38:30
You have never seen a video of it is incredible, bone chilling thing, but the dance of it is to perform, to just display strength, unity and pride in who they are as a people and as a tribe, yes, right. So they, I mean, even just with the rugby team, it's meant to intimidate, is meant to show the strength of the team, which just happens to be New Zealand's like, one of the best rugby teams in the world, yeah. So you have dances from other tribes around the world, like the adumu, from tribes in Africa, want to think of as Tanzania, just because Tony's been there. Yes. This is known as the, I can't even say that word, the Maasai, yeah, yeah, the Maasai jumping dance performed when a youth, when the youth passes the trials to becoming a warrior. This just, it's just a dance of celebration. Capoeira is a Brazilian dance mixed with martial arts and interesting enough. When I found in the 16th century, they were prohibited from doing martial arts period, so they secretly incorporated it into rhythmic dance to practice their own skills. Super cool. And you have so many, if you look around the world, I just, I was so mind blown. How dance just, it's huge. Displays culture, yeah. It displays culture in so many different ways. But when you look at the biblical teaching, it even speaks of it, yeah, right? Psalm 149, verse three, Let them praise his name with dancing, making melody to him with tambourine and lyre. You have a couple. Stories, one from Exodus, when they crossed the Red Sea and the God had basically encaved the the Egyptian army under the sea. It says, For when the horses of Pharaoh, with his chariots and his horsemen went into the sea, the Lord brought back the waters of the sea upon them, but the people of Israel walked on dry ground in the midst of the sea. Then Miriam, the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the woman went out after her with a tambourine and dancing. And Miriam saying, Miriam saying to them, Sing to the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously, the horse and his riders, he has thrown into the sea. It's amazing stuff. That's, I mean, that's crazy. I mean, they literally just standing on this side, on dry ground, dancing and singing, partying like it's 1985

Tony Benda 40:50
Miriam, whip out the tambourine. We gonna celebrate

Josh Shaw 40:53
us. It's, it's crazy. But then you found a story in Second Samuel, yep.

Tony Benda 40:58
Second Samuel, six verse, 14 and 22 talks about how David danced before the Lord with all his might, wearing a priestly garment. So David and all the people of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouts of joy and blowing of ram's horns. But as the ark of the Lord entered the city of David, Michael, the daughter of Saul, looked down from her window when she saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, she was filled with contempt for him. They brought the ark of the Lord and set it in its place inside the special tent David had prepared for it, and David sacrificed burnt offerings and peace offerings of the Lord. When he had finished his sacrifices, David blessed the people in the name of the Lord of Heaven's armies. Then he gave to every Israelite man and woman in the crowd a loaf of bread, a cake of dates and a cake of raisins. Then all the people returned to their homes. When David returned home to bless his own family. May call this daughter of Saul came out to meet him. She said, in disgust how distinguished the king of Israel looked today shamelessly, shamelessly exposing himself to the servant girls like any vulgar person might do. Whoa, David retorted, I was dancing before the Lord who chose me above your father and all his family. He appointed me as the leader of Israel, the people of the Lord. So I celebrate before the Lord. Yes, I am willing to look even more foolish than this. Than this, even to be humiliated in my own eyes. Whoa, but the servant girls you mentioned will indeed think I am distinguished. I have not heard that story. Seriously? No, he danced before the Lord. They say it was in his underwear, but it was in priestly garments. So it was not his outer garments, it wasn't his kingly robes, his his royal attire, so to speak, like he was stripped down to priestly nothingness. In a sense, he's like, I'm born to dance, yeah. So like he strips down in these, like under, under robes, so to speak, and just dances before the Lord. And then, essentially, the daughter of Saul is just like, why are you humiliating yourself and humiliating this house? Like you're the king, act a little bit more distinguished, and then like David's like, I'll become even more undignified than this.

Josh Shaw 43:15
That's insanity. It's so fun. The Bible is just super cool because anyway, but that truly convicts me, though, especially when, you know, just pondering that thought of, like, you know, flag dancers within the church, yeah, like, it's it is so uncommon. I'm sure they dance thinking, like, people are probably looking at me weird. But if David was like, I will be more indignified than this to praise the Lord, yep. Like, what do? Like, that's honestly kind of convicting for me in a really, really good way. That kind of confirms thoughts I was having, yeah, but it also confirms like Psalm 30, verse 11, where it says, You have turned for me my mourning into dancing. Yes, you have loosed my sack cloth and clothed me with gladness, like, if the Lord has done that for you, why not celebrate in the most crazy way possible. Yep, that's that's so cool. I love it. I'm so that story just literally warmed my heart. It's so good. Next would be the playing of instruments. All of us listen to music. Prove it. Um, you're Dude, you're you're AI, if you don't listen to music like you're, you're fake, I just You're not real, true. And Joking aside, you know, music is one of the greatest expressions of people and one of the most influential arts to the mind. Oh

Tony Benda 44:36
yeah. And like, music is one of the things that transcends even like cultures and borders and all sorts of things. Like you could play a piece of music for someone, like an instrumental piece of music for someone in America, and then play that same piece of music and for someone in like Spain or Germany, or two different reactions, India or whatever. I mean, like that music speaks to everyone. Mean, in different ways. Yeah, different ways, for sure, but like, it's a form of communication that transcends language.

Josh Shaw 45:05
It's so cool, which is awesome. I love that. Yeah, about what you were gonna say, no, no going into the science of things. No. I mean, love it. I mean outside the science of things. I mean, it's like, one of the most under appreciated but most utilized arts in the world. I mean, I truly think of like, you know, I used to be really, like, Uber about, like, the Golden Globes and the Emmys when I was a kid. I mean, it was something I watched with my mom. I just she I just watched it because I loved seeing the movies that were the best movies of the year, yeah, but like, when you break them down and you want and you watch them, it's like their film scores, yeah, um, Finding Nemo, the opening thing to finding, it's like a minute and 10 seconds long, but it is, But it's just, it invokes just imagination and invokes beauty and invokes this joy in my heart, yeah, you know. And that could be done with anybody. I mean, mine can be Tchaikovsky and Bach. My wives can be Run DMC and ice cube. Like, you know, I'm saying it's odd. But

Tony Benda 46:17
then there's also, like, I'll even bring up another movie up all the the first four minutes of Up just totally, like, elevates your soul and then rips it out, and then stomps on it a few times, and then it just brings you back. And that's, that's by Michael Giacchino. Is the composer of up, and he just, like, unreal, what he does with that music.

Josh Shaw 46:40
And then you take these, these, these, all star composers, Howard Shore, um, John Williams, yeah, I mean iconic film score makers. It's Hans Zimmer. Hans Zimmer. It's insanity. But what Tony's talking about with the science, I actually researched it a little bit as well, and I got this, I remember what Article I got this from, I want to say was the National Institute of Health and the psychology branch, but probably it wasn't mine. It says brand activity in patients with certain disorders reveals unexpected connections with the brain activity in people as they listen to music, although models of obsessive compulsive disorder, pathophysiology are varied. Evidence suggests that the condition is caused by faulty neural circuits in the orbitofrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, caudate nucleus and anterior thalamus. The way music generates emotions in the listener is through patterns of tension and resolution. Which music theory near nerds that's there is literal all there is quite there's chords built that create tension, and there's chords of resolution as well. The way such patterns play out together with the way music fulfills or violates our expectations manipulates and reveals how the brain handles complex cognitive processes like prediction and anticipation. Yep, it's what I love that. You know, I knew friends in the Marine Corps. I was a Marine Corps musician, and I always had the hardest time with music theory, yeah, but people that understood it just invoked exactly what that's talking about. They just know how to invoke responses in people. Yep, you know, a thrilling moment in a movie. And I don't talk about like thrilling as in, like exciting, but like moments that kind of make you sink in the couch when someone's walking down the hallway, just minor tension in chord structures invoke sinisterness But resolution in this, in the in a death or a birth or a new character, in a story brings forth like this joy and satisfaction with it. And even there was songs in the Marine Corps. One of my true favorites was Irish tune for county dairy by Percy Granger. I love that one. I played that in high school. It was, I got to play that in front of I got to play it in front of a crowd on 911 at the 911 Memorial outside of the firehouse. That was like a couple, like probably 100 yards from where the towers fell. That's heart wrenching and like, but just the the emotion it evoked on people, yeah, wasn't crazy. Well, I mean, it's crazy. It's just like, Tony, like, What are your experiences with music like this? You are musician 101. Well, that

Tony Benda 49:34
song specifically, like, Irish student for county dairy. I played horn. I played second horn on that piece that just like, I remember, like I could hum my part right now, but just because I've listened to it so much, but it music just evokes different things and does different things to people. It also back to the science thing. I wrote a paper on it, I think it was either her senior year of high school or freshman year college, about music and the effects on the brain. In terms of how it connects and with memories. So there are people that have had like Alzheimer's or dementia, can't remember certain people or instances in their life, but then all of a sudden they hear a tune, or they're able to, like, I think it was my great grandfather who was able to, later in his life, couldn't really speak very well, or had, had he was declining in health, or whatever it was, and then all of a sudden he's able to start singing hymns. And I'm like, What in the world that's like crazy hearing those stories like that. But music has different effects, like neurologically and connection and memory, all that kind of stuff on the brain. But I wrote, yeah, that paper. I don't even know. I don't even know. I need to find that paper, but it was cool for me. In music, goodness, music has played such a pivotal role in my life. In college, I went to school for film score. So, like, I wanted to write music for movies. So all these people you're mentioning, it's just like my bread and butter, like in seventh grade. I it was either sixth or seventh grade is when Chronicles of Narnia came out. Very personal. So good. So I was young and impressionable and wanted to do music in high school. We didn't have a school band in my junior high, but we did in high school, obviously. And I was like, what instrument is that? That sweeping thing, that sweeping sound in, like, the battle cue from learning it. And I found out I was in French horn. Yeah. I was like, this is the coolest instrument ever, because, like, what they were able to produce. So freshman year of high school, I was just like, Mr. COVID. My band director is awesome, dude. I was like, Mr. COVID. I don't know how to play french horn, but I'm willing to learn. And because he didn't have any horns in the band, he's like, go for it. So I got a horn and figured out how to I started taking lessons, and it was a lot of fun, a lot of fun. And then I figured out how to play Narnia. And then my life

Josh Shaw 51:56
was complete. Was complete.

Tony Benda 52:00
It was really cool because I played horn all through high school, all through college, and I still have my French horn, and it's beautiful, and I bring it out every now and then my dog shouts at me when I play french horn. But now music is is so I don't know, just emotionally evoking for me, for someone who also, like, writes music, I'm not a lyricist by any means, but like, when it comes to actual like music, composition, like, I can come up with a piece of music. I mean, I came up with a theme song, not to like, not like a brag or whatever, but

Josh Shaw 52:37
one we all know and love. Praise you Tony for your talent.

Tony Benda 52:41
That was like a 30 minute, Oh, crap. I need to create a theme song for this podcast that we're throwing together. I wrote String Quartet pieces in college and just wanted to write music for movies, and I think I will still continue to do that. My lifetime goal is not for the accolades themselves, but I think it would be really cool to achieve this marker of an EGOT, the Emmy Grammy Oscar and a Tony. It takes a lot of work, folks, let me tell you, I have none of those awards as it stands, but as it stands. No, I know a guy who has a few Emmys to his name, and someone on Facebook that I'm friends with just got his third Grammy for mastering, and it's, geez, a lot of work that goes into it. So there's, like, people that, like, in the network that I kind of, like, know, and I want to pick their brains on things. And my friend Chantal and I were writing a musical still for, like, this is what, probably year 10, that we're working on it, because we never, I mean, we live in different states, and it's hard to work on a musical with a friend when you never see them and you're 1000 miles away. But that's true. Let me say we have like, 15 demos done, 15 songs done. It's called matches, the musical. It's a blast to work on. I'm going to tag her in this so she can hear this later and Chantal you rock. Keep writing. But yeah, it's just like music is in my blood. I can't escape it. I leave worship here at the church and yeah, it's just

Josh Shaw 54:06
ah, music. Tony rolled Bardic inspiration and used it.

Tony Benda 54:09
Yeah, maybe he did. But

Josh Shaw 54:13
even biblically speaking, we see in Psalm 33 verse one through three, shout for joy in the Lord. O you righteous. Praise befits the upright. Give thanks to the Lord with the liar. Make melody to him with the harp of 10 strings. Sing to him a new song. Play skillfully on the strings with loud shouts. It's almost like David saying, This is what you should do. Yes, from a man who's like, I will undignify myself more to praise the Lord. Yep, a very talented musician. Oh, he

Tony Benda 54:43
was, he was the one that was able to console Saul back in the day when, when Saul was King, before David was and Saul ordered David into his courts to play and kind of calm this like his spirit when he was in bad moods. Like. Oh, one can say a demonic mood, but, but he worshiped and he praised, and that settled soul. It's so cool what music and worship can do and what God does through it. But it's

Josh Shaw 55:13
crazy. It's even how the enemy uses it too. Oh, yeah, right, but well, I'll touch on this scripture before we go into the deeper subjects of those things. But Isaiah 3818 to 20 says, For shield does not Thank you. Death does not praise you. Those who go down to the pit do not hope for your faithfulness the living, the living he thanks you, as I do this day, the father makes known to the children your faithfulness. The Lord will save me, and we will play my music on stringed instruments all the days of our lives at the house of the Lord, even in the Old Testament, there are so many stories of why we should praise with loud like with loudness and joy with stringed instruments. There's even stories and lamentations how it talks about like these, the musicians just couldn't play because of their mourning, right? And I, and I really believe that there are times, even if you're not a musician, let's say like if, let's use it metaphorically in this sense, I really believe that the enemy wants to to cancel out your praise, and here's why. And a lot of people don't know this fact, and I want to be very sensitive with this next topic, because sometimes it can, it can be a challenging subject to some people, but I think it's, it is worth mentioning. So I actually heard something a very long time ago. Music for my nerds out there started out being written in a 432 you know where I'm going with this? Keep going. Brother, do you want me to keep going? I want you to keep going. Music, I love it. Music was written a 432 and that's, that's frequency, right? Yes. It's in essence, in essence,

Tony Benda 56:58
yes. So it's like an A it's not quite a concert 440 a that we're familiar with now, but it's, it's a slightly lower a, still an a frequency, but 440 is the standard today. Yes.

Josh Shaw 57:11
So most music is Gen is populated at a 440 every concert uses a 440 but pieces back in the days of of Bach and other classical artists were writing their music and performing their music in a 432 there was psychological studies done upon mental health, anxiety, depression, things of that nature. When they would listen to a song in a 432 such as written by Bach, they found that their anxiety was a lot lessened, a lot clearer focused versus when they started to listen to music at a 440 which is what were commonly written. Now, when every musician is using they started to realize that these or they started to see correlations between anxiety and depression and how modern music was performed and played. Music resonates in different ways, but the enemy is also trying to use music to capture our hearts and souls, and here's why I believe this scripturally. Now, when we talk about the enemy, he does have a name. His name is Lucifer. Check this out, Ezekiel, 28, verses, 12 through 16. God described the devil or Lucifer as this, you were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God. Every precious stone was your covering, the sardius, Topaz and diamond, Beryl, onyx and Jasper, Sapphire, turquoise and emerald with gold. The work check this, the workmanship of your timbrels and pipes was prepared for you on the day you were created. You were the anointed cherub who covers I established you. You were on the Holy Mountain of God. You walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones. You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created till iniquity was found in you. God had prepared timbrels and pipes for the enemy. And a lot of scholars believe that Lucifer was the Angel of music reaches tracking where I'm going now iniquity found Lucifer. Isaiah expounds upon this in Isaiah chapter 14, verses 12 through 14, it says, how you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning, how you are cut down to the ground. You who weakened the nations. For you have said in your heart, I will ascend to heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be like the Most High Tony. You can, you can. You can ponder on this and speak your mind about it too. But this is, this is my personal belief. You. The devil has influence over music. He was created to be the musician to influence with his timbrels and pipes. He has the ability to use his own giftings for deceit. Be careful with what you fill your heart and words with. You see, even Saul, who became Paul, was described as an instrument for God's will. So I believe we are instruments of worship and to glorify the Father. No, we don't desire to depart from the profane music, because it can be entertaining me in my BC, before Christ days, Eminem was my jam. Eminem was my was my daily gym go to, but I would say, from the music you do listen to assess how it impacts your life. In fact, I would encourage everybody to go read Daniel chapter three. Daniel chapter three. In in to sum it up, is a story about how when these bells, or when these, when these, like when music was played, when all this celebration occurred that people were to bow down and worship this golden idol, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego said, No, when your music goes off, I we will not Bow down. We will not let your influence with your music deter us from how we worship and serve God. So I would say, don't fall down and worship and dance based on what you hear. Don't follow the crowd in that way. I truly believe, based on the scriptures, that the music we listen to can truly influence us and can truly I mean, if we just talked about how music invokes emotions, yeah, like Tony, what are your thoughts on that all that I just read

Tony Benda 1:01:50
based off of the Lucifer conversation and what you just said, how music can affect emotions. This is a very controversial topic in Oh for sure, worship music,

Josh Shaw 1:02:08
yeah, yeah,

Tony Benda 1:02:13
you got to be careful with what worship music you are allowing into your churches, allowing into your personal worship, allowing into these spaces, because there are, there are two main things that people kind of attend church for. They attend church for a really good preacher, and they attend church for a really good music. And if you're not careful, you can allow the music to be the theology you believe that's good. So that's Do you really have to be attentive to what you're singing about, not just the good songs that are on the radio that you think are always worship songs. There are certain songs in the last few years that sound Christian but aren't always biblically accurate. Yeah, there are some. There are some big churches out there that will constantly just pump out music, and not all of it be 100% sound while we can worship to some of these songs, just be careful. Yeah, with what you let into your hearts and let into your churches, leading worship in 2025 and in 2024 and all these times that we have that I've led worship, we constantly evaluate what we're singing in our church, at least in our church, and the different churches I've served, specifically because we have to go through all these lyrics, and if these lyrics are not theologically sound, we're not singing it. No, like you shouldn't. We shouldn't, hands down, if there are songs that are more edifying the church or edifying the congregation or individual people. We're not saying it. We're our goal is to praise and worship God, right? That's who should be praised and worshiped. It is great to thank Him for what He has done for us. It is, but not, not so much that the majority of the song is talking about where we've been, right? That's that's for your own personal testimony. Talk about where you've been and glorify God in the end. But even then, we don't need anything about

Josh Shaw 1:04:28
a testimony should be 10% where you've been and 90% where God what God has done, correct, but we often flip that right, and when it comes to even just worship in general, like what you speak has influence absolutely over your heart and your mind, absolutely like I had to do this myself. I had to. I have been recently and and Spotify does a perfect job of it. The most famous songs out there. If you click on the heading for it, like, you know, you click into Spotify and a little bar at the bottom, and you can scroll down a little bit, it'll give you the. Lyrics to the song. You know you may like that bass thump in your car, but I'm telling you, when you start looking at the lyrics, you're like, why am I singing this? And before you know it, it's like, captivated your heart, and it's you're transformed like that, and

Tony Benda 1:05:16
it's locking a musical memory down the road for later. Yes,

Josh Shaw 1:05:18
it is insane. Always look at the lyrics of what you're singing. Always look at these things. And we don't mean to be grandmas about music. You know, I'm saying, like, trust me, I have my own fun day playlist I play that's not, that's just not, that's not all Christian music, but I certainly pick the songs that are going to be edifying to my spirit, to to bring joy, not that are going to reach a joy in my heart that should be profanity. I don't believe God exclusively said only play music. That's worship music. How do you worship the Lord by singing and glorifying Him? And you know what that Meghan Trainor song from The Peanuts Movie helps me out. If I got it creates joy in my heart. It really does.

Tony Benda 1:06:02
I'll even say like as you were as you were talking a second ago. I really, I brought this up just so I can accurately read this. So Johan Sebastian Bach he lived between 1685 and 1750 at the end of all of his compositions, he used to write either the initials SDG, or he wrote out Soli Deo Gloria, which in Latin means glory to God alone. That's right. So even classical musicians back in the day wanted their their work to glorify God. That's right, and it's and it's amazing. Some of these people had incredibly successful careers and were 400 years later and still playing their music, because I think they brought glory to God in the end. And it has again, this music has transcended language. It's transcended time. It's super cool. And I think God has blessed them because of their faithfulness. I

Josh Shaw 1:07:03
agree. And I think in even the book of Acts confirms it by a member who was not even a follower of Christ, like and said, If these ploys by these men is of them, it's going to fall. But if it is by God, it will not fall. And you may even be caught profaning God alone. I brings us kind of, to our third point, which talks about our speech. And the reason we left it for last is because with our speech, everything is filtered through our speech. You know, I heard, I had a friend recently say like the power of what you speak is so important because it's the head, it's the it's the outflow between the head and the heart, right between where your heart is and where your mind sits is your mouth, and everything is going to flow from it. Right? Proverbs, 1821, Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat of its fruit. I heard a podcast I really enjoy. It's called the leaders Cup by Preston Morrison. I'm really obsessed with his work and his sound wisdom and teaching, if he ever listens to this one day, probably not likely, but not even a physical mentor of mine, but just his teachings mentor me alone. He said, one of the most dangerous things you can do with your tongue is assume you know exactly how to use it better than God himself. And that is a crazy conviction. What you say matters. And if you think that your words are going to be as strong as God's and what he has to say, I would implore you to check your heart. Mark, chapter 11, verses, 2322 through 24 says, And Jesus answered them, Have faith in God truly. I say to you, whoever says to this mountain be taken up and thrown into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but believes what he says will come to pass. It will be done for him. Therefore, I tell you whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours. Let me preface it with this. That's that scripture, and I'm just going to just call it for what it is. We come against prosperity, teaching in the name of Jesus, we do we come against prosperity, teaching that Scripture is not about pray and proclaim and pray and proclaim does not mean you will get everything you could ever want. We are called to depart from worldly possessions and follow him, and I do get it, but I prosperity. Teachers may fight me with Proverbs, 23 verse seven, for as he thinks in his heart, so he is right. Understand the Swiss and that I've received recently, if you think about it, long enough, you will begin to align your life in that direction. And it's a good chance it will manifest in your life if you stay on that path. Manifestation is this really big word in religious terms and in the church, right? I don't want you know I manifest. This over my life, manifests this over my life. It's really, it's really a gateway of thinking, right? This, but the principle can work in a positive and yet negative way, right? If you think, if you think about going to Taco Bell long enough, eventually you're going to align your actions and your thoughts, and it will manifest you into going to Taco Bell and eating three burritos. Scripture side. Yeah, this principle will only take you so far if God isn't backing up the thing that you're constantly thinking in your heart, hoping for it to manifest. So if you're thinking about all the ways you can get rich, God's not backing that up. Y'all, Solomon was the richest dude in the world. Yep. In fact, Solomon's game's got nothing on them. They say that Solomon's wealth equivalent now is in the trillions. Yeah, of dollars. Trillions of dollars. Crazy, but check this scripture, y'all, God is not going to manifest something in your life that is not his will for you, money, fame, cars, I manifest this in the name of Jesus. No, stop. Stop manifesting it in the name of Jesus, that of the of the money and stuff. But if you manifest thoughts of God, I take every thought captive. Let's even go financially. God. I have none of what I own is mine, but what you give me, I will foster and steward to the best of my ability. Yep, we go in this attitude of rather asking. When we ask for more, we ask for so much more, but give so much less. Another sermon for another time. First, Corinthians, chapter 13, verse one through two says this, If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but I have not love. I am a noisy gong or a clinging symbol. Y'all check this out. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, remember Mark chapter 11, so as to remove mountains, but have not love. I am nothing without reliance in Christ or being in alignment with his will, or walking in His love, you won't accomplish what you're trying to do. I'm going to put it just like this, because it blew my mind about it, and I'd write this down. God is not obligated to sustain what he never started.

Tony Benda 1:12:52
That's good.

Josh Shaw 1:12:54
God is not obligated to sustain what he never started. That is why we are called to be in his will. That is why we are called to be careful with our speech. Being careful this term manifestation, I'm not saying it's the most unbiblical thing in the world. The Bible says to take every thought captive in obedience to Jesus, to bring down every prideful thing of him. But you can use your thoughts and you can manifest over your life. Like, for example, people say, simple term is, people say, Well, I you know, my anxiety makes me do this. My depression makes me do that. Anxiety and depression don't rule over you. So stop manifesting that in your mind. Preach, that's not my anxiety. In the name of Jesus, I don't own anxiety is not my, is not my, is not my shelter. Depression is not my shelter. This is coming from a guy who takes depression medication, guilty as charged. Depression is not my home, but Christ is my home. I don't need to manifest money. I don't need to manifest these things over my life. What I do need to do is go before the Father and say, Lord, what have your will for me? Solomon, the richest man in the world, trillions of dollars, comparatively to his his possessions that he owned did not God came to him and said, What? Ask Anything? And it will be yours. Yet. Solomon said, I want wisdom and understanding from you. Nothing else, everything else I have is yours. But I want wisdom and understanding and in this. And when he said that God gave him even more, because the truth is, even from the New Testament, that he will do exceedingly and abundantly more than we can ever think or imagine if we aren't walking in the scriptures, how can we assume blessings are going to come our way? You? Heaven is open. Heaven is here. We are called to speak those mountains out of our way. But even Paul had a thorn in the flesh that he tried to pray away, and God said, my power is made perfect in your weakness. The rich man said, I've done all this and I've given everything. What can I do now? And Jesus said, sell all your possessions, give them to the poor and come follow me. And yet he walked away. I'm not trying to isolate money. I'm not, I'm not trying to say manifesting is the best thing over your life, but I'm very careful with it of the term manifest, because what I want manifested in my life is the Holy Spirit that lives in me. So I ask everyday, Lord, how can I manifest your presence in my heart? Because even the Bible talks about that he was made manifest. He he was made he appeared in the likeness of men for us. So your job is to keep praying, repenting and speaking into accordance what we are called to speak. And when you do that, let God take control the rest. Tony, what are your thoughts on all that that's I go preaching mode a little bit, but I want to allow your wisdom to shine through as well. Listen,

Tony Benda 1:16:35
I don't have any more wisdom than what you just provided. I just got to say yes, and amen to that. No. You're exactly right. Manifesting God's will, like God's will in my life, is, is what I pray for. I'm not a fan of the term manifesting in like modern times anyway. You

Josh Shaw 1:16:57
know, the more I've thought about it, I'm not either it's to me, it

Tony Benda 1:17:01
almost sounds like if wishing made it so. And my God is not a fairy. He's not a genie. I don't ask for wishes that he grants, like I pray to the one who gave his all so that I could be with Him forever, so I'm already set and secure in my eternity, so I don't need anything more than that. Necessarily.

Josh Shaw 1:17:24
God was made manifest. There's nothing more we need to manifest, correct.

Tony Benda 1:17:28
So I pray His will is manifested in my life now, at this point that I make the decisions that I need to make, to continue to serve him faithfully, to lead my house, to serve him faithfully to lead my friends in church and all the things faithfully out of obedience, not out of something that I want, but out of something that he deserves and should receive. Yeah, worship, praise, edifying, speech, dancing. And really,

Josh Shaw 1:17:58
that's what the speech comes down to, yeah. You know it's like, why it's so important,

Tony Benda 1:18:04
yeah? Psalm 1914 says, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer, that's good. So that's a very simple prayer, but

Josh Shaw 1:18:17
it's a powerful prayer, because our words are so vital. I mean even just how we talk to people. I mean even even the Bible says that we will be held accountable to every careless word that we speak. You know, I agree. I don't like that term manifesting. I've heard it said in some places, and and I, I even texted my pastor about it, and that's where a lot of that wisdom came from. You know, it's, it's a hard term, it's a challenging term, and some preachers use it, some don't, but I just, I really do struggle with some prosperity teachings, and I do get little passionate about it, about turning away against it, because I just, in my view, you need to be able to focus more on the Word of God. You know, everyone talks about the mansions that are going to be in heaven, but I don't, I don't care about mansions. I care about who am I spending the rest of my eternity with? Because of my expectation of going to heaven is to have a mansion, then my expectation of what heaven is is wrong. It is not about the mansion or the room or the treasures or crowns in my head. As far as I'm concerned, the perfect Savior's crown was a crown of thorns that made him bleed. And if the crown I get in heaven is only but that praise God. I don't want these crowns. I don't need mansions. I praise God that he's willing to make a creation of streets of gold. But you know what, if I can spend the rest of eternity hand in hand with my savior, I don't want anything else. I. I don't need anything else. You should need anything else. We spend so much of our life, and I just, I'm sorry to take this pause, but I feel this in my spirit, don't spend all of your life chasing after things that don't matter. I

we all are going to spend eternity somewhere, and I would rather spend it in a place where no more anxiety, no more fear, no more condemnation, no more church hurt, no more shame, no more slander, no more depression, no more anxiety exists. This world is broken and it is filled with people chasing after the things of life when none of that will bring you satisfaction. Whoever needs to hear this. Let them hear these words in the name of Jesus, because our speech is so important to uplift and encourage people. Bards are so good in T and D because they are meant to uplift and encourage and strengthen those that are around us. Lord, I pray that we decrease in you increase and you riding in my bugatti. And let me just say I don't own a Bugatti, but riding in your Bugatti is not our Bentley is not going to increase the fruit y'all but, and I'm not saying you have to live poor. I'm not saying you have to live on the bottom of the barrel, but what you should be is poor and contrite in spirit. And I pray that these words just strike your heart as they strike mine, because I want to go before the Father on my face and say I don't deserve to be here and I repent for every word I've ever spoken. But Lord, may my lips and the meditation of my heart be honor and glorifying to you. That's what speech is about. Speech is not just derived off of moving mountains. It's derived off of who you're praising and worshiping. Because your words are not going to move the mountain if his strength is not involved. Oh Jesus, your strength is not going to move the mountain. I'm sorry, your words are not going to move the mountain unless Jesus's strength is involved. Your words are not going to move the mountain unless Jesus's strength is involved.

I just had to pause. I'm sorry that was so we have a simple call to action. I think, Tony, I'm sorry. I'm shook us, Tony, go for some of our call to action, because I'm that last, that Holy Spirit. Conviction hit me deep. I'm telling you.

Tony Benda 1:23:25
I hear you. Our call to action is a simple one. Well, first, for those who have not yet believed, it's a very simple thing. The Bible says, If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. That's out of Romans, 10, nine. So this is the physical embodiment of Proverbs, 18, one,

Josh Shaw 1:23:49
death and life on the power of the tongue. Correct

Tony Benda 1:23:53
the physical embodiment. It's it's really cool to think about

Josh Shaw 1:23:58
confess with your mouth and believe in your heart.

Tony Benda 1:24:01
Yep, that's literally physically doing the thing. Yeah, those are the greatest words that can be spoken, amen. But it doesn't stop there. There is a heart posture that also must be made right as well. So after you confess, see where your alignments are and what kind of music or entertainment that is not beneficial to your life. Sometimes it's the small things we remain in that leads us to sin. That's right. So check yourself as we constantly check ourselves, amen. This is, this is not just something we talk about, but we also put it into practice, because we have to make sure we're leading out of a out of a right place out of a right posture that's right both you know, personally, on the podcast, in our homes, all the things, yeah,

Josh Shaw 1:24:47
we are not above anything or anyone. We are two humble dudes that struggle still.

Tony Benda 1:24:55
So for all of us who need to realign our heart posture, all of us, yes. Yes, Josh, what's some wisdom for the road? Some

Josh Shaw 1:25:03
wisdom for the road would come from Proverbs 15 verses one through four. This relates to our speech and our actions. A gentle answer turns away anger, but a harsh word stirs up breath. The tongue of the wise makes knowledge attractive, but the mouth of the fools blurts out foolishness. The eyes of the Lord are everywhere, observing the wicked and the good. The tongue that heals is a tree of life, but a devious tongue breaks the spirit. And this can also go with you know how you sing and compare to your musicianship, or even how you dance. What kind of speech, musical essence or dance are you doing that you need to depart from in your life? And that's that you have to evaluate. That my conviction was not listening to Eminem anymore, not saying it has to be you, but it was me. John 423, through 24 says, but the time is coming. Indeed, it's here now when true worshipers will worship the Father. In what spirit and in truth the father is looking for those who will worship him that way. For God is Spirit. So those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth. Jesus desires a true and deep worship. In fact, in according to Romans, chapter 12, verses one through two, we are called to be a living sacrifice. And according to Paul, that is true, worship, praise your heart out, dance in accordance to his will and celebration. And use your speech to uplift and encourage others, like bards. By the way, you use your gifts, talents and tongue, you will be the only Bible someone may ever read and use those things to bear fruit and bring forth the gospel. We can't stress enough about living in repentance and obedience. It is exactly what Jesus preached. It is exactly what Peter teach and preached. It is exactly what we will continue to show and display, how you are, what you say, what you do, how you play, how everything will will be the only Bible someone reads sometimes, and if your actions and thoughts and words are only deterring people away from having conversation with you because you're not bearing the fruit, flee from it. Flee from it. And that starts today, right now. Make a commitment. Spotify has an explicit content filter. I'm sure you have friends that can hold you to accountability. I'm sure there's a show you don't need to watch anymore. I'm sure there's videos you need to stop watching. I'm sure if there's a husband or even a wife listening, there's words you can probably say to your spouse that are more encouraging than the words you're currently saying. I'm sure you can be a better parent to your children by what you do and how you act. I'm sure that in your workplace, you don't have to fit into the society of what's built in it, but can display a character of Christ, and let me tell you, it will set you apart, and the world will hate you for it, but what you will gain by doing it is so much more than that could then that can be put a price to, in fact, one of the most beautiful things I'm learning in my life today is how to be a bard, by the wisdom that the Lord provides when I ask. Has changed. My leadership has changed. My speech has changed the way I think and how I've even behaved in situations where I would have done differently. Let today be the day that you make that commitment, that you reach out to me and Tony, to say, I have decided to do this. Any last minute wisdom. Tony, you.

Tony Benda 1:30:00
Uh, hunker down. Get in the Word. Really look at the scriptures that we've mentioned, because those are super beneficial. Yes, life and death are in the power of the tongue. Really focus on your speech, your thought patterns, because what's in your brain will eventually come out, I don't know, just follow Christ. Don't

Josh Shaw 1:30:29
dance naked in the street and call it and tell the cop you're going to be even more undignified for the gospel, because any more undignifiedness would be scary.

Tony Benda 1:30:38
There's a little bit of a line. No. Just pursue Christ. That's that's number one. Amen,

Josh Shaw 1:30:49
Tony, I think we've encouraged, strengthened and done some really cool things today. We're excited for future episodes that are going to come our way, talking more about these character classes, and honestly, we're not perfect at them. We're learning just along with you guys, sometimes we have to, we've had to revisit the character classes just so we can relearn so we're not prone to any misinformation that we forget, or even information in terms of D and D that we may have gotten wrong as well.

Tony Benda 1:31:20
Check us. Yeah, please inform us. We will retcon things we say in the next episode if we need to. That's

Josh Shaw 1:31:28
true. I promise it's true. We will Tony, why don't you display our socials for all of us? Okay, first,

Tony Benda 1:31:37
don't forget, we have mentioned if you have bards that you have played before. Feel free to reach us at our socials or our email. We are on Instagram and Facebook at dungeons and disciples, that's the word and spelled out again, dungeons and disciples spelled out on Instagram and Facebook, or you can send us an email at dungeons, disciples@gmail.com Again, that's dungeons, disciples@gmail.com without the end for the email. And we are excited to hear some of your Bard stories and maybe mention them in the next episode. And there's so much fun stuff coming there is

Josh Shaw 1:32:17
2025 is a blast. If you have not listened to our season two trailer, we're going to point you back to that there is some essential information that is in that we promote our socials, and you can partner with us in that journey. With us. We promote the socials not just to have you follow us and to rate us, although that does help, but the more you share, the more you rate. We can get this, this content, out to others that we can continue to share too, and by your help and support, even just by challenging you to share this with one friend that needs it, it could really make a difference in their life. And that's right by our own personal testimonies and people we are seeing the fruit of even particular people in our lives that is just challenging them. And then we, like I said in that episode, we're gonna end it with this, continuing with that challenge of just one person who can you bring to the game table here? Like, share, follow,

Tony Benda 1:33:19
review, rate us. Tony,

Josh Shaw 1:33:21
pray us out today. Can I do that? Go for it, Father, in the name of Jesus. I thank you so much for this time, Lord. I just pray that the words that you've given us, God would just be edifying to your Spirit, Lord God. And if there's any correction that needs to be made in our hearts, or any convictions that need to be laid upon us, Lord God, that you would lay out on our hearts, you laid on Tony and I as well that we can be convicted so we can pursue you, God, I thank you for the words that you've given us, and I pray that hearts that hear this God are open to receive that they're open to hear your words and your wisdom. God, we are not perfect people, but I praise God that we have a perfect savior. Lord, may you continue to grow this ministry, grow this podcast and grow the people that listen. Lord, keep providing us with edifying content and giving us the knowledge to write more and more that is accurate, authentic and real. I pray that chains are loosed, bonds are broken and prison doors swing wide open, God and that we walk forward using our speech, our dance, musical instruments, any talents and gifts that we have God to edify you and to bear fruit, so that others may see and decide to follow you. We give You all the praise and all the honor and all the glory. Amen and Amen seeking us.